alouette
| I do believe this is one of several songs chanted by Canadian canoe men rowing to meter. Their skill was highly valued. I can imagine the song becoming more and more macabre with each stanza, one man imagining something horrible to pluck from a sky lark, thought of as perfectly acceptable to eat, something akin to pheasant. So there's that. Then the crew repeats the new line, and all this sung sweetly as a lullaby would eventually become too hilarious to contain, and risk toppling the canoe altogether. Since the French Canadians, lovely neighbors all, will not cease teaching this song to children, and they will not respond to our pleas, we must therefore coerce them into thinking that dropping the whole teach-the-world-this-song is their own idea. I suggest we pick up the melody, the whole call/response, but kick up the violence to an undesirable degree, enough to put them off the whole idea completely. First I nuke your salmon runs Then I cause your acid rain Salmon runs acid rain O-o-o-o-oh Alouetta, gentill alouetta All in good fun, of course, because we do adore each other dearly and would never mean to offend. |