"Everything has changed since yesterday...The entire world goes boom, thewhole universe goes boom, because my heart goes boom boom boom!"
When Parisian singer/songwriter Charles Trenet wrote those lyrics in 1938, boom described the impact on a pounding of a heart newly in love. Full of charm and a sense of play, "Boum!" made Trenet a national star that year.
By 1942 it had become one of the handful of European standards of World War II and, of course, endowed the playful song title with a world-weary double meaning few could have predicted in 1938.
Our 2023 OFAM program is devoted entirely to the jewels from this relatively small canon of European standards of World War 2---namely music released despite, or in response to, the 1939 Nazi occupation of France.
It is a set of songs so rich with story and history --- the songs themselves, their creators: Trenet, Marlene Dietrich, Django Reinhardt, Josephine Baker, and Édith Piaf and their artistic collaborators.
This music sustained and lightened weary Allied soldiers and frightened public, it found its way onto the airwaves despite incredible duress and censorship, not to mention upheaval to everyday life and everyday business of making music. It fortified those risking their lives to fight as part of the underground resistance.
These songs take us back, with such detail and atmosphere, back to the romance as well the struggle, inside the World War 2 experience in Europe. Indeed, this is music of La Resistance.
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