Secret and early song, hastily written with numerous corrections, probably written on the corner of a cellar table, homage to famous troglodytes and anonymous zazous of Saint-Germain-des-Prés
- A perforated squared sheet written by Boris Vian in blue ink, numerous deletions and corrections, some marginal tears. This sheet is folded in three, as if it were the template for a leaflet. At the head of the sheet, some manuscript attempts in Vian's hand confirm that this text was perhaps intended to become the anthem of a circle of Saint-Germain residents:
"CLAC: Cercle Littéraire des amis des caves / Cercle libre des amateurs de cuisse." ["Literary Circle of cellar friends / Free circle of thigh enthusiasts."]
On the verso of this sheet, manuscript notes by Vian probably in view of animating this circle which, to our knowledge, was never created:
"Tableau d'affichage - signé le troglodyte de la semaine" [...] "Manifestes à faire signer toutes les semaines." ["Notice board - signed the troglodyte of the week" [...] "Manifestos to have signed every week."]
- A perforated slip taken from a school notebook sheet reproducing the stanza "Pour venir au Tabou" ["To come to the Tabou"] and the following one, also in Boris Vian's hand. The first stanza does not appear in its entirety on the main sheet. A trace of adhesive on the verso.
- A perforated sheet typed on machine, fair copy of the manuscript. At the bottom right, the date "1948-1949" is indicated.
This song - one of Vian's very first - is a true Saint-Germain anthem, which was never performed outside the cellars. It prefigures the famous Manuel de Saint-Germain-des-Prés which would not appear until 1974. It was transcribed, with the stanzas in a different order, in volume 11 of Boris Vian's Œuvres complètes devoted to his songs, but certain verses crossed out in our manuscript remain quite readable and unpublished: "Quand on n'sait pas danser / Il vaut mieux s'en passer" ["When one doesn't know how to dance / It's better to do without"].
Alexandre Astruc, cited twice in the song, testifies in his memoirs to the creation of this one:
"Je dois reconnaître qu'en dépit de l'alcool qu'on pouvait y ingurgiter, je n'aimais pas vraiment les caves, ni les pitreries de Vian, auquel je reconnaissais pourtant un réel talent de pasticheur et de pince-sans-rire. Il avait écrit une chanson très drôle sur les cocktails que donnait Gaston Gallimard chaque premier vendredi du mois. Tout ce que la littérature française comptait de plus sérieux s'y retrouvait, cul par-dessus tête, les jambes des femmes battant l'air dans leurs jupes new-look, sur l'herbe tendre des pelouses de Gaston, tant le préposé à la boisson, un homme rougeâtre du nom de Bitodos, avait coutume de forcer sur la dose d'alcool. En voici, autant que je m'en souvienne les paroles édifiantes : « Et le vendredi soir / On va chez Gallimard / On mang' des pt'its gâteaux / Offerts par Bitodos / Et l'on voit Jean Genet / qui se fait... enculer / Tandis que sur l'gazon / Astruc rend son gougeon... »" ["I must acknowledge that despite the alcohol one could consume there, I didn't really like the cellars, nor Vian's antics, though I recognized in him a real talent as a pasticheur and deadpan comedian. He had written a very funny song about the cocktails that Gaston Gallimard gave every first Friday of the month. Everything that French literature counted as most serious was found there, head over heels, women's legs beating the air in their new-look skirts, on the tender grass of Gaston's lawns, so much did the drinks attendant, a reddish man named Bitodos, have the habit of overdoing the alcohol dose. Here are, as far as I remember, the edifying lyrics: 'And Friday night / We go to Gallimard's / We eat little cakes / Offered by Bitodos / And we see Jean Genet / getting himself... buggered / While on the lawn / Astruc throws up his gudgeon...'"] (A. Astruc,
La tête la première, 1975).
This precise mention of the impertinent song in his memories of Parisian cellars proves that Astruc heard Vian perform it, probably even several times. Astruc's memory is nevertheless not entirely accurate and Boris Vian's song, well beyond the evocation of Gaston Gallimard's garden parties, constitutes a true homage to the Saint-Germain way of life, then in peril.
This ribald song was indeed written in the last breaths of the Tabou, most famous club-cellar founded in 1947 where Boris Vian reigned supreme, surrounded by other illustrious personalities cited in this tableau:
"Les gens de Saint-Germain
S'amusent comme des gamins
ls lisent du Jean-Paul Sartre
En mangeant de la tartre." ["The people of Saint-Germain
Have fun like kids
They read Jean-Paul Sartre
While eating tart."]
Two stanzas pay homage to the mythical cellar of rue Dauphine:
"Pour venir au Tabou
Faut être un peu zazou
Faut porter la barbouze
Et relever son bénouze - Dans une ambiance exquise
On mouille sa chemise
Et quand y'a trop d'pétard
Ça finit au mitard" ["To come to the Tabou
You have to be a bit zazou
You have to wear the beard
And lift your trousers - In an exquisite atmosphere
One soaks one's shirt
And when there's too much racket
It ends in solitary"] while two others evoke the future of the zazous: "Mais quand nous serons vieux
Tout ira bien mieux
On s'paiera des p'tites filles
Pour s'occuper la quille - Et on viendra toujours
Fidèle a ses amours
Au Cercle Saint-Germain
Pour y voir des gens bien." ["But when we are old
Everything will be much better
We'll pay for little girls
To occupy our time - And we'll always come
Faithful to our loves
To the Saint-Germain Circle
To see good people there."]
This new evocation of the "Circle" added to the "clac" annotations at the head of the sheet might suggest that Vian wished to create a collective that would survive beyond the Tabou. Whatever the case, at the time of the creation of this anthem to the "people of Saint-Germain," the Club Saint-Germain was born, a new cellar more "select" than its elder which would become Paris's first jazz venue.
Provenance: Boris Vian Foundation.
