{"id":1808,"date":"2016-07-17T07:00:04","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T11:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/?p=1808"},"modified":"2025-08-08T20:38:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T00:38:23","slug":"romance-jeux-interdits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/romance-jeux-interdits\/","title":{"rendered":"Romance (Jeux Interdits)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oDT49j7COhA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>From London, Rob and I took the ferry to France, then hitchhiked down the coast to Spain. It was slow going with two young men together, and in Zaragoza we gave up on that tactic and made our separate ways to M\u00e1laga &#8212; my way started with a driver who made a pass at me, then dumped me in the middle of the desert, where fantasies of dying of thirst were finally ended with a nice ride with a family en route to Madrid, where I spent a couple of days busking in the metro and got enough money to take a night train south.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1851 \" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/elijah-in-Spain-1978-by-Abbe-Kalos.jpg?resize=263%2C242&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"elijah in Spain 1978, by Abbe Kalos\" width=\"263\" height=\"242\" \/>By the time I reached M\u00e1laga I was in love with Spain, so I got a cheap apartment and enrolled in language school. Rob took a detour north, hoping to run away to sea, returned a month later after sundry adventures that belong in <em>his<\/em> memoir, and we buckled down to learning Spanish and got a job playing every other night in a bar in Torremolinos. It was called Maggie&#8217;s Farm, owned by an American biker named Bernie who worked doing underwater demolition in the North Sea during the summer and had used his savings to buy the bar for his English wife, Maggie.<\/p>\n<p>Spain is famously guitar country, and that winter included my first desultory attempts to pick up some classical and flamenco techniques. In later years these would involve learning a couple of pieces by Bach and a couple more by John Renbourn, none of which I remember, and an abortive attempt to trade blues guitar lessons for flamenco lessons, in which I learned just how terrifically skilled even a fairly good flamenco guitarist is, especially compared to me.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1810 size-full alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/metodo-para-guitarra.jpg?resize=250%2C343\" alt=\"metodo para guitarra\" width=\"250\" height=\"343\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/metodo-para-guitarra.jpg?w=250&amp;ssl=1 250w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/metodo-para-guitarra.jpg?resize=219%2C300&amp;ssl=1 219w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/>That first winter, my attempts centered on a book with some basic flamenco rhythms, directions on how to play a rasgueado, and some simple semi-classical pieces, of which I retain only &#8220;Romance.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I learned this because it was easy, and continued to perform it for the next few years for reasons arising from that fact &#8212; as &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/poor-howard-fandango\/\">Spanish Fandango<\/a>&#8221; became ubiquitous in the American South, &#8220;Romance&#8221; was ubiquitous in much of Europe, because even a novice guitarist could make it sound pretty. In particular, several generations of French teenagers embraced it as their cultural equivalent to &#8220;Stairway to Heaven&#8221; or &#8220;Blackbird&#8221; &#8212; it was the tune a sensitive, somewhat long-haired boy would play for a small circle of misty-eyed girls. (My wife, a French-American of the right generation, is so sick of this song that she flees the room if I even hint at playing it.)<\/p>\n<p>Like &#8220;Spanish Fandango,&#8221; this seems to have been composed as a beginner exercise sometime in the 19th century, perhaps by a Spanish guitarist named Antono Rubira. It was first recorded by another Spanish guitarist, Simon Ram\u00edrez, on a wax cylinder around 1900, and published and recorded several times over the next few decades.<\/p>\n<p>The Spanish classical guitarist Narciso Yepes somewhat confused this history in the 1950s by saying he had composed &#8220;Romance&#8221; for his mother in 1934 at age seven &#8212;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/jeux-interdits-LP.jpe\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1950\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1950 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/jeux-interdits-LP.jpe\" alt=\"jeux-interdits LP\" width=\"260\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/jeux-interdits-LP.jpe 260w, https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/jeux-interdits-LP-150x150.jpe 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a> which would be quite believable were it not for the earlier recording and manuscripts. In 1952 Yepes&#8217;s recording of the piece was the theme to Ren\u00e9 Cl\u00e9ment&#8217;s film <em>Jeux Interdits (Forbidden Games)<\/em>, which was an international success, hence the name by which it is known in France and generally throughout Northern Europe.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to know more, there is plenty on Wikipedia and elsewhere, because lyrics were composed to it, and it was sung by everyone from Mireille Mathieu to Miriam Makeba to Tom Jones, and played by everyone from Yepes to Eddie Vedder to\u00a0 Rob, who watched me play it a couple of times, then borrowed my guitar and played the first section back at me, though he didn&#8217;t play guitar &#8212; like they say, it ain&#8217;t brain surgery. (Though, God knows, Yepes played it a lot less clunkily than I do.