Céline Dion and Lady Gaga at the Olympics: The Stories Behind the Songs

Céline Dion singing forth from the Eiffel Tower in a crystal-covered dress by Dior was an astounding finishing touch to the opening ceremonies of the Paris 2024 Olympics. Dion’s rendition of L’Hymne à l’Amour produced both tears and shivers at the end of an astonishing day dripping not just with rain but luxe, history, and love. Further upstream on the Seine, Lady Gaga had already camped and vamped behind fans of pink feathers as she sang and danced to Mon Truc en Plumes. Neither chanteuse is the first to perform these iconic songs. So, what are they about? 

The song sung by the Quebec-born Dion is a tribute co-written and widely performed by the Parisian singer Edith Piaf for her lover, Marcel Cerdan who died unexpectedly young.  

Cerdan was a French boxer and world middleweight champion. During an American tour in 1948, Edith Piaf met the prizefighter. He called her up after seeing an advertisement for her performance and said, “We’re two French people in the United States. Let’s go to dinner.”  

Marcel fell for the French singer’s charm. He was stunned by Edith’s popularity and her influence over a crowd. According to Edith, he told her, “you bring them happiness and love.” She felt it was “the finest compliment a man could pay me.” They fell in love. 

She confided in a friend that, “when he isn’t with me I don’t want to go on living. Never in my life have I loved like this.” She was obsessed, unable to sleep, and through love’s rose-colored glasses, she found the world to be a happy place.  

They were devoted to each other. Edith desired that one day he would be her husband, although he was already married with three children. In the summer of 1949 Edith crafted a turgid set of lyrics for Marcel. Song writing collaborator Marguerite Monnot put Piaf’s words of love to music – a heart wrenching song called L’Hymne à l’Amour.  

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Beth Anne Sacks (@bethannesacks)

Piaf and Cerdan shared a discreet apartment in the 16th arrondissement. Piaf arranged to always be by his side, rearranging her schedule and traveling with him in secret. She toured U.S. cities in the hopes that their schedules would collide. Cerdan lost his middleweight title to the American boxer Jake La Motta and a rematch was planned. Piaf had been performing nightly at New York’s Versailles Club. Marcel phoned Piaf to say that he would soon be sailing for New York. Edith rejected the idea of an ocean voyage and begged him to take a plane, flying would enable them to have more time together. He agreed to come as soon as possible. Before boarding an Air France flight on October 27, 1949, Marcel told fans he was eager to get back to New York City and return with the middleweight crown. 

Edith’s business colleagues drove to La Guardia airport on October 28 to bring Cerdan back to Piaf’s Manhattan apartment; a pleasant surprise for her after a recuperating sleep. On the car radio, the friends heard an ominous rumor that Cerdan’s plane had disappeared. At the airport it was confirmed, the plane that Marcel Cerdan was on had crashed in the Azores, killing everyone aboard.  

Edith awoke to find her friends nervously pacing in her apartment. She thought they were playing a prank, hiding her lover from her sight. At the news, they implored her to be brave, but when she began to scream, they had to lock the windows to the sound.  

Understandably, she wept the whole day, but despite her grief and shock, she gathered herself together to perform that evening. At the Versailles Club, she sang and dedicated l’Hymne à l’Amour to Marcel Cerdan. The song finishes in an intense crescendo where Piaf praises love’s ability to outlast death. The unfinished love story between Marcel and Edith took on mythic proportions. One critic said upon first hearing the song, that Piaf, “brought to life all of suffering humanity.” Audiences were gripped with emotion, just as the French and TV audiences were worldwide on July 26, 2024. 

