REWIND

Don’t you hate it when you get a song stuck in your head? It can run on replay in your brain until you’re ready to scream. I find this especially heinous at 3 a.m. I finally gave up this morning and got out of bed at 5 hoping to get last night’s terrible tune, Alouette, to PLEASE STOP!!!!!

Thanks to the retailer, Target, this bouncy, little old French Canadian folk song has been accompanying an ad on TV with irksome frequency. It’s actually a pretty cute ad: a hot air balloon lands in a grey, winter-worn community. Dozens of colorfully clad characters emerge to whirl around paintbrushing drab, woolly citizens in bright pastel spring clothing. Then they hop back in the balloon and take off for the next dreary place to spread more of their vibrant magic.

We learned to sing Alouette in school; I think it was when I was in grade 4, which was the year Canada adopted French as the official second language.

Alouette. Gentille Alouette.

Alouette. Je te plumerai.

Je te plumerai la tête. Je te plumerai la tête.

Not sure why Alouette would have been chosen as the musical score for this ad’s mini-drama. The song is about plucking a bird. Apparently, alouette (“lark” in English) was on the menu in the olden days in French Canada; and je te plumerai, literally means “I will de-feather you.” An obscure connection if indeed there is one as the ad seems to suggest just the opposite. Never mind. It’s a catchy tune. And it lends itself well to singing in “call and repeat.” Ken and I sang it together at the breakfast table one morning this week:

Et la tête.

ET LA TÊTE.

 Alouette.

ALOUETTE.

(Together) OOOOOOH….Alouette, etc. etc.

The verses continue to denude the bird by le cou, le dos, les ailes, les pattes. OOOOH!

Our teachers likely intended the song to help us learn French pronunciation, but our Anglo accents made it more like: “jaunty allo-etta” and “jetty ploom-a-ray.” And of course, we had no idea what we were singing about – or at least I didn’t. It might have been a bit disturbing had we known.

Come to think of it we were taught all kinds of songs that made no sense to grade 4 kids. Like, What Will We Do With the Drunken Sailor (Earl-lie in the Mor-nin’?) and Rule, Britannia and Give Me Some Men Who are Stout Hearted Men and Valderie, Valdera (Valdera-ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha, my knapsack on my back.)

By our junior high years we had become worldly youth who listened to rock and roll. We held transistor radios up to our ears or hid them under our pillows so we could listen to late night radio programs without our parents knowing.  So, when I was in grade 8 and our school hired a freshly-minted, young music teacher, I thought maybe things were looking up! Maybe she would teach us cool songs by the Beatles or the Guess Who! It was not to be. She taught us show tunes.

I doubt that she ever actually went to Broadway to see shows; that would have been rare in those days; New York would have been considered adventure travel and certainly not part of our reality deep in Canada’s Prairie. No, we learned the songs from the movie LP soundtracks: Oklahoma and The Music Man.

Our teacher had a special fondness for Julie Andrews’ early body of work. In fact, I’m convinced she wished she WAS Julie Andrews.  She had the same short haircut and pert, upturned nose. She got a wistful, faraway look in her eye teaching us songs from Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. When we sang the love duet between Julie Andrews’ Maria and Christopher Plummer’s Captain Von Trapp, she got even dreamier. We disappeared from her consciousness as she gazed out the window perhaps imagining herself embraced in the Captain’s arms, her face turned toward his yearning for his kiss.

In spite of this childhood music training, I still love those musicals and know all the lyrics from about a dozen shows.  I’d certainly like one of them to take over at 3 a.m. when my brain is fixed on Alouette. Gentille alouette.

Do you have it on your brain's replay now? Sorry.