On Georges Bressanone, the Outsider and the Troubadour

I love Georges. Barsence  The French chansonnier is the non-conformist outsider, and I chose to perform a performance of his songs because he is real, because he is a simple man who wants to keep his simple life, without disturbing others and without being disturbed by them, and of course he manages to formulate his special messages in precise and sarcastic words that penetrate and hurt.

I knew Barsens as a child in Paris. My father was an engineer and loved to drink and sing with friends. They would come to us, drink and sing. I remember sitting on his lap or on one of the friends' lap, my father all red and singing. I didn't fully understand the words - some were in a very high pitch, and some were as slang as possible (argo). And I still fell in love. And Barsens has been with me all these years.

Barsance sings about humanity, its pettiness, its petty corruption, its heartbreak. He wasn't perfect either. His loves were married women and he cheated on them too. And he says of himself that he's not perfect. Imperfection is what makes us human.

Barsance mocks everything that is unreal, two-faced, and self-righteous, and returns to the simplicity of youthful love, true kindness, and green nature. It allows us to find our inner ease amidst all the external noise we live in. This is what we are so lacking here in the Israel of 2025 – to breathe culture and humanity.

so I wrote the show. With Kobi Midan, who also translated it in the real language as it is. This is a different Barsense than the one sung by Yossi Banai, with translations that often rounded off the sharpness and sting of Barsense. Accompanying me on guitar is Uri Ben-Zvi, who also wrote the arrangements.

We are happy to perform before any cultural audience – whether institutional or simply a circle of friends.  

The story of Georges Bressanès

Supplique pour etre entrere a la plage de Sete

George Brassens was born on October 22, 1921 in the coastal city of St., where he was also buried at his request, when he died suddenly on October 30, 1981 at the age of 60.

Bressance was one of the most successful chansonniers and in the 20s there were periods when he filled the Olympia Hall every day. He also performed at the Chaillot Palace and the Alhambra and his favorite was the Bovino Hall. He sold over XNUMX million records.

Brassens grew up in the family home with his mother, Elvira Dagrosa, and his father, Jean-Louis. Simone, his mother's daughter from her first husband, who was killed in World War I, also lived with them. His father's father, Jules, also lived with them. The mother was a devout Catholic, the father was more light-hearted, and they all loved music very much.

Even as a boy, he sought freedom and shattered the rigid Catholic framework, and perhaps also “messed around” with girls, as can be understood from poems he wrote at that time. – “Il suffit de passer le pont” and “La Premiere Fille”. As a boy, he committed minor theft offenses – mainly from his family members and ended up in court. And it was his father who helped him get out of it with only a year in prison. He was expelled from school and received hostile treatment from the city’s decent residents, which may have accompanied him throughout his life.

Bressance arrived in Paris at the age of 19 and lived with his aunt Antoinette Degrouse, his mother's sister, who ran a boarding house in the 14th arrondissement. He admired the independent woman who had escaped an unhappy marriage in the city of Sete and had come to Paris.

He began working at the Renault car factory. When France was occupied, he lost his job and she continued to generously host him. Bressance spent a lot of time at the National Library, meeting poets, and also developing his musical side, playing her piano.
In March 1943, he was captured and sent to forced labor in the camp in Bessdorf, Germany.

After a year, he managed to go on vacation, from which he did not return to Germany. As a deserter, he found a hiding place with his aunt's neighbor, Jeanne Planche, who played an important and decisive role in his life and to whom he dedicated many poems.

Although she was 30 years older than him, an affair developed between them. She and her alcoholic husband hid it for nearly six months. Those five months were difficult for him. He lived in constant fear of being discovered and was busy writing songs while drumming the rhythm on a stool.

However, even after release France Bresnes remained living in the same house on a dead-end street (Impasse Florimont). It was a house without electricity or running water and was also full of animals, which did not contribute to the sanitary situation.

Through Petachou, Rasens met bass player Pierre Nicolas, who accompanied him and helped him with his stage fright and was exposed to promoters who helped him advance his career.

Patasho invited a theater director named Jacques Canty, who was enthusiastic about Barsens and helped him get a recording contract with Philips. The reviews were also laudatory.

Word about Barsens spreads and visitors arrive, complimenting him and he begins to succeed and finally make a profit.
Barsens returned the favor to Jean, paid the rent and connected the house to the electricity and running water network. Later, he bought the house for them and the house next door.

His career developed and he went on tour in France and abroad. In 1966, a year after her husband Marcel died, 75-year-old Jeanne married a 37-year-old man! Then Bressance left home.

Even earlier, in parallel with their affair, Bressance had been having love affairs in his room under Jeanne's nose. Most of these were with married women. Although he tried to hide it from her, Jeanne found out about it and was angry. Two years later, she fell ill and underwent gallbladder surgery, from which she never recovered. She died on October 24, 1968, and Georges Bressance was at her bedside.

Another important relationship he had was with the German Guha Heymann - who was 9 years older than him. He also composed several songs for her, including "I Will Not Ask for Your Hand" and "I Have a Meeting with You."

