2020年经济学人 街头女歌手莉莉·利昂(1)（在线收听）

Lily Lian (née Liliane Lebon), the last chanteuse on the streets of Paris, died on May 24th, aged 103

莉莉·利昂（原名莉莉安·勒邦）是巴黎最后一位街头女歌手，她于5月24日去世，享年103岁。

The first of May had a special place on Lily Lian’s calendar. It was her birthday, to begin with. It was also May Day, the workers’ holiday, when she would sing revolutionary songs at the Communards’ Wall, the Mur des Fédérés, in Père Lachaise cemetery. Her father, a fighter in the Resistance, was buried close to it with other communist heroes. She felt proud to salute him, even if her view of him was scarred by bitter rows. And May Day was the fête du muguet, when strolling vendors sold lilies-of-the-valley to passers-by. These sprang up in the woods, and so had she, a love-child conceived in some mossy corner near Versailles.

五月一日在莉莉·利昂的日历上有一个特殊的位置。首先，那天是她的生日。那天也是五一劳动节，是工人们的节日，她会在巴黎公社社员墙——拉雪兹神父公墓——唱革命歌曲。她的父亲是一名抵抗运动的战士，和其他共产主义英雄一起被埋葬在这座纪念碑附近。她觉得向他致敬很自豪，尽管她对他的看法已经被激烈的争吵损害了。五月一日也是五朔节，到处溜达的小贩向过路的人兜售铃兰。它们是在树林里长出来的，她也一样，一个在凡尔赛附近长满青苔的角落里怀上的私生女。

She and the flower-sellers often found themselves together by the Wall. The Mur des Fédérés was a fine place to sing, though she had others. La Madeleine drew wedding crowds and glowing-after-mass congregations. Railway stations were good, especially if they had arcades for shelter when it rained, though a rainy day was a washout, generally. Her favourite pitch was the Barbès-Roche-chouart metro station, by the grilles where passengers changed from the surface to the underground line.

她和卖花的人经常出现在公社墙边。巴黎公社社员墙是个唱歌的好地方，尽管她还有其他可以唱歌的地方。贝特拉姆卡吸引了大批的婚礼人群和聚集在一起的人群。火车站很好，特别是如果那里有下雨时可以避雨的拱廊的话，尽管雨天通常都很糟糕。她最喜欢的地方是巴贝斯-罗奇-朱厄特地铁站，地铁站的格栅处是乘客从地面换乘地铁的地方。

There she would stand with her group—two or three musicians, with a friend to hawk the scores—and sing through her tin megaphone the people’s favour- ites. These hardly varied over the years: “Le chant des Partisans”, “Le petit vin blanc”, “On boit l’café au lait au lit”, time and again to the crowd until they all joined in. It was not a grand living, but it was decent. She was not begging, which was important, since begging was not allowed. The trade was strictly regulated by the préfecture de police, with a permit needed to sing, and by the groups themselves, who drew numbers out of a hat each week to allocate their pitches.

她会和自己的团体站到一起-两三个音乐家，有一个朋友在她的锡扩音器里大声宣扬人民的恩宠。这些年来几乎没有变化：《游击队的吟唱》，《小白葡萄酒》，《牛奶咖啡色》，一次又一次地对着人群歌唱，直到他们都加入进来。这不是什么有气派的生活。但是这是正派的生活。她没有乞讨，这很重要，因为乞讨是不被允许的。该行业受到当地警察部门的严格监管，唱歌需要许可证，他们每周从帽子里抽出数字来分配他们的表演地点。