Left Bank in Song: Parisian history through lyrics and music

Song sheets, posters, records, and all that jazz ...

Apr 28, 2025

La rive gauche en chansons – The Left Bank in Song – was an evocative exhibition held in Paris from 10-28 April 2025. It offered a visual and artistic journey through the districts of the Left Bank – the Luxembourg Gardens, Montparnasse, Saint-Sulpice, and Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Each neighbourhood was brought to life, not just through historic images, but through the songs that once filled their cafés, theatres, churches, and dance halls. The exhibition presented a musical history from the 19^th century to the 1960s, through rare song sheets, records, posters, illustrated advertisements, and personal memorabilia.

Organized by Les Nautes de Paris, the exhibition reimagined the city’s quartiers through their popular music – linking each place to the songs, lyrics, and artists that defined it.

Romantic ballads and poetic serenades captured the leafy Luxembourg Gardens. They tell stories of students, artists, and lovers strolling through the park in all seasons.

The lyrics of the songs about Montparnasse, known for its wild artists, reveal chansonniers (songwriters) and cabaret singers in its cafés and streets. The songs tell tales of freedom, rebellion, love, and existential musings.

Songs of Saint-Sulpice, defined by its cathedral, demonstrate spirituality and the arts. Church music told of daily life of the religious while other songs from this district blend a sense of reverence with the simple, poignant emotions of the working class and the clergy.

By the mid-20th century, Saint-Germain-des-Prés had become the epicentre of intellectual and artistic life. Its jazz clubs and existential cafés created a new era of French songs combining traditional melodies with jazz influences. In this district, songs reflected melancholy, post-war freedom, and the promise of new beginnings.

Highlights from the exhibition included beautifully preserved vintage vinyl records from the early 20^th century, historic posters advertising performances in iconic Parisian venues, hand-written song lyrics and sheet music that reveal the creative process of Parisian composers, early record players and phonographs as part of Parisian households, and displays tracing the evolution of songs from cabaret ballads to Parisian jazz in the 1940s and 1950s.

The exhibition showed how the printed materials have become visual representations of the music.

The interesting facet of The Left Bank in Song exhibition was that the music mirrored the times and all their social changes, political protests, loves lost and won, and the dream of living a free, poetic life.

Through song, the history of Paris was preserved. It reminds visitors and locals that to understand Paris, they only need to listen to songs over the centuries.