Lucienne Boyer
Lucienne Boyer (1945)

And today is the birthday of Lucienne Boyer (Émilienne-Henriette Boyer, Montparnasse Quarter of Paris 18 August 1901 – 6 December 1983 Paris); diseuse and singer, perhaps best known for her version of song “Parlez-moi d’amour”.

Her melodious voice gave her the chance, while working as a part-time model, to sing in the cabarets of Montparnasse. An office position at a prominent Parisian theater opened the door for her and within a few years she was cast as Lucienne Boyer, singing in the major Parisian music halls.

In 1927, Boyer sang at a concert by Félix Mayol where she was seen by the American impresario Lee Shubert who offered her a contract to come to Broadway. Boyer spent nine months in New York City, returning to perform there and to South America numerous times throughout the 1930s. By 1933 she had made a large number of recordings for Columbia Records of France including her signature song, “Parlez-moi d’amour”. Written by Jean Lenoir, the song won the first-ever Grand Prix du Disque of the Charles Cros Academy.

Boyer lost her soldier father in World War I and had to go to work in a munitions factory to help her family get by.

In 1939, she married the cabaret singer Jacques Pills of the popular duo Pills et Tabet.

She is interred in the Cimetière de Bagneux in Montrouge, near Paris.

Parlez-moi d’amour

{Refrain}

Parlez moi d’amour
Redites-moi des choses tendres
Votre beau discours
Mon coeur n’est pas las de l’entendre
Pourvu que toujours
Vous répétiez ces mots suprêmes:
Je vous aime

Vous savez bien
Que dans le fond je n’en crois rien
Mais cependant je veux encore
Ecouter ces mots que j’adore
Votre voix aux sons caressants
Qui les murmure en frémissant
Me berce de sa belle histoire
Et malgré moi je veux y croire

{Refrain}

Il est si doux
Mon cher trésor d’être un peu fou
La vie est parfois trop amère
Si l’on ne croit pas aux chimères
Le chagrin est vite apaisé
Et se console d’un baiser
Du Coeur on guerit la blessure
Par un serment qui le rassure

{Refrain}