Edith Piaf often sang it on stage, but there was no filmed record of it. A video of the famous song “Les amants d’un jour”, performed in 1959, was found in the INA archives and restored.
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“It’s a treasure we share.” L’The National Audiovisual Institute (INA) unveiled on Thursday September 28 a never-before-seen recording of one of Edith Piaf’s most famous songs, “Les amants d’un jour”. “Me, I wipe the glasses at the back of the café. I have too much to do to be able to dream”, La Môme sings on stage, while wiping a glass herself. The video recording dates from 1959, four years before his death.
The video was found in the reserves preserved by the INA in Saint-Rémy-l’Honoré, in Yvelines. In total, 35 minutes of previously unseen images resurfaced from the archives. It is videos filmed to illustrate a program, the news magazine of the first television channel, Five columns in the headlines. Found in a “very degraded condition with numerous cuts in the film, and loss of sound and image on several sequences”the film was restored by the INA.
In the song Lovers for a day, Édith Piaf actually sings a dark story, that of a couple who have just committed suicide in a hotel room. The lyrics are written from the point of view of the hotel bar attendant, who witnesses the couple’s final moments. This title, released in 1956, appears on the B side of the 45 rpm Suddenly a valley, and was set to music by Marguerite Monnot, the singer’s faithful composer.