"La Vie en rose" is finally here!

I’m so excited to share that my arrangement of Edith Piaf’s “La Vie en rose” is finally available on all major streaming platforms! It’s been a unique journey to get this recording into the world, so I thought I’d share some about the creation of this arrangement and the process of getting it online.

Arranging

I started on this arrangement in late 2023. I knew I wanted to try my hand at a popular song, and “La Vie” just seemed like the perfect fit for the vocal style I wanted to emulate. I started by making a midi demo on my computer, mapping out the form of the song with fake drums, keyboard, and bass. After I had the form sketched out, I added scratch vocals (a placeholder I could use while adjusting the arrangement). From there, I could start arranging background vocals and tweaking the structure and harmony of the song.

This is my first time releasing music in a language other than English! While I’ve sung in Spanish for almost 20 years, it’s only in the past few years that I’ve added Portuguese, Italian, and French to the mix. I knew that for this song, I wanted to honor the original lyric by singing first in French, then in English. This impacted my background vocal arranging choices because when I sing in English, it often feels natural to have the background vocals echo the lead vocal on a lyric. You can hear this in the second half of the song, where the BGVs are sometimes on oohs and aahs, but often sing a sort of response lyric to the lead. My favorite instance of this is when the lead vocal sings, “and when you speak, angels sing from above,'“ and the background vocals reply with a cheeky, “hallelujah, amen.”

For the French chorus, it felt too risky to try to coordinate lyric pronunciation among the numerous background vocal tracks. Instead, I leaned into the romantic, lush, choral sound and opted for non-lyric background vocal lines. I also wanted the BGVs to build gently, letting the lead vocal shine before adding to much action in the background.

Recording

Once the arrangement was close to final, it was time to record my parts. I did two ukulele tracks first, so the mix engineer (Jon Estes) could choose the better take or use both and pan them for a fuller sound. Once I had my uke tracks done, I sent the song off to Katie Blomarz to record upright bass. She had access to my ukulele tracks (which appear in the final version), my scratch vocals, and my midi demo. Once her part was recorded, I added it to the Dropbox and sent things off to Micah Hulscher to record keys. He did several takes of Wurlitzer and accordion for me to choose from. We ultimately both agreed that the accordion felt like a great idea in theory, but didn’t fit the sound of the final product. When Micah was finished, it was Chris Leidhecker’s turn to add percussion. While I waited for each of these great musicians to record their parts, I recorded my final vocals from home.

I usually put off lead vocal recording til the very end of a project because I feel so much pressure to get it perfect, but this time I needed to tackle lead vocals so I could phrase my background vocals around the lead. I consulted with two French-speakers—Chris Watson, who taught my Chansons class at the Nashville Jazz Workshop a few years ago, and Laura Anglade, an incredible jazz vocalist from Quebec. With their feedback in mind, I did my best with the French lyric and tracked my lead vocals.

The final piece of the puzzle was my background vocals! Before sending things off to the other instrumentalists, I had arranged BGVs for the beginning and end, but didn’t have any vocals happening during the keyboard solo. I asked my husband for his opinion, and he agreed that it felt a little disjunct not to have some sort of background vocal during the solo, so I quickly recorded a very simple 2-part background vocal for that section. I was proud that I didn’t need to write anything out; I just kept it simple and intuitive, and I enjoy how that section turned out.

The song’s last stops were to Jon Estes, mixing engineer, and John McLaggan of Parachute Mastering, mastering engineer. I was elated to have the final version in my inbox! And then the fun started…

Distribution

For the last several years, I’ve used a website called DistroKid to deliver my recordings to online stores/streaming sites like Spotify, iTunes, etc. It’s very user-friendly, and relatively affordable. Most importantly for me, they handle cover song licensing quickly and affordably.

The challenge here was that DistroKid does not allow releases in multiple languages. I decided to give it a try anyway and see what happened. I submitted my song, credited the composers, and waited. Unfortunately, my cover song license was marked ‘rejected by HFA’ (Harry Fox Agency, one of the main groups that handles copyright/licensing today). No specific information was given, but I could guess the multiple language issue was probably to blame.

This sent me into a bit of a panic because I’ve never had to handle cover song licensing directly. When I taught on Patreon, I used public domain music so that I wouldn’t have to deal with copyright issues. I have become very educated on the limits of public domain, but when it comes to licensing copyrighted music, I have little idea where to start. The more I searched and tried to learn, the more confused I became.

Ultimately, the solution was relatively simple: “La Vie en rose” in French is one composition; “La Vie en Rose” in English is a separate composition (same composer, different lyricist). What I had was essentially a mash-up of two separate compositions. I had to secure a license for both of these compositions, which meant I had to use an online distributor that allowed you to secure your own license. I eventually landed on licensing through EasySong and distributing through CDBaby, though the details are still slightly confusing for me and there are limitations on the distribution—most annoyingly, it’s not available for use on Instagram like all my other songs (originals and covers) are.

I wanted to share about this process because I had such a hard time finding information about releasing a cover song in multiple languages. There is lots more specific info that I won’t bore you with, but if you’re someone scouring the information for help on how to legally release a cover song in multiple languages, I would love to chat. Send me a message and I’d be happy to share!

For now, I hope you’ll go listen to “La Vie en rose” on the streaming platform of your choice, or heck, buy it on iTunes! Ask your local coffee shop to add it to their rainy day playlist. Share it with a friend. Play it for your kid at bedtime. All of the above. Thank you so much for your support :)