Sweet Sorrow

Listening Post 350. Are the words Nour refers to in the title of her fourth album elegant because they are raw, or because they are believed—or is it both? From the lyric ambiguity we can’t be sure, and that seems to be the elegant point. The album represents catharsis, the artist asserts, a coming to terms with romantic misfortune, and her resilience can be seen in every corner, from the post-rupture breakup metaphors (great void, great flushing, house of cards, dead end, Bermuda Triangle) to her mischievous-tender voice, to her masterful blend of vulnerability, despair, surrealism, serious comedy and the “poetic accidents” of odd-couple phrasing. And let’s not forget the watermelon halo and hollow heart of a bell pepper adorning the album cover. Born and raised in Geneva and now living in Paris, Nour fuses jazz and French chanson, adding classical and rock touches. Self-reflection is apparent in L’impulsive (Impulsive, video 1), in which she describes herself as always trying “To catch up with words I’ve already let out/Catch up too late to this body that plunges into the unknown.” The raw/belief textual enigma floats through the beautiful title track, in which both separating partners have a voice (video 2). She toys with her characters in Poupées de plomb, soldats de porcelain (Tin Dolls & Porcelain Soldiers, video 3), and in Le Ballet paints her sad saga as a dance—“two steps forward in love, three steps back in bitterness” (video 4). But her strength usually eclipses her fragility, as in the over-the-top imagery (and audaciously appropriated title) of Il pleut des hommes (It’s Raining Men, video 5). It’s easy to picture Nour on an imaginary landscape, neighbor to Cassat and Magritte, applying her sensible madness and spectacular modesty like makeup, then extracting mystery from reality and churning raw stories into shimmering songs for album five. (Ladyrec)

Nour: L’élégance des mots crus / The Elegance of Raw (or Believed) Words
Nour Azzam: Vocals, piano
Autumn Lajeat: Cello
Viviane Hélary: Violin, viola
Thomas Benoît: Bass, double bass, trombone
Samuel Cajal: Guitar

Related post. Nour: Après l’orage. Listening Post 178, Dec. 14, 2018. https://worldlisteningpost.com/2018/12/04/nour-apres-lorage/

L’impulsive / Impulsive
Lyrics & music: Nour Azzam

(From the French lyrics)
To say out loud what I’m thinking out loud/To act as if guided by envy, and this overflowing heart
To catch up with words I’ve already let out/To catch up too late to this body that plunges into the unknown

To expose myself without embarrassment like so many demonstrations of weakness/In timing that slows the race of my legs
Pressed by my desires, held back by the bottomless/Reality murmuring these unspeakable orders

So impulsive/That I’m the one who holds the candle burning at both ends
So impulsive that I bite, seven times, the fingers I’ve put in my mouth/After speaking.

But it’s the good foot connected to the good eye that says “shit” to the other/This stare into space that sees what it wants to see
These butterflies in the belly and the insatiable hope/That I can swallow this life before it eats me

And time, the bastard, that stands still/That pricks the albatross with its mad needles
That still says to wait when I want to leave/That imposes leaving when I want to hold on

So impulsive/That I’m the who holds the candle burn at both ends
So impulsive that I bite, seven times, the fingers I’ve put in my mouth/After speaking

Wanting to feed the beast/Bellowing and spitting from twilight into my purple nights

Les mots crus / Raw Words (feat. Askehoug)
Lyrics & music: Nour Azzam

Nour is a master of word play, and the album’s title track turns on the word “cru,” which can mean both “raw” and “believed.” The two senses are interchangeable throughout the song.

(Female voice)
Do you know
My beautiful love how disappointed I am
To feel this great wall of virtue
Speaking words only barely agreed upon
For lack of being more convinced
My love
Send the raw/believable words back to my voice
And if
I whisper these forbidden words to you
These words that flow like juices from ripe fruit
Forbidden in the secret of their noise
On the riverbed of our impious desires
My love
Send raw/believable words back to my voice

(Male voice)
I don’t want
To shock your ears
Or with my clumsy words
Spoil the wonder
Of our race without the shadow of desire
Without the shadow of a raw/believable word in my rhetoric
But if you insist
And to make you happy
Give me a clue
About what I can say
Because if I gave free rein to my desires
I would give you raw/believable words in my rhetoric

(Female and male voices)
If I let my desire run free
May the sweet words of my declaration be believed/raw
If I let my love run wild
May the sweet words of my declaration be believed/raw

