CHAT Re: Singing in foreign langs. was Re: Greetings

Sally Caves wrote:
>Where does the "Dominique" song come from?  I seem to associate it with
>something called "The Singing Nun."  Also, "Allouette"?  From some musical?
>From a folktune? Who is this unhappy bird?  I always assumed it was getting
>plucked alive.
>
"Dominique", AFAIK, became popular in the US in the 60s, and the performer
was indeed "The Singing Nun".  I seem to recall she was Belgian...and
recorded other things but they didn't catch on.  "Allouette" (maybe just one
|l|) is old-- we sang it in 7th grade music class way back in the 40s and it
was said to be French-Canadian.  Then there's "Au pres de ma blonde",
probably a soldiers' song.

Sidenote:  over the holidays I saw an infomercial for a Time-Life series of
CDs memorializing the "Folk movement" of the 60s-- The Singing Nun made an
appearance, along with a lot of other well-remembered groups.  Immense
nostalgia trip..as so many periods, even specific events, of my life are
associated with the music I was hearing at the time..I'll probably pop for
the stuff though it's a bit expensive (9 CDs, $100)

>Same for German.
I learned some quite passable Berlin dialect by listening-- over and over--
to Lotte Lenya singing songs of Brecht/Weill-- she had excellent diction,
the album had complete lyrics-- all the great things from 3penny, Mahagonny
and others.  Of course I was limited to saying things like (pardon the
spelling):  "Bill's Ballhaus im Bilbao war das schönste auf dem ganze
Kontinent..."  or "Ich war jung, Gott, erst sechszehn Jahre...", or "Rom war
eine Stadt und alle Römer hatten in den Adern heisses Blut..." or "Denn wie
man sich bettet, so liegt man..." but you never know when those might come
in handy. (This was a1950s LP "Berlin Theater Songs", now on CD thank God.)

Apologies for the ramble.
Pathetic ObConlang:  Yes, I've got some vague ideas for a musical setting of
my Kash poem "Fosi Tambranipan" (Sailing to Tambranipa-- sort of their
equivalent to "Auld Lang Syne").  But my singing voice causes the cats to
cover their ears and give me concerned looks.......

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