Louisiana: Cane Harvest Begins, and a Song

Harvesting sugar cane. Louisiana. November 2013.

On Saturday morning, on my way to Lafayette, as I listened to KRVS' Saturday morning show, Zydeco Est Pas Sale, the DJ acknowledged the start of the sugar cane harvest. In its honor, he played Clifton Chenier's bluesy waltz, Je Suis en Recolteur (I Am a Farmer).

The words in English:

They call me a cotton picker
They turn around and call me a corn breaker
I'm a cane cutter, oh yes, I'm a cane cutter.

I'm a potato digger.

Ain't no way, ain't no way, baby, you're gonna starve with me around.

I'm a cotton picker, a potato digger
I'm a cane cutter.

Oh, oh yeah, yeah darlin'

I'm a cotton picker
I'm a pecan cutter 
And baby, I'm a potato digger.

But everybody got to know where I'm a farmer
Everything gonna go wrong.
Everything gonna go wrong.
Oh yeah, baby.

Enjoy:

Related links:

Louisiana: Sugar Cane (December 2013)

Jeanerette, Louisiana: The Sweetest Place in Louisiana (January 2014)


 

Lafayette: The Sound Track

You know how in a movie there's usually a soundtrack, right?

And you can love the soundtrack and even buy the soundtrack, but you know, of course, that soundtracks don't exist in real life. Because that's only in the movies.

Except in and around Lafayette. Here, there really is a soundtrack





The soundtrack envelops me whenever I get into the car and comes by way of a local station such as KRVS - Radio Acadie. (An in-house KRVS concert video above, featuring one of my favorite zydeco musicians, Corey Ledet, on the accordion.)

Cajun and creole, la la, zydeco, swamp pop.

Picture it. Driving down a shaded street over which live oak limbs stretch, and in the spring, as it is now, azalea bushes at their peak of splashy color.

Passing shops with delectables by Poupart Bakery, T-Coon's, Chris' Po-boy, Jolie's Bistro

Crawfish signs, signs for boudin and cracklin's.

Deep-porched, steep-pitched bungalows sitting atop cement blocks .... drawbridges

... and on the radio you hear English and French, and songs old and new that have you tapping the steering wheel to the beat of a waltz, a two-step, a jig, or the zydeco eight-count.

A real-life soundtrack.