I can’t understand more than a few words of this beautiful-sounding little song, but I’m told its about an elderly man and his old boat on the Canal du Midi. The boat’s at the end of its useful life, but somehow her skipper finds it difficult to part with her. I guess many intheboatshed.net readers probably feel much the same way as the chap in the song, as they set off each morning to work on their projects.
I hope you like it as much as we did when we met Emmanuel Pariselle at Melodeons and More, at Mendlesham in Suffolk a couple of years ago – he was teaching a group to make melodeons (he’d call them diatos, btw) and playing in a concert, while we were some way down the bill (there’s a photo to prove it!).
There’s some more of Emmanuel’s lovely music at MySpace, and via Amazon.
For more songs at intheboatshed.net, click here.
PS – It’s taken a while, but a chap called Jack Humphreys has succeeded in creating a credible English language version of this song.
some unperfect quick-made translation
cheers from paris, close to Canal St-Martin
La Nonchalante
It’s not I am of early youth
Life has passed under bridges
But the boat is still good
and it’s not time to be lazy
If I disembark i’ll have nothing to do
But getting drunk in the harbour café
Missing, like one heart on board
In the hold, the beating engine
Chorus :
La Nonchalante, la Nonchalante, we are not going to part that way
I without your hull, you without my arms, la Nonchalante
La Nonchalante, la Nonchalante, we can’t forget all this
They might say what they want, we are leaving, la Nonchalante
Since the late 30’s
we saw many freights
Locks and bad weather
Would you be sailing upstream or downstream
Sun dissolving the haze
Canal du Midi under the moon
End of the weeks in Conflans
There were good moments too
chorus
Some say we are out of age
Both of us at the end of the rope
That I should be sent to hospital
and you should be brought to be cut out
But as we pass the last lock
We’ll leave on the great blue sea
We”ll go as far as we can
I’d like so much to see Syracuse
chorus
Those lyrics are as beautiful as Parisselle’s tune, aren’t they? Many thanks!