• The blue sky over us may fall
  Le ciel bleu sur nous peut s’effondrer
• And the Earth may well collapse
  Et la Terre peut bien s’écrouler
• I don’t care if you love me
  Peu m’importe si tu m’aimes
• I do not care
  Je me fous du monde entier
• As long as love floods my mornings 
  Tant qu’l’amour innondera mes matins
• As long as my body quivers under your hands 
  Tant qu’mon corps frémira sous tes mains
• I don’t care about the problems 
  Peu m’importe les problèmes
• My love, since you love me
  Mon amour, puisque tu m’aimes 
• I would go to the ends of the world
  J’irais jusqu’au bout du monde
• I would get dyed blonde
  Je me ferais teindre en blonde
• If you asked me
  Si tu me le demandais
• I would go and get the moon
  J’irais décrocher la Lune
• I would go and steal the fortune
  J’irais voler la fortune
• If you asked me
  Si tu me le demandais
• I would deny my homeland
  Je renierais ma patrie
• I would deny my friends 
  Je renierais mes amis
• If you asked me
  Si tu me le demandais
• You can laugh at me
  On peut bien rire de moi
• I would do anything
  Je ferais n’importe quoi
• If you asked me
  Si tu me le demandais 
• If one day life tears you away from me
  Si un jour, la vie t’arrache à moi
• If you die, may you be far from me
  Si tu meurs, que tu sois loin de moi
• I don’t care if you love me
  Peu m’importe si tu m’aimes
• Because I would die too
  Car moi je mourrais aussi
• We will have eternity for us
  Nous aurons pour nous l’éternité
• In the blue of all the immensity
  Dans le bleu de toute l’immensité
• In the sky, no more problems
  Dans le ciel, plus de problème
• My love, do you think we love each other?
  Mon amour, crois-tu qu’on s’aime?
• God unites those who love
  Dieu réunit ceux qui s’aiment

From the sublime to the ridiculous… No critique on Lady Gaga’s Seine-side extravaganza, but the two songs diverge like forks in the river.  

Lady Gaga’s thrilling ooh la la moment was her cover of Zizi Jeanmaire’s Mon Truc en Plumes. AKA My Thing with Feathers, the song is rife with double entendres and who better to belt it out than Gaga.  

I admit that Zizi Jeanmaire was unknown to me except for a line in which she is mentioned in the lyrics of the song by Peter Sarstedt, Where Do You Go To My Lovely, that goes: “You talk like Marlene Dietrich, and you dance like Zizi Jeanmaire.” 

Well shame on me for not knowing, because Zizi Jeanmaire was a classically trained ballerina, cabaret singer and actress whose gamine haircut, YSL costumes and charismatic performances made an impression worldwide.   

Renée Marcelle Jeanmaire was born in Paris in 1924, the only child of Swiss parents. Young Jeanmaire fell in love with ballet and convinced her parents to let her enroll in the ballet school of the Opera de Paris where she met her lifelong collaborator Roland Petit. Both nine years old, their friendship, eventual marriage, cooperation, and love would last 78 years.

In 1949, Jeanmaire became the star of the Ballets de Paris directed by Petit, where she became known for her energy and passion. For her most famous role, Carmen, she had her hair cut refreshingly short, a style copied by many women worldwide. After the success of Carmen in Paris, the ballet went to Broadway and on a U.S. tour where producer and billionaire Howard Hughes offered her a movie contract. Samuel Goldwyn produced her first film Hans Christian Anderson with Danny Kaye. Goldwyn suggested she use Zizi, her more exciting childhood nickname.  

Zizi also performed in Anything Goes with Bing Crosby and Donald O’Connor, but Hollywood bored her a little and she returned to Paris. She continued to work with Roland Petit where she bridged the gap between classical ballet and popular revues. Ms. Jeanmaire reinvented herself as a cabaret artist at the Alhambra Theater in Paris in 1961. The song Mon Truc en Plumes became her signature number. Zizi emerged on stage in a spangly leotard, sheer tights, and high heels and was accompanied by a troupe of 12 young men hiding her coyly behind huge pink-feathered fans. Her stage costumes were designed by her close friend Yves Saint Laurent. The astute French no doubt understood the production’s erotic connotation. “My thing in feathers, it makes you dream, but it’s sacred, you can’t touch it, my thing in feathers.” 

Zizi’s feathery, almost lewd signature tune appeared in many musicals that Petit created for her. Zizi calculated that she had descended the steps of the Casino de Paris 1,460 times. Lady Gaga first performed Zizi’s fan dance while inching down a precarious staircase on the banks of the Seine. I’m sure it won’t be the last time.  

GAGA

• My feather thing
  Feathers from birds
  From animals
• My feather thing
  It’s pretty clever
  Nothing in hand
  Everything in the hip sway.
• My feather thing
  Just by passing
  It stirs the blood
• My feather thing
  It caresses you
  With intoxication
  All with finesse.
  I live by my pen
  And I strut
  On the pavement
  And it’s under the moonlight
  That I light up the Pierrots.
• My feather thing
  Feathers from a panther
  For billionaires
• My feather thing
  It makes you dream
  But it’s sacred
  Don’t touch it.
• My feather thing
  Come on, my rogue
  Sleep inside
  It’s not rocket science
  Come try it out
  I’ll make you dance.

Not rocket science at all. Nonetheless, a lot of fun. It seems everything old is new again. I love it.