Frida Boccara │ Un Jour, Un Enfant

Frida Boccara

I was feeling a bit nostalgic today, so I decided to look through my extensive collection of vinyl recordings and accidentally stumbled upon an album by the late, great, Frida Boccara.  It brought back a lot of beautiful memories to me from the late 1960s.  Shame on me, but I had forgotten completely about Frida and her magnificent voice for all of these years.  Actually, her music served as the soundtrack for a relationship that turned out to be the love of my life.  Frida was born in Casablanca, Morocco, on October 20, 1940.  In 1969 she shared the first prize in the Eurovison contest with her powerful rendition of "Un Jour, Un Enfant (A Day, A Child)", that was composed by Emile Stern, and Eddy Marnay.  She was undoubtedly the greatest female voice of the twentieth-century.  Frida ceased her earthly existence on August 1, 1996, in Paris, as a result of a massive pulmonary infection.  In this edition of Angel Watchers I am proud to present Frida Boccara for your enjoyment.  For those of you who have never heard Frida before, you are in for a real treat.  Safe journeys to all the fans of Angel Watchers, wherever you may be.

Un Jour, Un Enfant

Un jour se lèvera
Sur trois branches de lilas
Qu'un enfant regardera
Comme un livre d'images
Le monde autour de lui
Sera vide et c'est ainsi
Qu'il inventera la vie
A sa première pa-a-ge.

En dessinant la forme d'une orange
Il donnera au ciel son premier soleil
En dessinant l'oiseau
Il inventera la fleur
En cherchant le bruit de l'eau
Il entendra le cri du cœur.

En dessinant les branches d'une étoile
Il trouvera l'enfant, le chemin des grands
Des grands qui ont gardé
Un regard émerveillé
Pour les fruits de chaque jour
Et pour les roses de l'amour.

A Day, A Child

 The wide eyes of a child look upon a world reborn
See the glory of a rose that never bears a thorn
The wide eyes of a child can invent a laughing moon
And the orange sun leaps high just as a floating toy balloon.

He clearly sees the flower and the bird
Whose thoughts he knows without needing any word
And any child can hear ringing laughter from a stream
Hear the music of the heart, to us a half-forgotten dream.

In sleep he hears the star's distant song
Oh, may its wonder last for his whole life long
If we had vision too, as we stumble on our ways
We could sometimes see our days as through the eyes of a child.