18 July, 2010

"C'est Si Triste Sans Lui (It Is So Blue Without Him)" - Clemo Breaux with Joe Falcon and Ophy Breaux


Set Three: Songs; Disc Two; Track Seven: "C'est Si Triste Sans Lui (It Is So Blue Without Him)" performed by Clemo (Cléoma) Breaux with Joe Falcon and Ophy Breaux. "Vocal solo with accordion, guitar." Recorded in Atlanta on April 18, 1929. Original issue Columbia 40508F (W110551).

For biographical information on Cléoma Breaux, see the entry on "Le Vieux Soulard Et La Femme." For biographical informatiom on Joseph Falcon, see the entry on "Acadian One Step." For information on Ophy Breux (and the other Breaux brothers), see the entry for "Home Sweet Home."

"C'est Si Triste Sans Lui" is the last Cajun track on the original three volume Anthology.

Le seul homme j’aimais
Il m’a quitté moi toute seule.
Pour s’en aller avec une autre que moi.
Oh, moi j’prends ça si dur.
Moi j’prie jour et nuit pour il s’en revienne avec moi.

Moi j'vois pas quoi j'ai fait
Pour qu'il me quitte dans tous les chagrins.
Il m'a dit que j'l'avais perdu, ont jamais oublier.
J'ai tant prie jour et nuit pour lui s'en revienne avec moi.

Quand il a quitté la maison
Il m’a dit de l’observer.
Pourtant moi j'avais fait, pouvais donc jamais l'oublier.
Il m'a dit d'attacher le crepe noir sur la porte
Parce que lui il aurait jamais revenu.


The only man I have loved
He has left me all alone.
To go off with another than me
Oh, my great drama, it's so hard,
I pray day and night he'll return to me.

I don't know what I did
To make him leave me with all this grief.
He told me that I've lost him and he will never remember me.
I pray so much day and night that he will return to me.

When he left the house
He told me to look at him.
But I could never have forgotten.
He told me to tie a black crepe on the door
Because he will never return.


Hearkening back to the "unhappy love" theme of much of the previous disc, "C'est Si Triste Sans Lui" tells the story of a girl abandoned by her lover. The song's sentimental lyric is completely subverted by the raucous performance which features Cléoma Breaux on vocal and guitar, Joe Falcon on accordion, and Cléoma's brother Ophy on a barely audible fiddle (not listed on the original label, even though Ophy Breaux is credited). "C'est Si Triste Sans Lui" was recorded in Atlanta, Georgia on April 18, 1929, the day before Falcon and Breaux recorded "Acadian One Step."

Falcon and Breaux appear on more tracks than any other Cajun musician on the Anthology.

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Paul Daigle, Jesse Lege and friends play a dance at the 2007 Augusta Heritage Center's Cajun/Creole week in Elkins, WV.



Download and listen to Clemo Breaux with Joe Falcon and Ophy Breaux - "C'est Si Triste Sans Lui"

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