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Happiness of Marriage

from M​é​m​è​re & Me by Robert Sylvain

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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Both French and English versions of a dozen Acadian folksongs from Maine in a double CD wallet, shrinkwrapped.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mémère & Me via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $25 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

     

  • Buy the Full Digital Album

  • Sheet Music + Digital Album

    70-page spiral-bound songbook with professionally scored vocal sheet music of all 12 songs with melody, chords, lyrics, translations, notes and sources, plus photostats of pages from the original notebook.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Mémère & Me via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $39 USD or more 

     

about

This hilarious ditty was immediately recognized by Lisa Ornstein from the Archives Acadiennes at UMaine Fort Kent. Mme. Ornstein had previously transcribed it from a field recording held in the Archives that was a “parlor ballad melody” sung in “free rhythm.” My first read of the melody drove me toward a swing jazz interpretation that now seems inexorable.
The lyrics present a classic Acadian twist on a theme of young love. The husband in the story describes his eighteen-year old bride’s dark hair and dark eyes, but in the end their youngest children all have golden hair, which leads to the advice for young women in the last verse: “wait until you’re twenty.” This is one of at least three references to marrying too young in this collection, perhaps reflecting the fact that Elisa was married at the age of sixteen!

lyrics

When I used to hang around the town I’d go wherever girls went
That would often take me down around By the sacred convent
There I saw a girl so pretty
Dark brown eyes shining at me Cheeks of rose and hair of ebony She was only eighteen.
One night by the light of the full moon We took a walk together
Down the lovely path of greenery
And down a path so tender
I won’t say she was immodest Certainly she was a chaudasse
There we lay beneath an old oak tree That’s when I made a promise
And today that very girl’s my wife
My heart is even fonder
I love her with the wholeness of my life With a love profonde
Oh the happiness of marriage
We have got all that we could want
But the youngest of our children all Have hair of golden blonde
All you younger girls who live in town Don’t rush out too quickly
before you go ahead and settle down Wait until you’re twenty.
That’s the age that all young fillies Appreciate more definitely
The happiness of having family The peace and the tranquility

credits

from M​é​m​è​re & Me, released August 15, 2020
Robert Sylvain, vocals
Steve Muise - fiddle, foot percussion
David Surette - guitar
Neil Pearlman - piano
Steve Roy - bass
Per Hanson - drums

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Robert Sylvain Portland, Maine

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