In The world from 21/22 June 2020, Bruno Lesprit asked himself “What remains of Guy Béart?” Mainly a pastoral lullaby, Living Water. Apart from the unconditional ones, the rest is at best ignored, at worst ignored ”. Will we allow an “unconditional” person to try to say why Béart’s songs have accompanied him for more than 63 years, both in his personal and professional life? And this in the hope of sharing his attachment to a work that deserves much better than ignorance or ignorance?
Brassens said he was a smoker before being a singer. I would happily say that I am a singer before being a teacher-researcher. I would have liked to write songs. But I didn’t have the gift of which Brassens also speaks, which consists in “putting the three syllables which are necessary on the three notes which are necessary”. Luckily, all the songs that I couldn’t write, Béart gave them to me!
I have been under the spell since 1957 (Some le, heard it on the radio). Since then, I’ve been singing or singing Béart, in my head, or in person, every day. In my various activities (supervision of summer camps, teaching, research), I took every opportunity to make it known, and if possible to sing it. At university, I used to punctuate my lessons with excerpts from his songs. For quite a long time, I have dared to end all my public interventions, whatever the setting and the audience, with a song: sometimes by Brassens, but more often by Béart.
A source to drink from
How does the work of a modest songwriter, an art considered minor by Gainsbourg, can she justify this interest, not to say this passion? Béart is first of all a particular voice, strange, veiled, but one that we listen to, because it vibrates and resonates in us. A fragile voice, but capable of capturing a cappella the strength of a poem by Queneau, So much human sweat. They are melodies which seem simple, and which are very pleasant to sing, even though they can be very subtle. Julien Clerc (expert’s word!) Even considered Béart “a melodist of genius”.
This grace of clarity is also the mark of his texts. They are luminous texts, often full of humor (Hat, Oxygen), sometimes in a double meaning, by playing on the words (Obelisk, Chandernagor). Texts that oscillate, like all life, between the gray tones of nostalgia (Laura, Remaining post), and the bright colors of hope (The colors of time, Mad hope).
Is it poetry? Béart set to music the texts of recognized poets (Ronsard, Verlaine, Victor Hugo, Queneau, Louise de Vilmorin, Marcel Aymé, Charles Guérin, Nadaud, Hardellet). Unless one specifically knows the name of the author of the text, one attributes without hesitation the song, text and music, to Béart. Its presence in the series “Poetry and Songs” of the collection “Poets today” (Seghers, 1965) was not a usurpation.
Texts giving food for thought
I will be granted that we can let ourselves be crossed and carried by his words and his music. But how could this influence a reflection, and a work? Sing The colors of time or Living water to his daughter to put her to sleep is one thing. But to rely on songs to orient and energize its teaching and research activity, another thing. And yet: the first subject of a dissertation that I proposed to students of philosophy mixed Alain (“Happiness is the very flavor of life”) and Béart (“old companion, old misery”).
Béart’s texts very often give food for thought, which is particularly valuable for a professor of philosophy. His songs offer very useful starting points, or fulcrums, on many issues. To work on the question of time, we can (we must) read Kant. But we can also listen The dance of time : “Sometimes I took the time / So I wasted my time / It’s really a weird thing / I lose it when I take it”.
To think about love, we can read Feast of Plato, and to be interested, with the speech of Aristophanes, in the myth of the primitive androgyne. At the same time, we can get to the point with Half you, half me : “You are half you / You are half me / Upside down / The place upside down / Half you / And half me / I am your vice and versa”.
_There is no more after _ (“It is because you are another / It is because I am another: / We are foreigners / In Saint-Germain-des-près”) enters into correspondence with Pascal (“He no longer loves this person he loved ten years ago. I think so: she’s not the same, and neither is he”). And reciprocally !********
A companion of struggle (s)
But Béart is also a “charming dynamiter” (Yvan Audouart, 1973) who, as an acid polemicist, tracks down the drifts and the crossings of time. His songs feed a critical philosophy of our time, and can shed light on and consolidate many battles. Fight against bureaucracy, with Sleeping with a bureaucrat or, better yet, The paper, song of astonishing inventiveness, that only Béart could write: “A forza da bouffa dou papel / We end up vénir ginnjouille / Bouffa dou papel dou papel dou papel / Chié pas bounn por le batrachouï”.
Against violence against women, with Beat them : “In the cities, in the countryside / Instead of kissing their companions / Husbands like lovers / You knock them out fluently / No, I don’t know how to beat women / Beat them yourself if you want”.
Fight against lies and fake news, with The truth ; and Today’s proverbs, which one would think written for Trump: “Two and two is five or three / To think so, we are four / Two and two are five or three / What is is what we believe”
And at a time when the development of a “new sensitive reason” (The world of 12/22/20) leads to a different look at animals, Donkey (1957) can be seen as a premonitory manifesto: “On your legs, I hurtle down / The trails in the morning. / Donkey bugger, I am a donkey, / We are one”.
Pierre Verdy / AFP
The danger, for philosophers, and intellectuals in general, is to spend their lives on theories while life goes. A little song can be enough to alert us to this danger, and to prevent us from taking the wrong path, that is to say from taking the wrong life. It is by singing this song for pleasure that we will avoid having to sing it out of despair: “I spent my life / Has theories / And life will … / Whole years / Near lights / Who does not were not shining / And life goes ”.
A whole life goes by. On the cover of the first 33 rpm, Jacques Grello had written: “spin some Béart, you’ll see, it doesn’t wear out”. “The integral Béart” which has just been published (September 2020) allows to verify it on 446 titles. Each time, it’s never just a song. But three minutes are enough to provoke a joy that tastes of eternity.
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