Kate & Anna Mcgarrigle Complainte Ste Catherine

Happy Memories of the Summer of 1976

From the title alone one can tell that I'm not a spring chicken anymore. That summer I was 21 so do your math’s.

The year 1976 was a year filled with major events in my life. At the time I would have called them happy events, but time has caught up with that and most have turned bittersweet. That doesn't necessarily mean that the memories have gone sour, they have not.

It's only that 40 years down the line everything that made me so happy and full of expectations of the road ahead has worked out so different. I married that summer the man that I thought to be the love of my life. And he might well have been that, but some of his and my characteristics made the liaison so toxic that 24 years later I had to get the hell out of it, more dead than alive, leaving my four children in his care. Partly by choice but mostly being forced to do so.

All this and a lot more comes back to me when I listen to one of the funniest songs I know, that was a hit in the summer of ’76. I love listening to it as it propels me back to a time that I remember to be one of the happiest in my life.

I’m talking about Kate & Anna Mcgarrigle and their lovely song Complainte pour ste Catherine.

Below the video, I give you the lyrics. They are in French and English, just to illustrate how desultory and funny they are.

https://youtu.be/TUr8MJYAjRk

Lyrics:

Moi, j'me promène sur Sainte Catherine
J’profite la chaleur du métro
Ne me regarde pas dans les vitrines
Quand il fait trente cent sous zéro

Y’a longtemps qu’on fait la politique
Vingt ans de guerre contre les Moustiques

Je ne me sens pas intrépide
Quand il fait frais j’fais pas du ski
J’ai pas model aux Laurentides
Le Samedy c’est soir du hockey

Y’a longtemps qu’on fait la politique
Vingt ans de guerre contre les Moustiques

Faut pas croire que je suis une imbécile
Parce que j’chauffe pas une convertible
La croire c'est pas mal inutile
Aux prix du gas c’est trop penible

Y’a longtemps qu’on fait la politique
Vingt ans de guerre contre les Moustiques

On est tout frappé si ça ça donne
On a toujours eu du bon temps
Parce qu'on est sur la terre des hommes
Même les femmes et les enfants

Y’a longtemps qu’on fait la politique
Vingt ans de guerre contre les Moustiques

Croyez pas qu’on n’est pas chrétien
La dimanche on promène son chien
La La La La La La La La La

*************************************

Me, I’m walking on Sainte Catherine
Enjoying the warmth of the metro
I don’t look at myself in shop windows
When it's thirty degrees below zero

There is a long known policy
Twenty years of war against mosquitoes

I do not feel fearless
When it’s cold I go skiing
I am not a Laurentides model
Saturday is the evening for hockey

There is a long known policy
Twenty years of war against mosquitoes

Don’t believe I am a fool
Because I don’t drive a convertible
To believe that is pretty useless
As the price of gas is too painful

There is a long known policy
Twenty years of war against mosquitoes

One is always struck so that it gives
We always had a good time
Because we're in the land of men
Even women and children

There is a long known policy
Twenty years of war against mosquitoes

Don’t believe we are not Christians
Sunday we always walk the dog

Hope you will enjoy them.