Confluences
CBC TV is reminding me today constantly of about the only useful thing one of our most useless Prime Ministers ever did, invoking the War Measures Act during our October Crisis (which shocked all the furriners in Berkeley, where I was a newly installed student).The combination of this memory and the rescue of the Chilean miners brought back to my mind the utterly brilliant Georges Dor song, "La Manic". To my astonishment, YouTube seems to have no rendition of it by the wonderful Pauline Julien (be aware she and my family have a history!).
I love this comment from the YouTube version of the song that I found.
I don't know what this song is takling about,but it seems to me that it conceals pure and beautiful love,devotion and the things that people hold dearest of all. I felt warmth inside.
Well, I will tell you. And it relates to the Chilean miners. It's a beautiful song, set up as a letter from a guy working on a major project to the family he misses. "If you knew how boring it is at the Manic, you'd write me a lot more often."
Just stunningly beautiful and dead true. Bruno Pelletier is great but I wish I had Pauline Julien to link to.
posted by Alan Adamson @ 2:07 PM
2 Comments:
I think Georges D'or's version is best. I have it on my iPod. It's the one I remember -- mom and dad used to play it all the time. (I have never heard the Pauline Julien version.)
Found him singing it on YouTube. Those were truly the heroic days of Quebec, with Expo Montreal, and hydro development.
I find I fall into tears at the line "Dis-moi ce qui se passe a Trois-Rivieres" as if much was going on and this was not just a request for a connection.
Wikipedia says:
'"La Manic", whose lyrics were a love letter written by a construction worker on the Manicouagan power project, became the most successful record ever by a Quebec chansonnier.'
It is an astonishingly beautiful song.
I especially love the image:
"Je me prolonge en toi ... comme la fleur dans l'abeille."
Having married a beekeeper's daughter so many years later it is doubly sweet.
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