chanson

Old French chanson derives from Latin cantio, from canere (to sing). Canere gives English chant, enchant, incantation, and cantata; it gives Italian canto; it gives Spanish canción. The Proto-Indo-European root is *kan- — to sing — which may be related to *kan- meaning to resound. Latin cantio itself was the noun form of canere; in Old French it became chanson through the regular phonetic changes. The song and its word have been traveling since Rome.

The chanson de geste — song of deeds — was the medieval French epic form, composed in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries for oral performance. The Chanson de Roland (c. 1100) is the oldest surviving, telling of Charlemagne's rearguard annihilated at Roncevaux Pass in 778. These were not written songs to be read but performed songs to be heard — professional jongleurs recited them at courts. The literary form existed before literacy for its audience.

The troubadours of Occitania (southern France, 1100-1350) gave chanson its intimate lyric dimension. Guilhem de Peitieu (1071-1127), Count of Poitiers, wrote the first surviving troubadour chansons: poems of courtly love, alba (dawn songs), sirventes (political songs), tensons (debate songs). The troubadour chanson distinguished itself from the chanson de geste by being personal rather than epic: a single voice addressing a single beloved. The form traveled to northern France, Germany (Minnesang), and Italy.

The French chanson's modern identity is inseparable from the mid-twentieth century cabaret and music hall tradition. Edith Piaf, Jacques Brel, Charles Aznavour, and Georges Brassens made chanson a designation of personal, literary popular song — songs with complex lyrics, performed solo, in which the words matter as much as the music. Brel's 'Ne me quitte pas' (1959) and Piaf's 'Non, je ne regrette rien' (1960) became global emblems. The medieval epic form and the intimate modern ballad share only their name.