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From London, Rob and I took the ferry to France, then hitchhiked down the coast to Spain. It was slow going with two young men together, and in Zaragoza we gave up on that tactic and made our separate ways to M\u00e1laga &#8212; my way started with a driver who made a pass at me, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/romance-jeux-interdits\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Romance (Jeux Interdits)<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Romance (Jeux Interdits) - Old Friends: A Songobiography<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/romance-jeux-interdits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Romance (Jeux Interdits) - Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"From London, Rob and I took the ferry to France, then hitchhiked down the coast to Spain. It was slow going with two young men together, and in Zaragoza we gave up on that tactic and made our separate ways to M\u00e1laga &#8212; my way started with a driver who made a pass at me, &hellip; Continue reading Romance (Jeux Interdits) &rarr;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/romance-jeux-interdits\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Friends: A Songobiography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-07-17T11:00:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-09T00:38:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/elijah-in-Spain-1978-by-Abbe-Kalos-300x276.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ElijahWald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Elijah Wald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/romance-jeux-interdits\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/romance-jeux-interdits\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Elijah Wald\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"headline\":\"Romance (Jeux Interdits)\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-07-17T11:00:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-09T00:38:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/romance-jeux-interdits\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":666,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/20e4f69f2f284ea0ff728a9d1b7720a9\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/romance-jeux-interdits\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2016\\\/07\\\/elijah-in-Spain-1978-by-Abbe-Kalos-300x276.jpg\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/romance-jeux-interdits\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.elijahwald.com\\\/songblog\\\/romance-jeux-interdits\\\/\",\"name\":\"Romance (Jeux Interdits) - 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As it happened, though, the summer after my year in New York I was back in Cambridge, planning to head to Europe\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"bo carter lp","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/bo-carter-lp.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1859,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/angie\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808,"position":2},"title":"Angie\/Anji (Bert Jansch\/Davey Graham)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 26, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the differences between the 1960s or 1970s and later decades was that there were a few basic guitar pieces that were pretty much universal. If you were a folk-blues player in the US, you knew \"Freight Train,\" \"Buckdancer's Choice,\" and Doc Watson's \"Deep River Blues.\" In Northern Europe,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/traum-book-236x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5890,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/he-went-to-paris\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808,"position":3},"title":"He Went to Paris (Jimmy Buffett)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"August 10, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"This may be my favorite Jimmy Buffett lyric, though I haven't tended to perform it (unlike \"Peanut Butter Conspiracy\" and \"Margaritaville,\" both of which have edged into my repertoire at times, and which I've covered in previous posts). I've mostly played it for myself, remembering old guys I knew in\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Eddie-Balchowsky.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1813,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/sporting-life-blues\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808,"position":4},"title":"Sporting Life Blues (hitting the road)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Rob and I finished our summer in Harvard Square with savings of about $700, and Freddie Laker had just started his budget flights to London from New York for $100, so we hitched down, caught a flight, and arrived in London with $500 between us and plans to spend the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"tom paley","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/tom-paley.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1770,"url":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/kokain\/","url_meta":{"origin":1808,"position":5},"title":"Kokain (Hannes Wader&#8217;s Cocaine Blues)","author":"Elijah Wald","date":"July 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Heading north from Spain for my first summer in Europe, one of my first stops was Liechtenstein, where I had an invitation to spend a few days with the family of a young woman named Ruth who I'd known in language school in M\u00e1laga. It's the only time I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Werner L\u00e4mmerhirt","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/Werner-L%C3%A4mmerhirt.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1808"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5891,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1808\/revisions\/5891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elijahwald.com\/songblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}