Édith Piaf and Marcel Cerdan • Story Three
Passport
Teaser
Between Paris and New York lies an ocean. Between the two of them — nothing.
Night. The studio line is open. Tonight we speak of distance, of a song written for a living man, and of what remains after love.
Announcement
The third episode of the fantasy radio program “Night Call.” On the first evening we spoke of a woman who waited, on the second of one who was waited for. Tonight the conversation is about distance: Paris, New York, an ocean between them, and a song written for a living man. Not a biography, but a story about what remains after love. Listeners on the phone share what they felt.
About the project
“All About Love” is a literary project by Iskandar Kadyrov about the most mysterious of human feelings. Here, love is not a story with a happy or a tragic ending, but a particular state that one day changes everything around us: time, space, the person, even a voice and memory. Each episode brings two people, one story, and the moment when love becomes a part of great human culture.
- Project: “All About Love”
- Format: a fantasy late-night radio broadcast with a host and live listener calls.
- Author of the idea and rights holder: Iskandar Kadyrov
- Age rating: 18+
- Story Three: Édith Piaf and Marcel Cerdan
- Genre: Literary radio drama-essay
Teaser
Between Paris and New York lies an ocean. Between the two of them — nothing.
Night. The studio line is open. Tonight we speak of distance, of a song written for a living man, and of what remains after love.
Announcement
The third episode of the fantasy radio program “Night Call.” On the first evening we spoke of a woman who waited, on the second of one who was waited for. Tonight the conversation is about distance: Paris, New York, an ocean between them, and a song written for a living man. Not a biography, but a story about what remains after love. Listeners on the phone share what they felt.
About the project
“All About Love” is a literary project by Iskandar Kadyrov about the most mysterious of human feelings. Here, love is not a story with a happy or a tragic ending, but a particular state that one day changes everything around us: time, space, the person, even a voice and memory. Each episode brings two people, one story, and the moment when love becomes a part of great human culture.
Édith Piaf and Marcel Cerdan
Good evening, or rather good night, dear listeners.
The third episode of “Night Call.” On the first evening we spoke of a woman who waited. On the second, of one who was waited for. Tonight, the conversation is about distance. The studio line is open, the lamp above the microphone is burning, and it seems the first call is already here. Good night, you are on the air.
— Good evening. So what is tonight about?
— About distance.
— That’s a sad subject.
— Depends on what kind of love.
Distance comes in different kinds. There is the kind measured in meters: a room, a street, a boxing ring. And there is the kind measured in oceans.
Imagine a woman who is used to being listened to by thousands. Small, fragile, with a voice that fills any hall. And a man used to things being settled face to face, within a few meters of a ring. Strong and sparing with words. Between them, Paris and New York. Between them, letters.
Édith Piaf and Marcel Cerdan. A singer and a boxer.
They met in New York, in the late forties. Love came to them at not the easiest of times: he had a family, and they had to love in difficult circumstances and across two cities.
In early 1949, Piaf fitted out a house for their love in Boulogne-Billancourt, and there she wrote the words of a song. The music for them was composed by Marguerite Monnot. You know this song too. It is called “Hymne à l’amour,” “Hymn to Love.”
The fourteenth of September, 1949. New York, the Versailles cabaret. They say she stood in a circle of light with her eyes lifted. And for the first time there sounded a song that the whole world would come to know.
We are used to hearing a farewell in it. But that evening it was something else. It was a declaration addressed to a man who was alive. On the other side of the ocean, but alive.
If you have ever loved from afar, if you have waited for a letter, a call, a plane, call us. I would love to hear not the history of the stage but what you felt.
I think that is a call. Good night, you are on the air.
— Good evening… I once lived for a year with a person in a different city. You know how that love differs from the ordinary kind? It says more. We wrote to each other every day, and I still remember those letters better than many conversations. Distance somehow makes you tell the truth. When you can’t simply embrace, you have to find words.
Thank you. I think you have said the main thing.
And here is another call. Good night.
— Good evening. I see this story differently. I think the most important thing is that the song was not written afterwards. We all got used to thinking: she wrote it out of grief. But no. She wrote it while he was alive. It is a declaration, not a farewell. And such declarations deserve more care. They have to be said in time.
