Charles Trenet

Trenet wrote both words and music for close to a thousand songs across a career of more than sixty years, among them “Boum!” and “Nationale 7.” “La Mer” is his most travelled composition; Albert Lasry is credited alongside him on the music. Trenet recorded it himself in 1946, on Columbia, the year after Gerbeau’s version and the year the song was published by Les Editions Raoul Breton. Jack Lawrence (1912-2009) supplied the English lyric that turned an ode to the sea into a love song.