When words are no longer there… When the smiles so rarely come… When everything has been said…

It all started with a song that’s been stuck in my head… for as long as I can remember. A song I did not know the title, nor the singer, nor the reason why… it seemed engraved in my memory. All I know… is that, every time I’m in a rowing boat… I think of my father singing…

Rame, rame, rame donc
Le tour du monde, le tour du monde
Rame, rame, rame donc
Le tour du monde nous ferons.

That day, I began to wonder why I had this vague memory, of my father, in a rowboat… singing this refrain. Something, I now have the strange impression… that might have happened only once!

With the help of Spotifiy, I quickly solved, part of the mystery. Rame Rame, is a song by Tex Lecor. When I asked my father, if he knew, although his words are very rare… he answered… Bien Oui!!!

It is to my sister Nathalie, I owe… finding the possible origin of this strange memory. It could have been during a summer visit to Matante Eva and Mononcle Roch in Granby… There was a lake… I believe and there must have been a boat there!

That’s how from one song to another… From one memory to another… I created a Playlist – Music for Dad

Here’s a few of them…

• Beethoven’s 5th Symphony… which as children we would love to hate and would called Boring Church Music!!! Things change!
• Ravel’s Bolero that we loved so much in the movie Les Uns et les Autres
• Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass that echoed through basement parties…when us kids… were trying to sleep!
• Je chante avec toi liberté by Nana Mouskouri that I must have listened to… a hundred times.

And there are also, all the songs that remind us of my Mother…

• Engelbert Humperdinck, whose name, we were unable to pronounce and I rememberes playing loud… on the Saturdays of our childhood… to the roaring sound of the vacuum.
• The Way We Were by Barbara Streisand
• I Write The Songs & Can’t Smile Without You by Barry Manilow
• That’s Amore by Dean Martin
• Unforgettable & Smile by Nat King Cole
• Fly Me To The Moon by Frank Sinatra
• Edelweiss & Climb Every Mountain – The Sound of Music

Classics… soothing for the heart…

• Gymnopédie No. 1 – Erik Satie
• Nocturne No. 2 – Frederic Chopin
• Moonlight – Debussy

And…

Une chance qu’on s’a de Jean Pierre Ferland !!!

That’s how… for several weeks now… Music has become our way of communicating… and sharing moments of love and tenderness…

RAME RAME

Rame, rame, rame donc
Le tour du monde, le tour du monde
Rame, rame, rame donc
Le tour du monde nous ferons.

On est parti tôt ce matin
Le vent du large caressait nos mains
Plus de soucis loin des rivages
Il n’y a que rêves et lendemains.

REFRAIN

Sourire aux lèvres, le coeur léger
Fini le temps de s’attarder
Suivons l’aile du goéland
Dans son élan de liberté.

REFRAIN

Il est trop tard pour retourner
J’entends déjà chanter les fées
Sur l’arc-en-ciel on est monté
Vers l’océan de l’éternité.

REFRAIN

Tex Lecor