Barbara (singer)

"Un beau jour, ou peut-etre une nuit, Près d'un lac, je m'étais endormie, Quand soudain, semblant crever le ciel, Et venant de nulle part, Surgit un aigle noir."

"Et tant pis pour ceux qui s'etonnent Et que les autres me pardonnent Mais les enfants ce sont les memes A Paris ou a Gottingen."

"Mais il mourut à la nuit même Sans un adieu, sans un je t'aime Mon père, mon père le ciel de Nantes Rend mon coeur chagrin."

"Standing outside the house where she was born, in June 1930, I think some things in Paris never change...things like the smell of fresh-baked baguettes at daybreak, the Napoleonic arcades [-] the morning coffee that you drink standing up for double impact and the sound of a chanson that's not just popular, its intensely personal, to everyone who hears it, it's a song that evokes a place, an encounter, a moment in your life. It might be sung by Edith Piaf, or Jacques Brel, or Juliette Greco - but the one for me who delves deepest into the collective unconscious, is almost unknown outside France, and her song is the story of millions of private lives, of the spirit of Paris, of the narrative of our times, of my lifetime, she's known as Barbara, though that's not her real name, she called herself, the Black Eagle, and she always wore black."