Québec: Songs For Lauhing And Crying
Music of the world
Laments, call and response songs and other ballads inherited from tradition, the "songs for laughing and crying" presented here express the daily life, joys and suffering or the tragedies that afflict individuals. Some tell of unhappy or forbidden. Some evoke death. Others depict desire and the joy of living, the delight of wine and the urge to have fun, the enjoyment or disappointment when two people meet again. Chronicles of good and bad fortunes, they may relate a news item or the life of a lumberjack. Satirical, they make fun of good language, gibe at the Church, or parody funeral prayers to mock the misdeeds of drinking. Rooted in the land, they are the mirrors of a community and its history.
