Amy Sings Edith Piaf Live on Stage

What a fantastic opportunity it was to sing all these incredible songs performed by Edith Piaf. Whilst always aiming to capture the passion and depth of Piaf’s performances, here, I am singing as myself, paying homage to, rather than impersonating this great lady. I adored the challenge of singing in French, the song ‘Padam Padam’. The lyrics are darkly dramatic, they were thrilling to perform and I relished singing them. It’s hard to capture poetry in a different language but I still want to share this rough translation which contains within it the anguish and torture of its protagonist, and within the beat of the song (Pa-dam, Pa-dam), how she is mocked inescapably by her own memories:

“Padam… Padam… Padam…
It follows, running behind me
Padam… Padam… Padam…
It tricks me into remembering you
Padam… Padam… Padam…
Surely I must save some sorrow back for later
For I have an entire score full of this tune, and it beats…
… it beats like a heart of wood! “

It’s hard to explain why I love singing this medley so much but I think in the songs that Piaf performed, she was drawn to material with such a raw sense of communication; communication of human emotion and spirit, that there is both a vulnerability and a strength which is direct, powerful and captures something of what it is to be human. I think that is one of the reasons she made such an impact on those who saw her work and why she is still remembered to this day.

“I want to make people cry even when they don’t understand my words.”
– Edith Piaf