Alouette, I Will *Not* Feather You...

In the car on the way home from Russian Math tonight, Ian suddenly announced, "I'll never sing Alouette again - now that I know the story behind it."

I was fortunate enough not to know the story behind it until this evening.  Apparently in Ian's music class at school, they feel compelled to tell the horrible back-stories behind things that we otherwise presume to be wholesome.  This makes me very glad that his class is too old for "Ring Around the Rosie".

But since I got to hear it, so does everyone else.  The story goes, that a francophone hunter was out in the wild and he somehow got separated from his party and ended up stranded, alone, with no food, for a day, when suddenly he saw a lark and became somewhat pragmatic in his contemplation of nature.  So he's going to eat this lark, but he feels bad about it, so he composes a song about how he's going to feather it - or de-feather it, it would seem - and he sings this lovely repetitive simplistic tune to his prospective lunch.  And apparently the "Ah-h-h-h-h" is not just a filler between verses, but it's him crying, because he doesn't want to kill it.

But somehow, as if for the first time ever coming out of that particular culture, there's an unexpectedly happy ending:  his fellow huntsmen find him and he doesn't end up eating the lark.

For me, that's all I need to know.  Birdy lives, all is well that ends well, no tragedy after all.

But Ian is more sensitive than me.  He considers the song sad, in spite of the fact that the story ends happily.

He was pleased to hear that I, too, don't like the song, but I hate it because of its cloying monotony, minimal structure, sorry-excuse-for-a-melody, and for the fact that it's a barbaric weapon in the ageless war of People Who Think They Speak French Because They Learned A Song In School, waged against everybody with any sense of taste.  Ian asked me if I could actually cite a well-written song:  my examples, after a mile or two of driving-and-thinking, were "Oh Canada," and "God Save the Queen"; it seems people get a bit more selective when they choose a national anthem.  Ian also had a few examples of good music:  Taio Cruz's "Dynamite," and "What Makes You Beautiful."  I didn't volunteer my critique of his latter selection...

I tried to share my perspective with Ian - really, I think it's okay as long as he didn't actually kill the bird - but not only did Ian strongly disagree - the song is sad regardless of the epilogue - but he, like the huntsman, shed tears then and there, in the back seat, just thinking about the whole thing.

And he told me that, while you might expect the girls to cry, but the girls generally just sang, while some of the boys cried in class.  I was surprised, and touched, to hear that boys in his class cried at the song.  It gives me hope for the next generation:  they're a good deal more sensitive than I am.

(April 2, 2013)