"AUTUMN LEAVES" (Les Feuilles Mortes) (1946)

"Autumn Leaves" or "Les Feuilles Mortes" is the only piano instrumental to ever reach #1 on the Billboard charts. Pianist Roger Williams’ 1955 recording of the song sold a million records and stayed on the charts for six months. It still stands as the greatest selling piano recording of all time. After Johnny Mercer wrote the English lyrics in 1949, the song was covered first by Jo Stafford and then by other musicians, including Bing Crosby and Artie Shaw. However, prior to the Williams recording, the general public had shown little interest. A spate of recordings followed the Williams success, and there have been literally hundreds of renditions of the song over the last five decades.
If it had not been for the success of Roger Williams’s recording, perhaps the song today would be as obscure as the French film in which it was introduced, Les Portes De La Nuit. The film was a gloomy urban melodrama made in 1946 that was the most costly production to date for the French film industry. In the aftermath of the devastation of World War II, most French people found its dark pessimism unappealing and it was a commercial failure. It starred Yves Montand, then an unknown young actor. Montand, who sang "Les Feuilles Mortes" in the film, went on to become a major star in France as both an actor and singer, but was miscast here and did not provide the emotional force needed to give the drama any real impact. Four years later, when the film was released in the United States as The Gates of Night, it met with only slightly greater success.
"Autumn Leaves" had to wait 10 years after its initial cinematic debut before it was in a successful film. In 1956 Columbia Pictures released a feature film directed by Robert Aldrich, Autumn Leaves, which starred Joan Crawford and Cliff Robertson in an older woman/younger man tale of mental illness. Nat King Cole's hit version of the song was used over the film's title sequence. The film's original title was The Way We Are, but it was changed to capitalize on the popularity of "Autumn Leaves". The film was a moderate financial and critical success when released, but its stature has increased over time and now it is regarded as one of Aldrich’s best films.
Joseph Kosma composed the music and poet Jacques Prévert wrote the lyrics for the original French version of the song, "Les Feuilles Mortes." Philip Furia and Michael Lasser, in their book, America’s Songs, relate how Johnny Mercer came to write the English lyrics for "Autumn Leaves." Mickey Goldsen, head of Capitol Record’s music publishing division, loved French popular songs. He made a deal with the French songwriters to be given four months in which to produce an American version. He asked Johnny Mercer, president of Capitol, to write the English lyrics. Mercer was a very slow worker, and after three months, Goldsen called and reminded him of the deadline. Mercer promised that if Goldsen would drive him to the train station to catch a train to New York the next day, he would work on the song. Goldsen arrived at Mercer’s house ten minutes late, and found that Mercer had used the time to draft a lyric. Goldsen recalled: "And as I’m driving, he read it to me, and tears came to my eyes." Mercer re-named the song "Autumn Leaves", as the French title, literally "The Dead Leaves", would not have been appropriate for an American popular song title.
Mercer often found himself writing lyrics for instrumentals and for foreign songs like "Autumn Leaves" as the popularity of the Tin Pan Alley ballad waned in the late 1940’s and demand lessened for his style of sophisticated lyrics. To quote Furia and Lasser, "Mercer seems to have poured into the lyric his foreboding that the world of popular music was leaving him behind. As he found less and less success, he cherished the enduring popularity of "Autumn Leaves." "You know something, Mickey," he told Goldsen, " ‘Autumn Leaves’ is the biggest income song I have ever had."
"AUTUMN LEAVES" (Les Feuilles Mortes)
by Jospeh Kosma and Jacques Prévert (French)/Johnny Mercer (English)
The falling leaves drift by the window
The autumn leaves of red and gold.
I see your lips, the summer kisses
The sun-burned hands I used to hold.
Since you went away the days grow long
And soon I'll hear old winter's song.
But I miss you most of all my darling
When autumn leaves start to fall.
English Translation of Jacques Prévert’s Poem: The Dead Leaves
Oh I wish so much you would remember
those happy days when we were friends.
Life in those times was so much brighter
and the sun was hotter than today.
Dead leaves picked up by the shovelful.
You see, I have not forgotten.
Dead leaves picked up by the shovelful,
memories and regrets also,
and the North wind carries them away
into the cold night of oblivion.
You see, I have not forgotten
the song that you sang for me:
It is a song resembling us.
We lived together, the both of us,
you who loved me
and I who loved you.
But life drives apart those who love
ever so softly
without a noise
and the sea erases from the sand
the steps of lovers gone their ways.