It’s only been 9 years since I posted anything on this website, but hey there! I took a looonnng break from music for a while when I broke my wrist and had another baby and moved back home to my amazing Louisiana, where egrets fly through the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen on the planet, crawfish cross the road and stop to look at your car, threatening with their little pincers up in the air, the last tomatoes are picked in January before the freeze, and I am at long last spending as much very quality time as I can with my precious parents, brothers, and sister.
I got a great job in a French immersion school and bought a 150 year old house, and with a teenager and a toddler in the mix, that doesn’t leave time for much, so the only music I’ve been playing is at my dad’s jam sessions on Saturday morning. It’s church. And Dad is still absolutely rocking it every weekend. Mom comes too and making music with my parents fills my soul.
My darling brother Joel had the idea that we should each record a 45 when we turn 45, and that was last June for me. Then my super-talented sister-in-law, Effie, got pregnant and gave birth to my perfect niece, Mabel, in the home of my grandparents, Mabel and Joel, where she and Joel live. As we got closer to me turning 46 we realized we really needed to lock this project down, so I picked my two songs and Joel and Wilson made magic, which is, of course, what they do best.
The first, “Si tu vas m’aimer,” is one I’ve been wanting to do for over 10 years now. I’ve always loved this song so much. Some might think it’s a sad song about a woman worrying about being used, but I think more than that it’s a call for people to take responsibility for their actions, to be clear in their intentions. Whatever it means to anyone, I’ve just always loved the song so much. Mom helped me make some of the lyrics I translated fit a little better, and although we had to let go of “Can I believe the magic of your sighs",” I think “Moi, je veux croire la magie dedans tes yeux” just gives it the perfect Louisiana French flavor. Bird stepped in to play washboard to give it the soul that rounded it all out and brought it to life.
I know I’ve already recorded “C’est si triste” with the Francadians back in 2011 or so, and I learned it from a great recording by those sassiest Magnolia Sisters, but I wanted to do a punk version of it this time, the way I’d always heard it, so frantic, like this hell-raising girl is finally being called out for her bad behavior. That resonates! I still want to know what the heck that girl did that could never be forgiven.
Joel and Wilson are geniuses, as you know, and they both stepped far, far outside of their many diverse comfort zones to realize my poorly-explained ideas. “Yeah, but you know, like shik-shik-waaahh, kinda, you know??” For “Si tu vas m’aimer",” sweet Wilson picked up the piano key accordion and played it so beautifully it pinched me between my shoulder blades and I did cry a few times listening to him create my vision. Then Joel went in and played every single other instrument, even going so far as to add tambourine, somehow instinctively knowing just how to make it sound the way it did in my dream without me needing to tell him anything. Then he made it all even better, spending hours and days tweaking and popping. I hope when you listen to it you’ll have the same sense of off-kilter nostalgia, like meeting someone you feel you’ve known your whole life but barely know, or like suddenly hearing your mother speak another language.
Then the boys did it again for “C’est si triste.” Wilson played fiddle, an instrument he rarely plays, in a style he never, ever plays, and of course he knocked it out of the park. Joel is obviously masterful on the guitar, but he beat the hell out of the drums and smacked that bass around and trashed it all up like I needed to hear it—the frenzied desperation of the $h!t hitting the fan and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I’ve always been overwhelming grateful for each of my family members individually, for the closeness we’ve maintained even though I lived so far away for so long, but it’s so palpable now that I’m home that I’ll choke on it if I go into too much more detail about how very thankful I am for all they do, all they are, all the multi-faceted beauty they create. My dad always says I was born under lucky stars and I know that to be the case. La vie est belle, la vie est bonne!
I was laughing with Joel just tonight as we are wrapping it up that after a decade of radio silence, musically, I finally come back with “If you’re going to love me it’s so sad.” And though I really just think these are two great songs, perhaps subconsciously there was something there, some message trying to rise to the surface. But love isn’t sad! It’s beautiful even when it rips you into a million pieces. Living so far from my family for so long I closed a lot of myself in, so when I turned 45 I suddenly found myself letting go of those walls, opening myself to everything, and it’s been the best trip I’ve taken yet, into my center and exploding out into the universe, back and forth, coming up for air that tastes like honeysuckle and diving back down deep where it smells like petrichor and cinnamon and beeswax.
For the cover photo, because it needed to be done quickly and my favorite photographer, Gabie, is living too far away in Nashville now, I went through a lot of questions. How do I see myself now, at 45? As a mother, a daughter, a sister, an artist, smelling like pickling spices, churning ice cream, digging carrots out of the garden, drinking coffee in bed watching the sunlight play over the old wood floors and listening to the cardinals, enjoying every moment of my peaceful life here in Grand Coteau so fully, but still with that hell-raising streak. But when you can’t decide, you ask yourself, “What would Dolly do?” So you put on a white shirt and jeans (I hope you know that album), and you let your wrinkles and grays show. I sat under the crepe myrtle tree in my backyard in the beautiful sunlight of this warm afternoon and snapped a selfie, just considering all of that, the dimensions, the love, the depth, the joy, the wholeness of it all. It is substantial.
I’m a words person so I thought you might enjoy having the lyrics:
Si tu va m’aimer
À soir t’est à moi complètement. Tu donnes ton amour si doucement.
À soir la lumière d’amour es dans tes yeux, mais est-ce que tu vas m’aimer toujours demain?
Est-ce que c’est un trésor qui va durer? Ou juste un plaisir qui va pas rester?
Et moi, je veux croire la magie dedans tes yeux.
Mais est-ce que tu vas m’aimer toujours demain?
À soir tu promets, ouais, sans parler. Tu dis que moi je suis la seule pour toi.
Mais est-ce que mon cœur sera cassé quand la nuit va rencontrer le soleil lèvé?
J’aimerais connaître si ton amour sera un amour qui va rester toujours.
Dis moi, asteur, et je vas plus jamais demander
Si tu vas m’aimer toujours demain.
C’est si triste
Le seul homme j’aimais, il m’a quitté pour s’en aller avec une autre que moi.
Moi, je prend ça si dur. Je prie jour et nuit qu’il revient avec moi.
Moi, je vois pas quoi j’ai fait pour qu’il me quitte dans tout ces chagrins.
Il m’a dit ça j’avais fait pouvait donc jamais être oublié. J’ai donc prié jour et nuit pour lui qu’il s’en revient avec moi.
Quand il a quitté la maison il m’a dit de l’observer parce que ça moi j’avais fait pouvait donc jamais être oublié.
Il m’a dit d’attacher la crêpe noir sur la porte parce que lui il vas jamais revenir.
J’ai donc prié jour et nuit pour lui qu’il s’en revient avec moi.