Have you ever heard a song that made you feel a strange nostalgia for a time and place that you couldn't have possibly known?
Many years ago, I was sitting at the bar of a New York nightclub that was in a basement much like the original Stage Door Canteen had been during WWII. I was having a drink before going to see a play in a 44th Street theater, I forget what the play was.
The place was very much like the Stage Door Canteen had been, at least it resembled the photographs I had seen that dated from the time of the War. Like the Stage Door Canteen, this place also had a small stage tucked away in a corner and simple tables and booths that filled the roughly 40 by 80 feet of space which was the same amount of space the Stage Door Canteen had had.
In spite of the fact that the barman told me that the place has recently opened, it had an old-fashioned atmosphere, and was smokey (people still smoked in enclosed spaces in those days) and noisy as the Stage Door Canteen must have been. The poor man playing the piano could hardly be heard over the din of plates, glasses, and conversation chatter.
I sympathized with the piano player, who was a very old, black, small man. He gamely played some Rogers and Heart songs, ignoring the noise as if he was playing more for himself than for the crowd.
I got up and put a 5 dollar bill into the large, glass snifter he had on the piano to receive tips.
"Play ´You'll never know,' when you have the chance," I said to him. He looked up with as surprised expression, but he smiled. He started playing the song as soon as I was back on my bar stool. I raised my glass to him.
When he was through playing the set, he got up to take his break. He came over to me and said,
"How come you know that song? You look too young to have been around when it was popular."
"I don't know," I said shrugging my shoulders, "I like it very much. I've always felt like it meant something to me, although I don't know what."
"When were you born?" he asked.
"Nineteen forty seven," I said.
"After the war. Maybe you was a soldier in that War. I mean a soldier that liked that song." There was a glint in his eye and a sad smile slowly spread over his lips. "There was a lot of boys passed through here during the War, and a lot of them didn't come back."
I didn't know that to say to that. We looked at each other without saying a word, then he tapped me gently on the shoulder and said, "Take care, son" and he shuffled off.
A year after that, I was in Paris for the first time.
As I've written before, I was there (officially) to consult on the building of the hemispheric screen of an Omnimax Theater for the Parc de la Villette. Unofficially, I was there to see a friend. Unfortunately, I could not see much of her because she had rehearsals twice a day for the adaptation into French that Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carriere had made of the Mahabharata.
So between her nine to twelve morning rehearsal and the six to ten or twelve night rehearsal, I did a bit of consulting for the people who were building the theater and the rest of the time I wandered around Paris, getting to know the city by just walking up any street that caught my fancy.
I got into the habit of getting on the number Four Line of the Metro and then changing to another line, willy nilly, without any plan. I would then get off at any stop with a name that sounded interesting.
On a certain day, I got on Line 6 and got off at the Denfert-Rochereau stop. I didn't know it then how significant that stop would become to the novels of the 2014 Nobel Prize winner, Patrick Modiano, but the name of the stop sounded interesting, so I got off the Metro there.
Once out in the street, I looked up at a street sign and saw that I was in the Thirteenth Arrondissement. Although it has now been much cleaned up, then it had a rather shabby elegance which I immediately liked, especially the square with the huge bronze lion that is dedicated to "la Defense National, 1870-1871." General Denfert-Rochereau was one of the important leaders of that defense during the Franco-Prussian War.
Somehow, I wandered onto the Place Jeanne d'Arc with its beautiful church, Notre Dame de la Gare, the one of the round towers and marvelous stained glass windows. (Funny that a train station would have a holy virgin looking after it.)
Anyway, after having had a look at the interior of the church, I walked around it and the more I looked at those round tower-like structures of the church, the more I felt as if I had been there before, although I well knew I had not.
Shaking off the sense of "deja vu", I hurried away to look for a bar. I quickly found one in the "Quartier de la Gare." You can always count on there being a bar and a hotel near a train station in France.
I can't remember the name of the bar but I can clearly remember the "decor." It was a throwback to perhaps forty or fifty years before. On the walls, there were extremely faded watercolors of famous movie starts and singers of the thirties and forties. The tables and chairs were made of sturdy wood. Although all were well worn they were very shiny from the many coats of varnish slapped on them. The bar stools were made of the same sturdy stuff and were not easily moved. Perfect for holding drinkers who have had one too many, I guessed.
The other odd thing about this café-bar was that it had live music. A woman with a high, soprano-like voice and a shaky vibrato was singing. She was accompanied by a fellow with a guitar.
After the barman brought my whisky, I took a sip of it and turned to look at the singer. At that moment, in her thin, high-pitched voice she started to sing,
That song brought on the strongest feeling of "deja vu" I have ever experienced. I gulped down my drink, left five francs on the bar, and hurriedly left the place.
I never returned to the Thirteenth Arrondissement in spite of the many times I have returned to Paris. I once did visit it virtually, via Google's street view. But, I couldn't find the place or even the street where I think that bar was.