My biggest fear is that people will stop being special. Out of social pressure, they will start becoming more similar. And more to each other. To me, there is nothing worse than that.

George Bresnes in an interview in the 70s

Barsnes songs that I like (some in the show)

Trumpets of Glory

Today's Israel is caught in an internal religious war and unfortunately religion and politics are being mixed up. The religious's desire to change us and make us good Jews reminds me of this song by Barsens in which he asks that they not interfere in his life or get into his bed, now that he is more famous.

In this song – in the part that Yossi Banai did not sing – because the 6-verse song is shortened, he says:  

I live great with the priest. He lets me say “shit” and I let him say “amen.” Should I reveal to the media that one day I found him with my mistress, who is covered in lice in the sacred clearing…?

France is a Catholic country. The Pope at the time lived in Avignon in southern France, but it was wise to separate religion and state. When are we?

The man of kindness

Many people showed kindness to Barsens, starting with his father, who, in his youth, when he engaged in petty theft, intervened in his favor and led to a reduced sentence of house arrest, continuing with his aunt Antoinette Degrossé, who hosted and supported him for three years during the Nazi occupation, and continuing with Jean Planche and her husband Marcel, who risked and hid him at the end of the Nazi occupation and later housed and supported him for another 8 years, with Jean pushing him to succeed in music until he truly succeeded and returned her kindness.

The two uncles

The song was written in 1964 during a period of struggle for Algeria - some wanted to continue colonialism there and some were in favor of liberating Algeria for independence. In the anarchist renaissance, he takes no position. In the song, one uncle loved the “Tommy” and another uncle loved the “Teton.” Both died and I am still alive.

The song also reminds me of the song “Die for Ideas.” I am for life and let live and enough with the division in the nation. I read Josephus Flavius ​​during the Corona period and was amazed to see that 2000 years ago we were in the same situation – fighting among ourselves and allowing an external enemy to win.

Friends First (Friends on Board)

By and large, Ressance didn't like people. He wanted to be alone. He didn't like the little things they did to each other. But he had a group to which he was loyal.

In their group, everyone always came and no one was missing. I am married to Dalit, who is an IDF widow from the 13th Navy. When she started dating me, the friends from the Navy sent someone to check on me. And after the marriage, they kept her “place on board” and that’s how we both join them on cruises.

And when I sing the song, I dedicate it to the guys from the 74th class of the Navy.

The wedding march
Barsance sings about his parents' wedding when he was a child and they finally went to get married at the city hall in front of the mayor. In a carriage pulled by oxen, accompanied by friends and family.

It rains and the bride, who is his mother, begins to cry, holding a bouquet of wildflowers. And to make her happy, he plays Mendelssohn's Wedding Overture on his harmonica while riding the bull. Everyone raises their fists to the sky angrily and says that the wedding will go on no matter what.

I had a similar experience. My parents got married at the rabbinate in Morocco. When they arrived in France they had to get married at the town hall. One day my brother and I were invited to our parents' wedding.

I was 6 or 7 years old and then we went to a restaurant with a small group of friends. My brother is a year and a half younger than me and he doesn't remember. I am very nostalgic and like to cherish memories, especially from France.

Invasions

This word in French refers to rude and bad people.

In this song, Ressance talks about shopkeepers who caress their wives and want them to have children with bellies and bald heads, who will be notaries, just as a Jewish mother wants her son to be a lawyer, and as punishment they receive children with lots of long hair who become poets.

I also come from a bourgeois family. My father is an engineer, everyone is a liberal professional. My father is a tough man and he told me I couldn't be an actor. That there were no actors in the family.

And since I was 8 years old – from the moment they took me to the Comédie Française to see Molière's The Antics of Scapin – I wanted to be an actor. I remember where I sat and the stage, the costumes and the lighting. It burned my eyes and burned a movie on the disc. I left in euphoria and that's what I wanted to do in life.

The actors are on stage to take our lives out of their drabness. Enough with the metro bolo dodo (metro, work, sleep)!

I will not ask for your hand.

He wrote this song for his partner.  Joha Heiman   Which he called  Doll .

She was 9 years older than him. They met before he became famous when she was married. Although she divorced, they never married.
This song reminds me of an episode I once saw when I landed in France at 3 am and had a meeting at 7 am in Marais. I was walking down the street with my trolley and saw a couple sitting in a restaurant. He was in a tuxedo, his tie loose, she was in a dress. Both of them with lots of glasses of wine. It's so beautiful to me the play of the man and the woman.

I too have been married for 35 years with 3 children and we are still courting. And this song conveys how I feel about Dalit. It is more important to me than marrying someone rich. Dalit is the reason I get up every morning, she makes me a better person. So that she won't be ashamed of me.

The loves of yesteryear

And the song "Loves Once Upon a Time" reminds me of the essence of love in general and my love for Dalit.

My chanson show

My next concert will take place at the Cameri Theater Cafe on May 18.9.2025, 19 at 00:XNUMX PM. Tickets can be ordered via This link.

If you would like to book my show, please visitLink this And I would be happy to come to your home or where you work.