It’s been covered by everyone from Daffy Duck to Grace Jones, from Pascal of Bollywood to a ukulele-strumming Madonna…
It’s graced the soundtracks of dozens of films, and provided the title for at least two more: the recent Edith Piaf bio-pic and an award winning French feature about a pre-adolescent transgender girl…
Its title has been hijacked for rose-colored memoirs, beer bottle labels, an article about women in boardrooms…
And now the above love story, set on the Pont des Art, starring an anthropomorphic rose and a long tall stick of beef jerky bearing a suspicious resemblance to Iggy Pop.
The animated Iggy stalks across toward his lady love with the stiffness of a White Walker, but it’s undeniably moving when this biologically ill-matched couple begins to dance in a swirl of green and red leaves signifying… what?
The impermanence of romance? (The padlocks which starry eyed couples affixed to the Pont des Art were unceremoniously removed a few years ago…)
The impermanence of iconic pop stars?
The thorny persistence of visionary artists in a consumer driven economy?
Ah well, the lyrics have always been a bit open to interpretation, but the sentiment is eternal.
Related Content:
Watch Édith Piaf Sing Her Most Famous Songs: “La Vie en Rose,” “Non, Je Regrette Rien” & More
Iggy Pop Reads Walt Whitman in Collaborations With Electronic Artists Alva Noto and Tarwater
Iggy Pop Reads Edgar Allan Poe’s Classic Horror Story, “The Tell-Tale Heart”
Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, theater maker and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. Follow her @AyunHalliday.
I sang Piaf’s “La Vie en Rose” for Douglass College’s International Weekend in 1956. I still remember the lyrics.