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.
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about
Here’s another that I found scouring the hundreds of ballads in Fr. Chiasson’s eleven volume set from UMoncton, which I was able to purchase thanks to a grant from the Maine Arts Commission. If only the concordance had an index of first lines, I would have found it sooner, since Mémère obviously titled many of the ballads that way. Translating this one was a treat because of the unusual rhyming structure, and for the dark comedy woven between the text and the lilting melody that comes to the kind of bizarre conclusion that I’ve come to associate with these epic Acadian complaintes.
lyrics
I was left without that love of mine Abandoned and alone for quite some time Just to be with the others in his regiment Off to the war my lover went away
He left me here to wait in abandonment Waiting alone for to count the days
It came to be that after time was spent
I took myself away to the convent
Off to a home for poor orphan souls Reconciled to spend my life languishing Such suffering is all in the telling
I would never see my lover again
Five or six or seven months had past
When my dear love returned at last
Straight to the home of my father
Out of respect to ask for his consent
“Good day my father, where is your daughter? The one who doth make my heart content?”
The gallant soldier hastened like the wind To the door of the convent
There he asked the mother superior
Oh to speak, for one moment
Oh let me please mother superior
Speak to the one who makes my heart content
Three times over said the beau young lad “Ma chère belle, give to me your hand This gold ring I give to you, my lover This is to show you my eternal faith Never oh never will I love another
So may you never forget this day”
Just as the ring of gold had caught my eye My dear lover suddenly died
Into the arms of his swooning lass
Sad for to see my lover come to pass
One last embrace, even after death So I may I know your tenderness
credits
from Mémère & Me,
released August 15, 2020
Robert Sylvain, vocals,
Steve Muise - fiddle,
Nicole Rabata - flute,
Junior Stevens - accordion
David Surette - cittern,
Steve Roy - arco bass
Per Hanson - bass drum, cymbals
Rob Duquette - marching snare
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