Georges Brassens - Autographed Song

Georges Brassens (1921–1981), French author, composer, and performer.
Autograph manuscript of the song "Le Revenant" (The Ghost). No place or date; 1 1/4 pages, quarto, on graph paper with binder holes in the margins, but not affecting the text.
This manuscript was rediscovered for one of the last songs Brassens did not have time to record before his death on October 29, 1981.
The song "Le Revenant" was set to music and performed by Jean Bertola in 1982, and later by Maxime Le Forestier. The manuscript has been copied with some erasures and corrections added in the margins. Brassens, a perfectionist as always, spent considerable time revising his lyrics until he achieved the desired version. Once again, unusually, we see that the poet did not obtain in this version what would become the final version; some verses in this draft were not included in the final song, as well as some lines that were reworked. "Calm, comfortable, inhabited by people full of kindness, such was the beautiful little cemetery where he had his grave. As he could not resign himself to having passed from life to death, a whim seized him to go back, a real idiot's idea. The old dead, the old people lie here, the brave whitewashed sepulchers, so that he would return to his mad decision, spoke in vain, putting his skeleton back on its feet, giving it a bit of a makeover. He took his coat, his cane, and his hat, and the key to the resting place. Having returned home, his dog did not recognize him and crunched one of the most important bones in two bites. To appease his emotion, he thought of making a libation in the alcove having He penetrated, he saw that his grieving widow had established her widowhood complete. Someone in her bed. He understood at first glance that she was no longer in mourning. So, unhappy, wavering in his faith, he died a second time. The gossipy old woman at the crack of dawn gathered the bones lying about and sold them for a pittance to some medical students. And since then, this corpse, to the tune of an old melody, to kill time, to distract himself from his worries, sings, "Ah, how bored we are here, piling people up, leading people and people to the fields of turnips. I ended up being friends with the gravediggers. I'm proud of it, by the way. Through them, I learned the epic of this illustrious corpse, who, in an amphitheater or to the tune of an old saw, sang (...) 'Dead, if you return to earth, to see that the rectory no longer has its charm and that the garden has lost all its splendor.'"