Poupées de plomb, soldats de porcelain / Tin Dolls & Porcelain Soldiers
Lyrics & music: Nour Assam

Under the iron man’s shield/Under the rubble of stone hearts
Right under the rump of contempt/Under Barbie’s high heels
Just below, even if it’s far/Behind the wounds, the sorrows
Behind the armor and by a thread hangs the fragile beauty
Tin dolls and porcelain soldiers

We may really want to feel strong/Feel powerful but then
It’s vanity, this mad race/That always ends all alone
Four planks and in a shroud/But…

In his too big uniform the soldier/Hero, Don Quixote of battle
Which is often not even his own/Just the neighbor’s war
And the doll who only wants to be loved/Who would like to impress his dad
Who wants to be loved but who forgets that first one must love oneself
Tin dolls and porcelain soldiers

Made of the same metal/The soldier also wants to be loved
And the doll would like to win/First prize for her beauty
First prize in a golden cage/But…

Since we’re hanging by a thread/With indelible mascara
Hands in the eye bags/In colors less pink than blue
Fragile we are in the depths/Fragile we are in death
And vulnerable is the beauty in our nakedness
Tin dolls and porcelain soldiers

Le Ballet / Ballet
Lyrics & music: Nour Azzam

I have known chaos/I have known want
Cracks in the pottery/Frost in the eyes that sticks to my hair, stoking my defenses
But my walls have never/Really been waterproof
Leaving room in my hips/And also in my heart, for idiots playing with knives

But I didn’t know your absence/This wound, this gap opened by your hands plunging into my gut
And I didn’t know this dance/Shattering my illusion:
Two steps forward, three steps back

But I knew the shadow behind your laughter/The turns of your desire
The uncertain ways that grayed your complexion, echoing in mine/Even if you’re beautiful, you’re not always beautiful, or all beautiful
But it would still be wrong/To reduce beauty to everything that is beautiful, when I know what I see

But I didn’t know your absence/This wound, this gap opened by your hands plunging into my gut
And I didn’t know this dance/Shattering my illusion:
Two steps forward, three steps back

Yet we knew each other, and whatever you say/In our games, our folly
I had seen your heart open with passion and give itself to mine/Now take away your arms, take away your mouth
No one touches/In any case not you, not with the love that flowed to your fingertips

But I didn’t know your contradictions/Your dives into reluctance
This impulse to give, and then take back/And you drag me into this dance
Making my bubble burst:
Two steps forward, three steps back

Since death amuses itself by walking over us/Since in this ballet, it cleans us
And since you push it, instead of you, into my arms

So, love in my soul/I have to leave the ball

I should have recognized in the imprint of your lips/The kisses that ignite fever
The crazy kisses/That would slip everywhere, to the point of hurting
Because you commit as much as you take/You turn me into a sheep
And you piss like a dog in the small of my back/Open like a grail

But I didn’t know your indolence/That assured way
Of fucking up something so beautiful/And I see myself leaving the dance
Putting an end to the illusion
Two steps forward in loving….
Three steps back in bitterness

Il pleut des hommes / It’s Raining Men
Lyrics & music: Nour Azzam

It’s raining men on my window ledge/It’s raining men on my roof
I can’t sleep here/They make too much
Way too much noise

Boyfriends falling, falling/Just as everything goes out
On my electrical circuit board/Painting sparkles on my complexion

It’s raining men outside my window/It’s raining men, it’s not convenient
Coming down without end/I can’t sleep anymore
It’s crazy, the noise it can make of men falling, falling to the ground
It’s dripping, it’s dripping a little/Fogging up to the edge of the eyes

So I leave my home/And then I take them in my arms
I cajole them, console them/I give them everything I don’t have
Getting up is a production/A program that requires upgrading
And I, completely helpless/Lay back in my bed

It’s raining men at my window/It’s raining men, it’s not convenient
And they come down without end/I can’t sleep anymore
It’s crazy, the noise of men falling, falling to the ground
It’s dripping, it’s dripping a little/Fogging up to the edge of the eyes

So I take my umbrella/My thunder cape, my gray coat
And I’m off on an expedition/For a good catch, good fish
Armed with my big fishing rod/I wait in vain for the rain to dry
And I use the falling strings/To play tunes and rounds

It’s raining men and it’s too bad/Because they all have big hearts
It’s not easy to pack/It can take forever, guys
We’ll have to limit the damage/We’re already soaked
Until a glance removes/The traces of kohl from my window