has anyone else noticed how MEAN the song "Alouette" is?!?

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THIS SEEMINGLY TWEE FRENCH SING-A-LONG IS ABOUT TORTURING CUTE LITTLE BIRDIES!!!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:03 (twenty-one years ago)

the republicans are RIGHT ... the french are SICK DASTARDLY PEOPLE!

― Freedom Fries OMGWTF!!! (llamasfur), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:04 (twenty-one years ago)

French lyrics and English translation available from your friends at the National Institutes of Health:

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/alouette.htm

Loving the instrumental of the song that plays on the page as well, especially the garbage-can-lid synth-cymbals.

― m.e.a. (m.e.a.), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:26 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, and the site seems to argue that the bird is, in point of fact, dead. That could just be government propaganda, though.

― m.e.a. (m.e.a.), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:31 (twenty-one years ago)

I thought it had a sexual meaning.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:37 (twenty-one years ago)

You're thinking of that Singing Nun song, "Dominique."

― m.e.a. (m.e.a.), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:46 (twenty-one years ago)

I clicked it off when it changed keys, but kept imagining Bob Marley on vocal.

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:51 (twenty-one years ago)

That's funny, I was just thinking today that it'd be fun to teach "Alouette" to my 2nd grade students when I go back on track in January. Maybe I'll do "Chanson d'Amour" instead. RRRRRRaht-ta-da-ta-da.

― Titsy Borgnine (Arthur), Friday, 19 November 2004 04:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Do the kids call you titsy?

― jim wentworth (wench), Friday, 19 November 2004 05:14 (twenty-one years ago)

No, they usually just mispronounce my last name and call me "Mr. Birdman".

― Titsy Borgnine (Arthur), Friday, 19 November 2004 05:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Do you have a show on radio, Birdman? Sorry.

― the music mole (colin s barrow), Friday, 19 November 2004 05:27 (twenty-one years ago)

That's weird. I know another version of Alouette where the subject of the song was an ugly girl ("Alouette, how I love your two crossed eyes...") instead of a dead bird. I heard it on a school holiday...

― Chriddof (Chriddof), Friday, 19 November 2004 07:36 (twenty-one years ago)

French in writing song about cooking shocker.

― Colin Meeder (Mert), Friday, 19 November 2004 10:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Is it as mean as, say, "Ring Around The Rosy" (which basically translates as: "ner ner ne ner ner, you've got bubonic plague and you're going to die a horrible death") or "Oranges And Lemons" (which explains to children that if they borrow money and can't pay it back first of all they'll be thrown in prison; and then, if they still can't pay it, they'll have their heads chopped off)?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 November 2004 10:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorry to call you out on this one, but "Ring Around the Rosy" being about the plague is the stuff of urban legend...

http://www.snopes.com/language/literary/rosie.htm

</pedant>

― ledge (ledge), Friday, 19 November 2004 11:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually, although there certainly are dissenting views, it's not quite at all clear-cut either way.

http://www.rhymes.org.uk/ring_around_the_rosy.htm

[/also pedant]

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 November 2004 11:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Pedant fight: I believe the main point in the UL page is that the first written version of the rhyme dates from 1881, and it seems highly unlikely that children would have been singing it for 500 years - or even 200 years - without anyone writing it down.

― ledge (ledge), Friday, 19 November 2004 12:01 (twenty-one years ago)

The ".... version collected by Alice Gomme and published in the Dictionary of British Folk-Lore in 1898" is interesting 'though as either Ms. Gomme was getting "Ring Around The Rosy" confused with "Goosy Goosy Gander" (which incidentally is apparently about the Protestants hunting for priests hidden in priest-holes!) or both rhymes have their roots in perversions of the same source.

(x-post)

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 November 2004 12:08 (twenty-one years ago)

"Pedant fight: I believe the main point in the UL page is that the first written version of the rhyme dates from 1881, and it seems highly unlikely that children would have been singing it for 500 years - or even 200 years - without anyone writing it down."

I tend to think it then shoots it's own argument in the foot by demonstrating how many different variations on the theme had already come into existence by that time - clear evidence of an oral tradition.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 November 2004 12:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Before any other pedants point it out, yes, I lose pedant points for writing "it's" rather than "its"!

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 November 2004 12:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Also:

"Hey, diddle, diddle!
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon"

.... is a cautionary tale about the dangers of consuming too many of certain types of fungus that might be found in pastoral locations.

That is my theory, it is mine, and belongs to me and I own it, and what it is too.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 November 2004 12:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Whatever the origins of Ring Around the Rosy, how about those Three Blind Mice? The farmer's wife cuts off their tails with a carving knife, and the song seems to be encouraging the listeners to laugh at the fact! At least in Alouette, it looks like the bird will get eaten...

― Dr Benway (dr benway), Friday, 19 November 2004 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

"Mary Mary Quite Contrary" was about Mary Tudor: the "silver bells" were thumbscrews; the "cockleshells" were believed to be instruments of torture which were attached to the genitals; and the "Maids" 'maids' were a device for beheading people.

Also, "Wee Willy Winky" was about a notorious paedophile / flasher.

I may have just made one of these up.

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Friday, 19 November 2004 13:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes...a lot of children's songs and nursery rhymes were either insults to political figures of the day or really mean-spirited little ditties in general.

― Ian Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Saturday, 20 November 2004 01:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Speaking of French and English and nursery rhymes, anyone know Mots d'Heures: Gousses, Rames? It's kind of ingenious. And it takes all this hidden meaning stuff to wonderful new heights.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Saturday, 20 November 2004 06:36 (twenty-one years ago)

that "alouette" on the National Institutes of Health website is like the GREATEST THING EVAH!!!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 20 November 2004 12:44 (twenty-one years ago)

the instrumentation is great, indeed !
sounds like some macca backtrack !

― AleXTC (AleXTC), Saturday, 20 November 2004 14:27 (twenty-one years ago)

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