Boris Vian (1920-1959) is mostly famous as a writer, and rightfully so. If you’ve never read at least one novel by him, I encourage you to do it. But apart from that, he tried pretty much every art, from theater to paintings, from poetry to songs. Talking about songs, he wrote several hundreds of songs, sung either by himself or by other people (Magali Noël, Henri Salvador…). In these songs, you can find the same humor and the same sense of absurdity as in his novels. But even though Boris Vian had no specific political commitment, he was globally a libertarian, deeply pacifist, and didn’t really like the police nor the army, which can be found in some of his songs. His most famous song Le Déserteur, that was a success (and a scandal) in France, was then covered by many people, especially Joan Baez after the Vietnam War. And last thing, he was a huge jazz fan (and loved playing the trumpet), and he had a big role in the introduction of jazz in France : he wrote many things about this music and was considered as one of the best jazz connoisseurs in France at the time. He also sort of played a part (without really wanting it) in the introduction of rock and roll in France (see the article about Rock and Roll Mops or Blouse du Dentiste).
[More about him on Wikipedia]
Songs he sung himself :
- J’suis snob
- Le déserteur
- Je bois
- La complainte du progrès
- On n’est pas là pour se faire engueuler
- La java des bombes atomiques
Songs by him that someone else sung :
- Magali Noël : Fais moi mal, Johnny
- Henri Salvador : Faut rigoler
- Henri Salvador : Rock and roll mops
- Henri Salvador : Blouse du dentistes
- Serge Reggiani : Arthur, où t’as mis le corps ?
French Music into English 