The Cow in Maillote, a Request

Will Somebody Who Knows French Help Us Out Here? (Day 83)

Learning how to play chason la vache a maillote.

Our friend, Paul, had a request.

When he was a lad about as old as Little Bean is today, he also took piano lessons. There was a song he learned then that was still stuck in his head. A French song. But he knew it as Mr. Maillote’s Cow.

He explained how easy the little jingle was and that it used all black keys except for one note. He even helpfully wrote down, in French: chason la vache a maillote.

Well, as it turns out, vache and maillote mean cow and jersey, so the song is actually Chason the Jersey Cow. I assume Chason is the name of the cow. If any of you know French and I screwed that up, please correct me.

Anyway, a quick google search brought us to many, many videos of people playing or singing the song. I appears to be very old. We could not find an English translation, but I did find the words in French and ran them through Google translate and, well, this is what popped out:

She died the cow in Maillotte./ She died with her head in her pot./ Her service was not long./ They cried like pigs./ Whose head is Ti Pierre./ Whose tail belongs to both of us./ She died the cow in Maillotte./ She died with her head in her pot./ Her service was not long./ They cried like pigs."

Here’s the lyrics in French, can someone who isn’t Google translate this for us?

"Elle est morte la vache à Maillotte./ Elle est morte la tête dans l'potte./ Son service n'a pas été long./ Ça pleurait comme des cochons./ À qui la tête, c'est à Ti Pierre./ À qui la queue, c'est à nos deux./ Elle est morte la vache à Maillotte./ Elle est morte la tête dans l'potte./ Son service n'a pas été long./ Ça pleurait comme des cochons.”

So maybe Maillotte does not mean Jersey? Perhaps it’s a region or town? At any rate, that’s a pretty dark children’s song!

The point of all this is to say that Little Bean got her first musical request and she nailed it! We found a short, eight second clip of the primary jingle and set it up on her piano stand and she fiddled with it a few times before getting the notes right. Then I joined her on adjoining black keys and we played it together.

First request in the bag. What did you think Paul?

Now, going forward, I had to make Little Bean promise to not just take requests and play only those lest her poor music teacher get flooded with piano versions of AC/DC and Elton John songs. But this little side quest was a nice diversion amid the normal practice routine.

This is also a reminder to us, and to everyone, that whether you play or don’t, or maybe you did but don’t now, or maybe you want to, or maybe you just like listening, that music connects us - to our past, to our lives and to each other.

This is easy to forget. Don’t.