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Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler
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Hearing the stories of out-of-work fishing communities in Louisiana, thinking about the history of the Cajun people, and how the refugees from Canada are now becoming refugees again.
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Charts
Peak #12
Peak in subgenre #1
Author
david rovics
Rights
david rovics all rights reserved 2010
Uploaded
July 10, 2010
MP3
MP3 4.3 MB, 160 kbps, 3:44
Story behind the song
Hearing the stories of out-of-work fishing communities in Louisiana, thinking about the history of the Cajun people, and how the refugees from Canada are now becoming refugees again. This time the reason is not the British Empire, it's a transnational corporation with a very British and very imperial history.
Lyrics
Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler We came to Canada a long time ago But the Brits showed us no mercy and we had to go Our cities fell and we set sail From the shores of La Nouvelle France out into the gale In Louisiana we started again We fished and farmed, made a new life here and then We celebrated a new day And we sang “Laissez les bon temps rouler” All we wanted was to be left alone On a patch of paradise that we could call our own Fish the Gulf, dance and pray But when the Revolution came we went and joined the fray And when we came back from the awful fight The Battle of Baton Rouge gave us nightmares day and night But we got the fiddles out to play And we sang “Laissez les bon temps rouler” We fished the seas and when we came back It was time for fais do do and all the crawfish you could pack La Grand Derangement a memory That had long ago been traded for shrimp and joie de vivre The Great Upheaval far in the past Now we had found a new world that we all thought would last Cajun music there by the bay “Laissez les bon temps rouler” When the oil companies began to drill We did our best to get along and we kept fishing still It was hard but we persevered We brought our catch to market like we'd done two hundred years Some went to Texas to work the oil But most of us stayed here on this Cajun soil We'd work the Gulf, come home and say “Laissez les bon temps rouler” We survived Katrina and so much more But when the oil started gushing out on the ocean floor I guess it's time to say good-bye There's no life here for a fisherman when all the fish do now is die Maybe California is where I'll land I've heard that there's still fish there beyond the golden sand But now I can only cry to hear some fool say “Laissez les bon temps rouler”
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