If you\u2019re a Quebecker, you\u2019ll probably recognize the background music playing on our speaking page. It\u2019s Quebec singer-songwriter Martin L\u00e9on\u2019s song \u201cC\u2019est \u00e7a qui est \u00e7a\u201d. (And YES, we paid for the right to use it.)<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re not a Quebecker, Martin L\u00e9on is big star on the Quebec music scene. He\u2019s still pretty young so he\u2019s bound to become an even bigger star, maybe even what you call a monument<\/em> in Quebec. Other Quebec musicians are starting to record his music, so that\u2019s a good sign.<\/p>\n We love his music. It\u2019s (obviously) solidly francophone, but at the same time deeply American (in the continental sense of the word). We lived in Arizona last year and listened to it whenever we drove through the desert. It was a perfect soundtrack.<\/p>\n Which brings us to \u201cC\u2019est \u00c7a Qui Est \u00c7a\u201d, which just means \u201cThat\u2019s that\u201d, nothing more. If you listen to the whole song, you\u2019ll see the lyrics don\u2019t go much further. It\u2019s a song about talking when you really have nothing to say (I think Martin said it an interview that it was about the difficulty of communicating, but I could be wrong).<\/p>\n The first time we heard it, we just about fell over laughing \u2013 what cheek, to make a song about having nothing to say. Especially in the French language culture, where speaking is considered an art in itself.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s the whole point. Martin L\u00e9on is not French, he\u2019s a Quebecker, and his music reflects the culture here. Quebeckers are North Americans who speak French, not French people who live in North America.<\/p>\n As Martin L\u00e9on shows, the quintessentially English pleasure of understatement DOES translate into French.<\/p>\n