You are right. In time. Thank you.
Six weeks remained until his flight.
On the twenty-eighth of October, Cerdan was flying from Paris to New York, to her. The plane never reached New York: over the Azores, there was a catastrophe.
Here many tellings of their story end. But our episode is not about that ending.
On the second of May, 1950, Piaf recorded this song. The very one she had first sung while he was alive. Millions of people heard it afterwards, and each recognized in it their own story.
The telephone is ringing. Good night, you are on the air.
— Tell me… did he hear this song?
I would like to think that he did. It was written for him, after all. Not in memory of him, and not after he was gone, but for a living man whom she loved.
And the song remained.
And I am left with one question. If a person has once become the whole world to you, what exactly separates you when an ocean lies between you?
I don’t know. But I still think…
There was an ocean between them. And still, they were together.
This was Night Call. May the warm light of Parisian street lamps stay in your memory. Good night.
The third episode of “Night Call.” On the first evening we spoke of a woman who waited. On the second, of one who was waited for. Tonight, the conversation is about distance. The studio line is open, the lamp above the microphone is burning, and it seems the first call is already here. Good night, you are on the air.
— Good evening. So what is tonight about?
— About distance.
— That’s a sad subject.
— Depends on what kind of love.
Distance comes in different kinds. There is the kind measured in meters: a room, a street, a boxing ring. And there is the kind measured in oceans.
Imagine a woman who is used to being listened to by thousands. Small, fragile, with a voice that fills any hall. And a man used to things being settled face to face, within a few meters of a ring. Strong and sparing with words. Between them, Paris and New York. Between them, letters.
Édith Piaf and Marcel Cerdan. A singer and a boxer.
They met in New York, in the late forties. Love came to them at not the easiest of times: he had a family, and they had to love in difficult circumstances and across two cities.
In early 1949, Piaf fitted out a house for their love in Boulogne-Billancourt, and there she wrote the words of a song. The music for them was composed by Marguerite Monnot. You know this song too. It is called “Hymne à l’amour,” “Hymn to Love.”
The fourteenth of September, 1949. New York, the Versailles cabaret. They say she stood in a circle of light with her eyes lifted. And for the first time there sounded a song that the whole world would come to know.
We are used to hearing a farewell in it. But that evening it was something else. It was a declaration addressed to a man who was alive. On the other side of the ocean, but alive.
If you have ever loved from afar, if you have waited for a letter, a call, a plane, call us. I would love to hear not the history of the stage but what you felt.
I think that is a call. Good night, you are on the air.
— Good evening… I once lived for a year with a person in a different city. You know how that love differs from the ordinary kind? It says more. We wrote to each other every day, and I still remember those letters better than many conversations. Distance somehow makes you tell the truth. When you can’t simply embrace, you have to find words.
Thank you. I think you have said the main thing.
And here is another call. Good night.
— Good evening. I see this story differently. I think the most important thing is that the song was not written afterwards. We all got used to thinking: she wrote it out of grief. But no. She wrote it while he was alive. It is a declaration, not a farewell. And such declarations deserve more care. They have to be said in time.
You are right. In time. Thank you.
Six weeks remained until his flight.
On the twenty-eighth of October, Cerdan was flying from Paris to New York, to her. The plane never reached New York: over the Azores, there was a catastrophe.
Here many tellings of their story end. But our episode is not about that ending.
On the second of May, 1950, Piaf recorded this song. The very one she had first sung while he was alive. Millions of people heard it afterwards, and each recognized in it their own story.
The telephone is ringing. Good night, you are on the air.
— Tell me… did he hear this song?
I would like to think that he did. It was written for him, after all. Not in memory of him, and not after he was gone, but for a living man whom she loved.
And the song remained.
And I am left with one question. If a person has once become the whole world to you, what exactly separates you when an ocean lies between you?
I don’t know. But I still think…
There was an ocean between them. And still, they were together.
This was Night Call. May the warm light of Parisian street lamps stay in your memory. Good night.
2026 © Iskandar Kadyrov • All rights reserved • RU / EN (18+)
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