1939: Maurice Chevalier - Paris sera toujours Paris

Maurice Chevalier – Paris sera toujours Paris [Paris Will Always Be Paris] Marche-Chantée (Willemetz – Oberfeld) Accomp. d’Orch. dir. Marcel Cariven, RCA Victor 1948 (American re-edition of French matrix from Nov. 1939 by Disque Gramophone “Le Voix de son Maître”). NOTE: This charming song was presented in Paris in Nov 1939, as answer of the Parisians to the outbreak of the 2nd World War in Europe (On the 1st Sept 1939 Poland was attacked by Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe and three days later France declared war with Germany). With a typical Parisian humor & esprit Chevalier announces to the world that we will not be intimidated by the horrors of war, even if all the Parisian shop windows were covered with cross-stripes or Parisians were forced to go to bed at 11 p.m. and ladies to hide their evening gowns and chinchillas in their closets. Whatever happens “Paris will always be Paris“. It is worth noting that the song was composed by Kazimierz (“Casimir“) Oberfeld - Polish composer of many Polish and French revue hits of the 1920s/30s working in France. Born in 1903 in Łódz as a son of financier Roman Oberfeld and poetess Olga Heryng, at the age of 20 he found himself on further musical studies in Paris. There he made contact with the music publisher Salabert. He began publishing dance and revue hits and soon became a sought-after author whose songs were sung by top French performers including Josephine Baker, Mistinguette and Chevalier. He also presented many of these songs in the Warsaw revue theaters under Polish titles, where they gained great popularity too, such as foxtrot “Więcej gazu!” (More Speed!) or “Klejnoty” (Jewels) He also composed for film, including music for the first French sound movie. After the German attack on France in June 1940, Oberfeld managed to escape to the Vichy zone, where he stayed until 1943, living at the Hotel d’Angleterre in Nice. Denounced as a Jew, he was taken to a camp for Jews in Drancy by Paris and from there to Auschwitz, where he died shortly before the end of the war, during the infamous evacuation of the camp in Winter of 1945. Ufortunately, not only for the author of this charming song, the war turned out to be something much worse than “putting evening clothes in the closet“ and going to bed at 11 p.m.