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Joseph Arthur Tour Blog #1: Montreal

April 10, 2007
Montreal, PQ
Canada


Do you speak french?


815 wake up call
Kooky dreams
About kooky things
Really
And I mean really
Want to stay asleep
Drift a little
But not much
And then
I'm in the shower
Water running over my head
Get a call from peter
I'm downstairs
Be right down I say
Any chance I can get a cup of coffee
I say
Yeah we'll get one there
We arrive
Cbc radio canada
Peter says
This is a huge and infuential radio station
The biggest in Quebec
I say
No pressure then
Eyes folding over themselves
In an effort to reclaim the throne of dreams
Waiting in the hall
And then in a very hi tech studio
Sound checking
The dj christine introduces herself
We decide I'll play two songs
She asks if I speak french
Regrettably no
I say
She says well we'll keep the talking brief
Cause they don't like people that don't speak french
Well I'm off to a good start here I think
Five minutes to soundcheck and then we go live
Still no coffee
It is strange
The resentment many french speaking people feel towards
People who don't speak their language
It just strikes me as a funny thing to take personally
I mean let's break down my inability for instance
I studied french for years
In the very high quality public school system of ohio
Now I admit
I wasn't a model student
And I'm sure discovering led zepplin and weed in the seventh
grade
Didn't help matters too much
But the point is
I spent a lot of hours worried about the failing grades I
was getting in my french class
And by the time
All my cohorts were considering colleges
(My english teacher said
Yer not college material)
I knew life had other things planned for me
I thought I'd be head waffle chef at dennys or maybe a dish
washer in baton rouge
But whichever way the tide turned for me
My french speaking skills were long since doomed
I blame it on led zepplin and refer more than a flagrant
disrespect
For the good people of france or their wonderful culture
Which brings me back to my initial point
Why the resentment?
It would be understandable
It learning french were as easy say as getting a driving
liscence or shampooing a dog
Then I would understand the feeling of
Hey you
Why don't you know how to speak My language
But learning a foreign language is more on the level of
difficulty as say operating on a human heart
Or becoming a great bowler
In other words
Its hard to learn that
I've even gotten tapes that we're supposed to teach me
during a paticularly motivated adult period of my life
But to no avail
My skill level is still at the
Mercy
Bonjour
Au revoir
And
Je m appelle
Level of things
in conclusion
I would just like to say to the french people who hate
people who come to yer country and don't know the language
That maybe
Just maybe
You ought to cut them a little slack
It has a lot more to do with houses of the holy
Then u might think


Five four three two one yer on

I sang lack a vision
It went rather well
considering
Except
The photog
Kept snapping huge flash pictures fer their website all thru
out the number
Which at 9 am before coffee
Live on the biggest station in quebec
Where all the listeners automatically hate you
Cuz when you were in high school u got to into zepplin and
weed to really ever consider learning their language
Is just a bit much to take
Then I sang in the sun
And the dj asked
Do you believe in god?
I just looked at her and laughed
And said
How much time do you have?
She started laughing too
And then for the next few minutes we just laughed
Which
Is a language
Everyone can understand

—Joseph Arthur

Read blog #2 here...

Joseph Arthur's latest album Let's Just Be is available in the ARTISTdirect store.