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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.
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      $25 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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      $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
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about

The earliest version I was able to find of this classic complainte was in a 1901 book of traditional songs kept by the Swiss Folklore Archive. Collected from then 78 year-old Sergent- major A. Mouche from Porrentruy, the author identified the song as being sung in the “patois de Miécourt” a dialect of the Jurassiens from the French-Swiss border. Very similar lyrics and melody show up on a vinyl compilation of francophone folksong released in Paris in 1972 as sung by Christian Gour'han with Jean-Pierre Chevais on hurdy-gurdy. This version is sung in a chant- like récitatif with the drone of the hurdy-gurdy providing a suspended cadence. Several other versions have surfaced including two different melodies described in the voluminous Chansons d’Acadie under the title, “Le Galant et la Belle Morte,” and also a unique but clearly related version titled “Le Deuil d’Amour” by the great Breton group Malicorne.
In this version, after the dialogue between the young man and his dying lover, the mother of the boy appears to console her son by pointing out that there are many other girls, including the daughter of the president. His response is almost as strange as her suggestion. In my translation I decided to simplify the character list and have the dying maiden make the odd suggestion.

lyrics

I woke myself
More morning than the moon My girl to see
The one I loved so dear
Since the age of fourteen years
When I arrive
Three quick little taps - - -
Open the door
If you do love me true
’Tis your lover who has come to you
How can you say
That I should come to you
I am unwell
Lying in my bed
Will I live or will I die I cannot tell
Darling you must go
Bring the doctor from London Make haste, make haste!
Let us tarry not
And perhaps it is not too late
The doctor comes
The girl has not yet passed
But she withdraws
Her pallid hand from her death bed To say farewell to her dear friend
Dearest one if you love me
You would light for me a candle
And you’d stay
The night here close to me
Since my heart’s only desire is for you
Oh don’t you cry
Dearest one you know there are
So many girls
There are blondes and there are brunettes And the daughter of the president
I’m sure that would be best
If I but had a proper shirt
To be married in
Then I’m sure I would say yes To the daughter of the president

credits

from M​é​m​è​re & Me, released August 15, 2020
Robert Sylvain, vocals
Betsy Hooper, hurdy-gurdy

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Robert Sylvain Portland, Maine

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