Crude, ribald or violent:did you know that many, if not most, of the nursery rhyme tunes that you hum to your grandchildren to rock or entertain them, have tendentious origins to say the least? If at first listen, they seem quite innocuous, their sometimes absurd lyrics most often reveal a hidden meaning. It is because these airs do not date from yesterday, and that they thus allowed the initiates who sang them mockingly to escape censorship; these double meanings, with the help of the generations, pass largely over the heads of the majority of us.
However, between licentiousness, anticlericalism, criticism of royalty or violence having nothing to envy to our contemporary gore cinema, these songs most often have all but candid origins, as these ten examples attest. So, the next time you hum them and think you'll innocently entertain your grandchildren, keep these sometimes daring metaphors in mind...
Let's start with one of the best known, with its heady air recognizable throughout the French-speaking world. Between wantonness and anticlericalism for a song known to any child (the oldest known recording of a human voice, dating from 1860, was of this song), Au clair de la lune perhaps wins the prize for these double meanings. Because the dead candle, the lighter that one beats or the feather, are all phallic or sexual metaphors. As for the surname of Lubin, who goes to his neighbor to rekindle his fire, it is a term in use since the Middle Ages to designate hypocritical and deviant monks. Once you become aware of this subtext, the last lines are unequivocal:
By searching in this way,
I don't know what we found;
But I know that the door
On them closed…
Again, the fine lyricist behind this song was apparently more interested in sexuality than in the finer nuances of agricultural art. After all, aren't we traditionally used to depict babies being born in cabbages? Here, we plant them with all the limbs of our body:first the fingers, then the hands, the foot, the elbow, the nose, and finally the knee. Quite a program!
According to the versions and the genre of the narrator, this one would be neglected by his partner for reasons that are ribald to say the least. Indeed, when the narrator is male, he refuses to offer his friend a bouquet of roses, which would represent nothing but cunnilingus. Whereas when the narrator is female, it would be her who would have given too much of her… rosebud — a flowery metaphor for talking about the anus. The slut-shaming therefore does not date from yesterday. In other versions, the poor narrator finds herself abandoned for having refused him. Whatever they do, women are therefore always at fault...
Nevertheless, this song had its heyday in New France (formerly Quebec) in the 18th century, with a now patriotic subtext. Indeed, the patriots made it a song of opposition to the English, no doubt by virtue of the association of the latter with the symbol of the rose. It even ends up becoming the first anthem of New France!
Why on earth does the mussel fishing narrator not want to go there anymore? It's that, in addition to having taken her basket, the "people of the city" simply... raped her. The lyrics leave little room for doubt about the fate reserved for him:
When once they hold you, hold, hold
Are they good kids
They give you little caresses
And little compliments
We therefore understand that the song only superficially deals with the theme of fishing, and why it evokes these caresses and compliments which a priori had nothing to do there.
Yes, this ferret running in the middle of the pretty wood is far from being innocent, since it is a question of a contrepèterie - this process which consists in exchanging a letter or syllable with another within a sentence. — for the moment very bawdy. Once you know it, it's hard not to listen to it anymore! Come on, a little hint for the less lively:it is again a song whose subtext turns the men of the church, decidedly quick to serve as targets for the most inspired lyricists, in ridicule and mocks their hypocrisy .
Another song whose references, not so subtle as that for listeners at the time, have been lost over time, taking on falsely innocent attire. Because the laurels cut from this wood are none other than those that adorned the fronts of brothels in the 17th century! Indeed, morals were notoriously loose at court, which led to an epidemic of venereal disease, including syphilis (some courtiers were forced to wear artificial noses that they covered with make-up). Faced with this epidemic, Louis XIV makes prostitution criminal and strengthens the powers of the police, which is not to everyone's taste:it is none other than Madame de Pompadour who composes this round denouncing the decision. Again, the "jump, dance, kiss whoever you want" takes on a whole new meaning once you realize what it's all about.
While this song begins lightly and is widely loved by children, being one of the most recurring repertoires, it takes on a darker turn over the verses. Because yes, once "the food ran out", we purely and simply resolve to resort to... cannibalism - cannibalism, in everyday language! Admittedly, this has the merit of changing songs with saucy undertones, but in a way that is glaucous to say the least. If the nursery rhyme has a happy ending - the young ship's boy, drawn with a short straw, is saved by the irruption of fish on the boat following his request, which will therefore go to the pan in his place - it nevertheless deals with a danger that constantly stalked sailors, and is undoubtedly inspired by the fate of a young American sailor. Owen Coffin was, in similar situations, also shot at the short straw and agreed to let himself be slaughtered and devoured so that his companions in misfortune would not starve.
Here, we cannot frankly speak of subtext as the lyrics are explicit, but they remain no less sordid under their perky air. Indeed, the children who sing it are poor and hungry, while their neighbor seems to live in a certain opulence - at least relative to their own fate. See instead:
Let's dance the nasturtium
There is no bread here
There's some at the neighbour's
But it's not for us
Youh!
What if it was just the bread! But in addition to this, it is also wine, fire and even pleasure, no offense to the playful air of the song, which are lacking. A true song of despair.
Composed shortly before the French Revolution, the eponymous shepherdess would refer to none other than Queen Marie-Antoinette. And the titular storm would refer to the revolutionary unrest, which then threatened the regime like clouds gathering on the horizon to disturb a blue sky. And not to be outdone, the author would also have had fun distilling erotic references among the stanzas — again! It is not the only popular song that mocks or criticizes royalty, not very fond of more frontal attacks. The good King Dagobert also ridicules her, under the guise of a long-extinct Merovingian king:but between the panties upside down and the response of Saint Eloi ("I believe my faith that you will go straight there") to the king fearing to go to hell, it is the monarchy that is targeted. The icing on the cake, legend has it that the author of It's raining shepherdess he himself would have hummed it years later as he was led to the scaffold.
According to some, the poor green mouse with which "these gentlemen" are having wild fun, would actually represent a Vendée soldier captured during the Vendée war. This one would have subsequently been tortured by the Republican troops:between boiling oil and drowning ("dip it in oil, dip it in water"), become a "hot snail" n is really nothing to enviable! Nevertheless, if the song seems to make its appearance during the post-revolutionary period, nothing seems to attest among the folklorists and historians of the French song of sources abundant in this direction, and it is probable that this origin corresponds in reality only to an urban legend.
