La Belle Fleur Sauvage

**"La Belle Fleur Sauvage"** is a song by Remy Fusil which spins a metaphor about a girl as a legendary wildflower. In *Alive From Whispering Pines*, Tubbs Tarbell alludes to knowing the muse for the song, but does not reveal her identity. It is likely Leigh Green, as her original stage name was Fleur and her first album was *Wildflower*. "La Belle Fleur Sauvage" is French for "The Beautiful Wildflower."

The song describes how men will risk their lives to see La Belle Fleur Sauvage, so unearthly is her beauty, and that those who look upon her desire her desperately. The singer wants to be the one to win her love for a lifetime so that they will share a grave. There are some interesting and specific details about La Belle Fleur Sauvage: "her colours change to match the passing of the days" and "ages come and go, but her life goes on the same, she lives to see the sun, and feel the wind, and drink the rain" which are likely poetic and hyperbolic, but make her seem like a legendary and immortal force of nature.

## Background and influences

Postcard XVII contains music that became "La Belle Fleur Sauvage" and includes related imagery and the lyrics "she lives to see the sun and feel the wind and drink the rain" in the caption.

The Strange Trails hotline included the fleur as a wildflower that is so beautiful that anyone who picks it will sit and stare at it until they die.

After the first verse, the song has a melodic reference to the recording of "Wildwood Flower" by the Carter Family. This old folk song describes a woman who, spurned by a man who said he loved her, vows to weave flowers through her hair and laugh through her heartbreak, charming every heart with her dancing, in order to make him "regret the dark hour when he won, then neglected, the frail wildwood flower."

In the film *Vide Noir*, Z'Oiseau reveals that he gave Green her stage name after the legend, claiming that seekers can never possess her or everything in their garden would wilt and die from shame.

## Annotated lyrics

The lyrics for *Strange Trails* were never officially released, these lyrics are a transcript:

What you're looking for won't be found easily

It grows upon the mountain in a sacred place

Up beyond the clouds, in ancient ground, so they say

And many men have died trekking up that way

Once he's gazed upon her, a man is forever changed

The bravest men return with darkened hearts and phantom pain

Ages come and go, but her life goes on the same

She lives to see the sun and feel the wind and drink the rain

Her colors change to mark the passing of the days

No earthly sight can match the beauty she displays

And when I die I want her lying by my side

In my grave, in my grave

I'd give it all to love that girl

I'll be the one to pluck that fleur

I'm meant to find the place where all good things begin

To smell her scent and watch her dancing in the wind

And when I die I want her lying by my side

In my grave, in my grave

I'd give it all to love that girl

I'll be the one to pluck that fleur

I'd give it all to love that girl

I'll be the one to pluck that fleur

## Potential lyrical references

1. ↑ Leigh Green's "Long Lost" - "Send me to the mountains, let me go free forever"
2. ↑ Buck Vernon's "Cursed" - "I don't know how to take my own life back, everything she touches turns to black"
3. ↑ "Secret of Life - "You told me you’re never gonna die"
4. ↑ Leigh Green's "Long Lost" - "Leave me in the tall-grown grass in a shallow grave"
5. ↑ Johnny Cash - "Pick the Wildwood Flower"
6. ↑ Leigh Green's "Long Lost" - "I'll be running through the forest, dancing in the fields like this"

## Sources

1. ↑ Strange Trails album label
2. ↑ Discogs - Wildflower
3. ↑ The Carter Family - Wildwood Flower
4. ↑ Wildwood Flower

"Love Like Ghosts" (Francine Lu)
"Until the Night Turns" (The Phantom Riders)
"Dead Man's Hand" (Buck Vernon)
"Hurricane (Johnnie's Theme)" (The Phantom Riders)

"**La Belle Fleur Sauvage**" (Remy Fusil)
"**Fool for Love**" (Buck Vernon)
"**The World Ender**" (The Phantom Riders)
"Meet Me in the Woods" (Francine Lu and Claude Fox)
"The Yawning Grave"

"Frozen Pines" (H.W. Justine)
"Cursed" (Buck Vernon)
"Way Out There"
"Louisa" (Buck Vernon)
"**The Night We Met**" (Francine Lu)