(In Part 5, I'll write about other spooky stuff that happened to me on that first visit to Paris.)
Many years ago, I was sitting at the bar of a New York nightclub that was in a basement much like the original Stage Door Canteen had been during WWII. I was having a drink before going to see a play in a 44th Street theater, I forget what the play was.
The place was very much like the Stage Door Canteen had been, at least it resembled the photographs I had seen that dated from the time of the War. Like the Stage Door Canteen, this place also had a small stage tucked away in a corner and simple tables and booths that filled the roughly 40 by 80 feet of space which was the same amount of space the Stage Door Canteen had had.
In spite of the fact that the barman told me that the place has recently opened, it had an old-fashioned atmosphere, and was smokey (people still smoked in enclosed spaces in those days) and noisy as the Stage Door Canteen must have been. The poor man playing the piano could hardly be heard over the din of plates, glasses, and conversation chatter.
I sympathized with the piano player, who was a very old, black, small man. He gamely played some Rogers and Heart songs, ignoring the noise as if he was playing more for himself than for the crowd.
I got up and put a 5 dollar bill into the large, glass snifter he had on the piano to receive tips.
"Play ´You'll never know,' when you have the chance," I said to him. He looked up with as surprised expression, but he smiled. He started playing the song as soon as I was back on my bar stool. I raised my glass to him.
When he was through playing the set, he got up to take his break. He came over to me and said,
"How come you know that song? You look too young to have been around when it was popular."
"I don't know," I said shrugging my shoulders, "I like it very much. I've always felt like it meant something to me, although I don't know what."
"When were you born?" he asked.
"Nineteen forty seven," I said.
"After the war. Maybe you was a soldier in that War. I mean a soldier that liked that song." There was a glint in his eye and a sad smile slowly spread over his lips. "There was a lot of boys passed through here during the War, and a lot of them didn't come back."
I didn't know that to say to that. We looked at each other without saying a word, then he tapped me gently on the shoulder and said, "Take care, son" and he shuffled off.
A year after that, I was in Paris for the first time.
As I've written before, I was there (officially) to consult on the building of the hemispheric screen of an Omnimax Theater for the Parc de la Villette. Unofficially, I was there to see a friend. Unfortunately, I could not see much of her because she had rehearsals twice a day for the adaptation into French that Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carriere had made of the Mahabharata.
So between her nine to twelve morning rehearsal and the six to ten or twelve night rehearsal, I did a bit of consulting for the people who were building the theater and the rest of the time I wandered around Paris, getting to know the city by just walking up any street that caught my fancy.
I got into the habit of getting on the number Four Line of the Metro and then changing to another line, willy nilly, without any plan. I would then get off at any stop with a name that sounded interesting.
On a certain day, I got on Line 6 and got off at the Denfert-Rochereau stop. I didn't know it then how significant that stop would become to the novels of the 2014 Nobel Prize winner, Patrick Modiano, but the name of the stop sounded interesting, so I got off the Metro there.
Once out in the street, I looked up at a street sign and saw that I was in the Thirteenth Arrondissement. Although it has now been much cleaned up, then it had a rather shabby elegance which I immediately liked, especially the square with the huge bronze lion that is dedicated to "la Defense National, 1870-1871." General Denfert-Rochereau was one of the important leaders of that defense during the Franco-Prussian War.
Somehow, I wandered onto the Place Jeanne d'Arc with its beautiful church, Notre Dame de la Gare, the one of the round towers and marvelous stained glass windows. (Funny that a train station would have a holy virgin looking after it.)
Anyway, after having had a look at the interior of the church, I walked around it and the more I looked at those round tower-like structures of the church, the more I felt as if I had been there before, although I well knew I had not.
Shaking off the sense of "deja vu", I hurried away to look for a bar. I quickly found one in the "Quartier de la Gare." You can always count on there being a bar and a hotel near a train station in France.
I can't remember the name of the bar but I can clearly remember the "decor." It was a throwback to perhaps forty or fifty years before. On the walls, there were extremely faded watercolors of famous movie starts and singers of the thirties and forties. The tables and chairs were made of sturdy wood. Although all were well worn they were very shiny from the many coats of varnish slapped on them. The bar stools were made of the same sturdy stuff and were not easily moved. Perfect for holding drinkers who have had one too many, I guessed.
The other odd thing about this café-bar was that it had live music. A woman with a high, soprano-like voice and a shaky vibrato was singing. She was accompanied by a fellow with a guitar.
After the barman brought my whisky, I took a sip of it and turned to look at the singer. At that moment, in her thin, high-pitched voice she started to sing,
That song brought on the strongest feeling of "deja vu" I have ever experienced. I gulped down my drink, left five francs on the bar, and hurriedly left the place.
I never returned to the Thirteenth Arrondissement in spite of the many times I have returned to Paris. I once did visit it virtually, via Google's street view. But, I couldn't find the place or even the street where I think that bar was.
(In Part 5, I'll write about other spooky stuff that happened to me on that first visit to Paris.)
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