Hello, Patreon family!!
Just a quick reminder: we have TWO Livestream Concerts happening this Saturday, Aug 1, 2:30pm and 7:30pm EDT on Facebook Live. And following each concert, we’re hosting a live Zoom hangout exclusively for our patrons, so send us any questions you’ve been dying to ask (email Windborne@WindborneSingers.com or put them in the comments below!)
As you can imagine, it has been totally delightful for us to get back together and actually be able to SING in the same room, and our first two days have been remarkably productive! We wanted to share with you one of our newest works in progress that we are Very Excited about: Le Diable et Le Fermier, a Quebecois piece written by Nicolas Boulerice of Le Vent du Nord, one of the best Quebecois groups out there. Seriously, if you like Windborne’s Quebecois music, you have to check out Le Vent du Nord.
We’ve had our eye on this piece for many months now, because in addition to being a really excellent piece of music, the lyrics carry an extra punch. The text is a variation of the classic “deal with the devil” story, with a pointed twist: the devil makes a deal with a farmer, saying he will spare the farmer’s soul if he can take half the harvest of the crops that lie above ground. The farmer doesn’t have much choice but to agree; however, that year, he only plants root vegetables, and at harvest time the devil gets nothing. Not to be outsmarted, the devil says that the next year, he will take everything below-ground, so the farmer plants peas and melons and squash, and once again the devil is empty-handed.
But then the devil turns around and, obeying the letter of the law, drains the land of all its other resources — water, gas, and iron– leaving a barren wasteland in his wake with nothing but poisonous leaks of gas and tainted streams. The farmer is left forever condemned to boil the water for his child to drink — a not-so-subtle reference to the environmental degradation caused by the fracking industry.
Nicolas wrote this piece as a response to mining of shale gas in Quebec, but it’s a story that we’ve seen repeated in so many communities affected by fracking.
Our arrangement of this piece went in a new direction for us: for the first time ever, we are singing in both French and English within the same song. We felt that the intricacies of this story were so important that we didn’t want them to be conveyed to our largely Anglophone audience solely via a spoken translation during our introduction. It’s a bit of a mental acrobatic act to jump back and forth between languages every few lines, but we are pretty pleased with the direction this song is headed. This is a video of our second full run-through, which went well enough that we wanted to share it with you!
Below are the French and English lyrics we sing, and we’ve attached a pdf of the full original French lyrics if you’d like to see them.
Le Diable et Le Fermier
C’est l’histoire d’un diable, sortant tout droit des flammes
Promettant au fermier de lui laisser son âme
Our story starts in flame, a devil straight from hell
Who to a farmer swore to spare his mortal soul
If he’d divide and share the harvest he had sown
Half and half for each, that’s how the deal was drawn
À chacun sa moitié c’est une obligation
Le diable choisit pour que l’entente soit bonne
De garder ce qu’il reste sur la terre à l’automne
The devil chose his half, to sweeten up his haul
He’d take the part that lay above the ground in fall
The farmer he agreed, and planted straight away
Potatoes, carrots, beets, which beneath the ground all lay
Des patates des carottes véritables navets
Oh oh oh Oh who would trade their bounty?
Oh oh oh Les richesses de sa terre
Oh oh oh Who got the better deal?
Oh oh oh Du diable ou de l’homme
Quand arriva le temps d’échanger le butin
Le diable en maudit ne lui restait plus rien
When it was time in fall, to divvy up the spoils,
The devil’s share was naught, it caused his blood to boil
He to the farmer said, I’ll not be tricked again,
I’ll take the half below, see how you like it then
Prenez donc à vot’ tour, c’qui pousse sur le terrain
Le fermier accepta et planta cette fois
Des tomates des courgettes des melons et des pois
The farmer took the deal, and planted all his seeds
Tomatoes, squash, and peas – melons, and green beans
At harvest time the fiend, with nothing for him then
Returned to deepest hell, the farmer wins again
Retourna vers Satan, le fermier triomphant
Oh oh oh Who’d gamble without knowing
Oh oh oh Sans connaitre le marché?
Oh oh oh Who’d fracture their own land?
Oh oh oh La terre dessous ses pieds
Le diable revint respectant sa parole
De l’eau du gaz du fer, il viderait le sol
But keeping to his word, the devil turned around
He drained the iron, the gas, and the water from the ground
Now on that barren land, what can spring up today?
Just pois’nous leaks of gas, tainted water, and decay
L’eau souillée et les fuites de gaz empoisonné?
La terre fragilisée comme ce Québécois
Condamné à bouillir l’eau que son enfant boit
The farmer like the land stood shattered and defiled
Henceforth condemned to boil the water for his child
The devil thus enriched, from land all dry and spent
Left to seek new ground, leaving nothing but cement
Oh oh oh At the ending of our story
Oh oh oh Qui donc aura perdu?
Oh oh oh Ses précieuses énergies,
Oh oh oh Who’s lost and who has won?
Oh oh oh Will we repeat the bargain?
Oh oh oh Or is it already done?
