His dozens of songs included “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” a powerful anthem of redemptive love that became one of Piaf’s signature songs.
Charles Dumont, who wrote the music for “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” the soaring song about sweeping away the past to find love anew that the hallowed but troubled singer Édith Piaf turned into an anthem of French culture, died on Nov. 18 at his home in Paris. He was 95.
His death was confirmed by his daughter Sherkane Dumont.
Mr. Dumont had a prolific career, writing melodies for the likes of Jacques Brel, Juliette Gréco and Barbra Streisand and music for French television and film. In the 1970s, he embarked on an award-winning career as romantic crooner.
Still, it was the roughly 30 songs that he, with the lyricist Michel Vaucaire, wrote for Piaf — the diminutive and radiant chanteuse known as the Little Sparrow — that, by his own admission, defined his career. “My mother gave birth to me, but Édith Piaf brought me into the world,” Mr. Dumont said in a 2015 interview with Agence France-Presse.
“Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” (“No, I Regret Nothing”), introduced in 1960, became a definitive song for a definitive French singer, a woman who became not just a global star but also a cultural ambassador for her country.
With its martial solemnity, the song had the feel of a patriotic anthem, which gave power and drama to lyrics that express, in blunt and defiant terms, a rejection of past memories, both good and bad, while moving toward a new future.
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Source: Music - nytimes.com
