Au Clair De La Lune

Album: Pour Enfantes Sages (1795)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Although it dates only from the 18th Century, "Au Clair De La Lune" is one of the most famous of French folk songs, including in England where it is particularly well known in primary schools as an elementary tune for descant recorder. Where it is sung, the French lyrics are universally preferred.

    The opening lines are especially well known:

    Au clair de la lune
    Mon ami Pierrot
    Prête-moi ta plume
    Pour écrire un mot


    The provenance of the song is not known, nor is it known if the words and music came together, or if one preceded the other. There are of course variants, especially on the words.

    Unlike many folk songs, it appears to have no particular regional, national, political or moral significance or message, but it does have one particular significance; on April 9, 1860, the Parisian inventor Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville made what is believed to be the first-ever recording of the human voice. It was discovered in February 2008 hidden away in the archives of the French Academy Of Sciences, and the following month the 10-second clip was retrieved from the original soot-covered paper phonoautograph recording by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The voice was originally thought to be an unknown woman's due to a miscalculation of the playback speed that pitched the sound higher and faster. The revised version renders a male voice, possibly the inventor's, slowly singing a snippet of the song.
  • Among the many published versions is a 1925 arrangement issued by Boston Music (of Boston!) in 1925, "Variations on a French Folk Song" by Mark Wessel. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2
  • This features prominently in the 1956 thriller The Bad Seed. The murderous child, played by Patty McCormack, incessantly practices the tune on the piano.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Mike Scott of The Waterboys - "Fisherman's Blues"

Mike Scott of The Waterboys - "Fisherman's Blues"They're Playing My Song

Armed with a childhood spent devouring books, Mike Scott's heart was stolen by the punk rock scene of 1977. Not surprisingly, he would go on to become the most literate of rockers.

Vanessa Carlton

Vanessa CarltonSongwriter Interviews

The "A Thousand Miles" singer on what she thinks of her song being used in White Chicks and how she captured a song from a dream.

Women Who Rock

Women Who RockSong Writing

Evelyn McDonnell, editor of the book Women Who Rock, on why the Supremes are just as important as Bob Dylan.

Chris Frantz - "Genius of Love"

Chris Frantz - "Genius of Love"They're Playing My Song

Chris and his wife Tina were the rhythm section for Talking Heads when they formed The Tom Tom Club. "Genius of Love" was their blockbuster, but David Byrne only mentioned it once.

Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty

Rob Thomas of Matchbox TwentySongwriter Interviews

Rob Thomas on his Social Distance Sessions, co-starring with a camel, and his friendship with Carlos Santana.

Lou Gramm - "Waiting For A Girl Like You"

Lou Gramm - "Waiting For A Girl Like You"They're Playing My Song

Gramm co-wrote this gorgeous ballad and delivered an inspired vocal, but the song was the beginning of the end of his time with Foreigner.