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Podriá 'nar gitar las vachas ame vosautres?
Traditional folk songs have stupid lyrics. Are we agreed? No one will argue that Camptown ladies singing this song (doo dah, doo dah) or hats with feathers in them called Macaroni (is the hat or the feather Macaroni?) are lyrical masterpieces, I hope, but I don't think we really think about that while we're singing them.
I've checked out from the library one of the volumes of Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne, orchestral arrangements of Auvergnat folk songs, sung in the original Auvergnat language by Kiri Te Kanawa. You may know "Baïléro", the most famous of the songs, which is very beautiful and is about (like most of the songs) horny shepherds and shepherdesses calling to each other.
Much to my amusement, there is a lyrics booklet with the Auvergnat lyrics, but also their English, French and German translations. Listening to pretty music and operatic-style singing, you would never really realize that when you heard lines like "Quond onorèn o lo fièïro, ié!", what the lyrics actually meant were:
When we go to the fair, hey!
When we go to the fair, ho!
We shall both go, Anthony,
we shall both go!
We shall buy a cow, hey!
We shall buy a cow, ho!
We shall both buy it, Anthony,
we shall both buy it!
But the cow will be mine, hey!
But the cow will be mine, ho!
The horns will be yours, Anthony,
the horns will be yours!
srah - Monday, 20 January 2003 - 5:19 PM
Tags: assistantship, music
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