Lucienne Boyer in 1939. Studio Harcourt, public domain.

Parlez-moi d’amour

Is this the most romantic song ever recorded?

I’ve been listening to Lucienne Boyer’s recording of “Parlez-moi d’amour” (1930) on and off for about twenty-five years and have never grown tired of hearing it. I came to the song through a two-disk CD I bought of chansons françaises, the type of music performed in the cabarets and music halls of Paris over the first half of the 20th century. This was…