In memory: Kate McGarrigle
Kate McGarrigle, half of the beloved Canadian folk duo The McGarrigle Sisters, singer and songwriter, mother of musicians Rufus and Martha Wainwright, died from a rare form of cancer on Monday of this week, at sixty-three.On that day, she was surrounded by her family, and left the world, they said, on "a haze of song".
I can't count the performances I saw at various folk festivals in '70s and '80s. They were a graceful, generous, cerebral pair who took risks within the folk form. In a time lit with dissent, they united French and English-speaking audiences in the transcendent sweetness of their harmonies.
Which song to select to remember her? Here is "Ce matin", a haunting song in French, which still reveals their Celtic roots. Kate plays piano.
Comments
They were so much a part of the soundtrack of my youth here. "Entre Lajeunesse et la sagesse" is about my neighbourhood.
It is a beautiful day today - the sun is shining, but it is not frigid, as it usually is when sunny here in January. Just below freezing. I'm trying not to dwell too much on all these losses - I knew at least two of the people who died in the Haiti earthquake, Magalie Marcellin and Myriam Merlet. Magalie founded the first shelder for battered women in Haiti, with funding from a Québec international solidarity group, and both women were very active against sexual violence and the human trafficking that alas alway increases in the wake of natural disasters and wars in poor countries. They were about my age (50s). Magalie had lived in Québec for several years during the Duvalier dictatorship. We knew these women through the World March of Women, which started here. They were a lot of fun.
And a dear friend of many decades died last week in Paris, just before the quake. Like Kate (they were the same age - 63) - he had been seriously ill for some time but I would have liked to have been able to say goodbye.
This doesn't prevent me from listening to the McGarrigles or to Lhasa de Sela, on the contrary but I have to fight feelings of overwhelming bleakness, which is palpable in the faces of the many Haitians who live hereabouts.
Guess it is time for small pleasures; a walk, a coffee and croissant somewhere in or around Marché Jean-Talon.
Wabasis Trace: You're welcome and thank you for reading.
I too was very honoured to meet these women, my contemporaries.
I found one on Myriam in English: http://i3.democracynow.org/2010/1/19/haitian_feminist_leader_myriam_merlet_1953
Everything I have on Magalie is in French. I did translate one article, but I don't want to turn this blog away from its purpose. I think it is important to be able to discuss the "decorative" parts of live intelligently; my studies were in fine arts and literature, after all.
Yes of course we can meet at le Marché; for me that is just a short walk and it is right between two métro stations. I won't ask you where your son is studying, or if he is working somewhere.
Pseu and Frugal, I've been following Kate and Anna at least since mid-1970s.
I feel emotionally "fragile" right now, but I don't mean depressed. Radio-Canada (French-language CBC) played Kate singing La vache qui pleure, and it made me tear up. On the surface it is a children's song, but it is also about our relation to "dumb animals". And of course it is about a lot of "human women", as the horror in Haiti reminds us.
In French, "veau" is both the live calf, and the meat veal.
But such emotional fragility is also a precondition for creativity...
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La vache qui pleure
by Kate & Anna McGarrigle
Album: La vache qui pleure
Dans un pré, au fond d'un vallon
Il y a, pauvre et seule,
Une vache, une vache qui pleure
Je pleure mon veau que je ne peux pas élever
Je pleure mon veau qu'on m'a enlevé
C'est comme ça à chaque année
{x2:}
Grande misère, grand malheur
Grande douleur, la vache qui pleure
Pourquoi faut-il donc qu'elle pleure
Qu'elle perde tout son bonheur
Qu'elle vive cet arrache-cœur ?
Je cherche mon veau, j' le cherche d'heure en heure
J'ai peur qu'il ait eu grand malheur
Et je ne veux pas qu'il meure
{x2:}
Grande misère, grand malheur
Grande douleur, la vache qui pleure
Pourquoi donc la vache qui pleure ?
Elle a perdu tout son bonheur
Elle cherche son veau, d'heure en heure
Elle a perdu tout son bonheur
À chaque année, son grand malheur
À chaque année, un arrache-cœur
Elle ne voudrait pas qu'il meure
À chaque année son grand malheur
{x2:}
Si peu de justice dans ce monde
De la naissance jusqu'à la tombe
Du berceau jusqu'à la tombe {x2}
A great place for summer stays near Marché Atwater is the McGill University Solin Residence apartments. They are available for travellers between May 15 and Aug 15.
http://www.mcgill.ca/residences/undergraduate/tour/solin/