I first properly heard this classic example of chanson française at the funeral of a friend’s dad, who had evidently loved the song and elected to mark his crossing with it: La Mer by French singer, Charles Trenet. The song positively drips with gallic nonchalance and romance. Legend has it that Trenet wrote a first version of the song when he was just 16, but La Mer as we know it was born in 1943, during a train trip in the South of France. Trenet, along with singer Roland Gerbeau and pianist Léo Chauliac, was travelling from Montpellier to Perpignan, along the beautiful French coast. Inspired by the scenery, Trenet wrote La Mer before the journey was over, and he and Chauliac performed the song that very evening.

At first, Trenet didn’t like the final version of La Mer, for some reason, so in fact it was Roland Gerbeau who first recorded it, in 1945. But a year later, Trenet’s record company boss convinced Trenet to have a go at the song as well. The music was rearranged and the song began its journey proper to chanson classic, becoming a huge success and a jazz standard.

By the time of Trenet’s death in 2001, over 70 million copies of La Mer had been sold and 4000 different versions recorded. The song has been translated successfully into multiple languages (hence Beyond the Sea, Il Mare, De Zee, Das Meer etc), and covered by a multitude of artists, of whom I think Rod Stewart does a particularly good version. But it is Trenet’s charmingly polished original in the French that irresistibly captures the imagination.

Listen here:

La mer
Qu’on voit danser le long des golfes clairs
A des reflets d’argent
La mer
Des reflets changeants
Sous la pluie

La mer
Au ciel d’été confond
Ses blancs moutons
Avec les anges si purs
La mer bergère d’azur
Infinie

Voyez
Près des étangs
Ces grands roseaux mouillés
Voyez
Ces oiseaux blancs
Et ces maisons rouillées

La mer
Les a bercés
Le long des golfes clairs
Et d’une chanson d’amour
La mer
A bercé mon cœur pour la vie