Le Déserteur (song)
"Le Déserteur" is an anti-war song written by the French poet and musician Boris Vian. It was first performed on the day of the decisive French defeat in the First Indochina War on May 7, 1954. The song was sung by Marcel Mouloudji on that day in concert, and he recorded it a week later. However, its sale and broadcast were forbidden by the French national radio committee until 1962.
The first translation was in 1956 into Esperanto. It was later translated into German, English, Italian, Swedish, Dutch, Polish, Welsh, Catalan, Danish, Spanish and many other languages. The song was recorded in French by Peter, Paul & Mary in 1966 and by Esther & Abi Ofarim for their album 2 In 3 in 1967. "The Deserter" was one of four Vian songs translated into English and released as a 1983 EP by New Zealand musician Bill Direen, using the pseudonym "Feast of Frogs".
In the United States, Joan Baez sang it during the Vietnam War.
The song is in the form of a letter to the French president from a man explaining his reasons for refusing the call to arms and becoming a deserter: in it, he explains that he wants nothing to do with war as he has seen his father die, his brother leave never to return, his children cry and his mother dies of sorrow. He also explains that he does not want to "kill poor people", that he has lost everything he loved already and he would rather become a beggar and a peace activist, telling people not to obey, not to engage in war, and to refuse to leave when they are drafted.
In the late 1970s, the song was covered by nuclear protesters in Brittany, as a direct apostrophe to the fierce pro-nuclear French president Giscard d'Estaing in the Plogoff struggle.
A stanza of the song appears in Thomas Pynchon's novel V..
Several parts of the song were altered by Boris Vian at the request of and in collaboration with Marcel Mouloudji, who was the only singer willing to record it. The biggest change is in the last stanza. In the original version, the deserter has a weapon and intends to defend himself against the forces of law if they pursue him. In the version of Mouloudji he promises to be unarmed and be ready to die if pursued. The following is the altered French stanza and its English translation:
The resulting version, in spite of its pacifist leaning, was banned from 1954 to 1962 from public broadcast.