Autumn Leaves

The French rendition, ‘Les Feuilles Mortes‘, portrays a melancholic love tale where the vocalist yearns for a long-lost love. The singer reminisces about their joyous days together and draws a poignant analogy between their bygone romance and fallen leaves whisked away by the northern breezes, with the sea washing away their paired footprints from the sandy shores.

This line suggests “I deeply desire for you to remember“. ‘Se souvenir‘ is an action word indicating the act of ‘recalling’ or ‘remembering’. The phrasing of this line employs the subjunctive mood, commonly used in French to convey desires, feelings, and uncertainties.

This line conveys the sentiment of “joyful times when we were friends“. In the phrase, “Nous étions” stems from the verb ‘être‘ (meaning ‘to be’) and is presented in the imperfect tense. The imperfect tense in French mirrors the English concept of “used to”, illustrating actions from an unspecified past.

Simply put “In those days life was more beautiful.”

Our interpretation of this line reads “And the sun hotter than it is today“. The French verb ‘brûler‘ can be rendered as ‘to burn’ or ‘to blaze’. Alternatives for ‘brûlant‘ could be “blazing” or perhaps “shining”.

This line posed the greatest challenge in translation for the entire piece. The verb ‘ramasser‘ is synonymous with ‘to pick’ or ‘to gather’. The reflexive form “se ramasser” indicates a passive action, translating to “are gathered”. The phrase “À la pelle“ can be directly translated to “with a shovel”. So, a fitting translation for the line might be: “The fallen leaves are gathered with a shovel”.

This line can be understood as “See, I haven’t forgotten”. ‘J’ai oublié‘ utilizes the compound past tense of the verb ‘oublier‘, signifying ‘to forget’.

We interpret this line as “The northern wind carries them away“. Here, ‘emporter‘ in the context of wind suggests ‘to carry away’. The pronoun “les” serves as a reference to the dead leaves.

In the cold night of oblivion (it could mean forgetting in this case)

This line conveys “The song you’d sing to me”. Here, ‘chanter‘ is cast in the imperfect tense, akin to the English “used to”. The term “que” acts as a relative pronoun, meaning “that”.

This one is an odd one to translate. We chose the rendition “It’s a song that is like us“. The verb ‘ressembler‘ typically means ‘to mirror’ or ‘to resemble’. Here, “qui” doesn’t stand for ‘who’. Instead, in this phrase, “qui” serves as a relative pronoun, translating to “that”. The sentiment might have been clearer if the verb “rassembler” was used, which conveys ‘uniting’ or ‘gathering’. Hence, “C’est une chanson qui nous rassemble” can be translated as “It’s a song that unites us”.

This line reads “You, who loved me, and I, who loved you”. The terms ‘toi‘ and ‘moi‘ add emphasis to the pronouns “me” and “you”. In this context, “qui” translates to ‘who’. The verb ‘aimer‘ (meaning ‘to like’ or ‘to love’) is presented in the imperfect tense, capturing the essence of “used to”.

We simply translated this line to “We lived together“. In this sentence, the verb “vivre” (to live) appears in the imperfect, or “used to” tense. “Tous les deux“ translates to both and “both of us”. “Ensemble” means together.

This line signifies “Life often parts those in love“. The term ‘ceux‘ stands for ‘those’ or ‘those individuals’, functioning as a demonstrative pronoun. “S’aiment” is reflexive, indicating a mutual action, akin to “love one another”.

Our rendition of this line is “Gently, without a sound“. The term ‘doucement‘ has various interpretations, including ‘gently’, ‘softly’, ‘slowly’, ‘with care’, or ‘quietly’.

This line can be rendered as “And the waves wash away on the shores“. The French verb ‘effacer‘ captures actions such as ‘erasing’, ‘wiping clean’, or ‘clearing away’.

This line conveys the notion of “Footsteps of lovers grown apart“. While ‘pas’ in French is often used in negations (ne…pas), here, “pas“ denotes ‘stride’ or ‘footstep’.

This song appears in Volume 1 of the Real Book Software along with thousands of other jazz charts and standards along with original recordings, Band In a Box song files and multi-track MIDIs.

Click here to find out more about this incredible jazz resource.

You can also get several versions of Play Along Backing Tracks for this song, as well as the other songs found in the Real Book Volume 1.