Lisa Leblanc
It takes a real woman to write a guestpost on, well, a real woman. Natasha on fellow Canadian Lisa Leblanc:
When singer Lisa Leblanc belts, “Maybe tomorrow will be better, but today my life is shit”, the Acadian-Canadian singer, who accompanies herself on the banjo, is pouring out her guts for real. The first time I saw her in the video of “Aujourd’hui, Ma Vie C’est D’la Marde” (‘marde’ = ‘merde’ in Canadian French), I was like a moose caught in the headlights, bought the physical CD my first day back in Montréal on holiday this summer and played everywhere.
Leblanc calls her music ‘trash-folk’, and her first eponymous album, which came out in March, is catching on like wild fire in French-speaking Canada. Ironically, she says her music is all about trashing the ‘fi-filles’, the very kind of girly girls you’ll find on this blog. The ones that steal her boyfriends because of their perky assets, the ones that sing lovey-dovey ‘Céline Dion’ type songs and can’t write or play an instrument. Leblanc beats the musical crap out of all them, but sleeps alone, as there’s always a price to pay for being a real woman.
What’s an Acadian? Cajun, Acadian, keep pronouncing them until they sound the same. Those people down in Louisiana are descendants of Acadians from Canada’s Eastern province New Brunswick where 40% of the population speaks French, peppered with lots of English nouns, like fellow female singers Marie-Jo Thério and Edith Butler.
Lisa Leblanc – Aujourd’hui, Ma Vie C’est D’la Marde
Lisa Leblanc – Cerveau Ramolli
Lisa LeBlanc
What a wonderful character, a true Acadian who seems to walk straight out of a history book. She would look in place in the Canada of 1912 or (from the video) even the Acadie of 1712. We forget that the Maritime Provinces were fought over by the English (British after 1707)and French, and then by the British and Americans up to the War of 1812 (which is being commemorated in Canada, but not the USA, this year – as it is when the US failed to conquer Canada!) This dramatic history included forced population moves, but the Acadians have survived.
I last heard this French in talking with a woman in the other Acadie to which many went – in St Martinville, Louisiana, 20 years ago.
Lisa LeBlanc’s appearance in March 2012 on ‘Tout le Monde en parle’ is the complete woman: see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUsra5dfr30&feature=related
For us Anglophones there is one interview with LLB in 2011 in Monckton, NB, before a concert – poorly lit but sound adequate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_toiLQSCRY
And not to be missed, an enjoyable clip of Lisa LeB with Marie-Pierre Arthur from April 2012:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_QvsQFGJf4
A splendid mélange of accents beyond Anglophone understanding: MPA from the Gaspé Peninsula of Québec and LLB from New Brunswick. Perhaps Natasha can translate for FS readers….
As opposed to being an eternal Lolita that never grows up 😉
Interesting theories about being a “real woman” 😉
ramolli link broken…
EDIT: Thanx, should be fine now, G.