Misty Weaver

Want to help me write cajun songs? Please suggest changes! I don’t know what I’m doing, vraiment

I already have to change the song I’ve been tweeting ’cause if I thought my French was bad, my Cajun is much worse. My vocabulary is probably less than that of an average two year old, so I take a lot of liberty with my translations to english in order to preserve the rhyme.

La Belle Mechant

Mon ‘tit amie, mon amour
Pourquoi tu veux casser mon coeur?
Je t’ai donné tout mon argent
les jolis bijoux et grands cadeux
Mais tu est satisfaits jamais
pas dans les nuits ou matinées
Mon amie, ma chère
Doucement, doucement avec mon coeur

Tu es la belle du bayou
‘vec les cheveux noirs et les yeux bleus
mais tu badjeule comme une ‘tit puce
jamais content, jamais douce

English Translation

Oh, my sweetheart, my love
why do you want to break my heart
I gave you all my money
pretty jewels and big gifts
But you are never satisfied
not in the mornings or the night
My sweetheart, my dear
be careful, careful with my heart

You are the belle of the bayou
with black hair and eyes of blue
But you pick and nag just like a flea
never happy, never sweet

And trying to write a cajun song. I was inspired by seeing the Pine Leaf Boys play in Breaux Bridge, LA. La Poussiere dance hall is the real deal cajun dance hall, locals fast waltzing up and down the wood floor, smiling, gliding, twirling and laughing. These are the nicest people I have ever come across in my travels. They made me get up and dance, and I can’t dance and I hate to dance, but you just have to dance in cajun country.

My luck held later at the Blue Moon Saloon in Lafaytette, Roddie Romero and members of the Duhks played until the wee hours. That was straight up dance music and I had to dance again – I love the music but I’m telling you folks, I ain’t no dancer. Sunday, took a long drive back to New Orleans while listening to KRVS 88.7 cajun music Sunday.

I’m getting me a squeebox, cover your ears.

Starting a new direction in my career means taking another musical hiatus (though I keep hoping Paul will learn guitar and then we can write songs together. Until then, I’ll try not to psychoanalyze the lyrics as I work more and more in social media, remotely, and experience most of my human interaction through my Mac.

I took a ride, it was slow
it took a long time
Started out, the sun was low
the road was winding

I totally agree with this spam comment:
“Great article. There’s a lot of solid information here, though I did want to let you know something – I am running Ubuntu with the up-to-date beta of Opera, and the look and feel of your site is kind of bizarre for me. I can understand the articles, but the navigation doesn’t function so solid.”

Maybe not that my blog post was a great comment but other stuff. What a real-looking comment! Made it read it, good job spammer.

Because I made an album and still wish to sell it, I have a website. Because I can, I have a blog on that website. No one visits it. Paul said he would redesign it and I hope that helps. But I know most of the issues I face can’t be fixed by redesign.

Issues like I’m no longer in a band, I’m not creating new audio or video, I don’t have any shows coming up, I’m not recording anytime soon, my blog posts are lyrics only, I don’t spend any time or money promoting myself online in any way.

So I write lyrics on my blog and I get comments from spammers, especially in Russia. Sure, I add their IP addresses to the blocker thingy and I click the spam button – but these folks are my audience! I try to pay attention to their comments. Some of my spammers are right, I do need to redesign my navigation and get an RSS feed and all of that stuff. In the current set up, no one’s listening to my songs.

Maybe no one wants to and that’s fine but if my site is preventing people from doing it, then I should address it. And I will, when I have less work to concentrate on, which will be months from now. Keep that spam coming!

My aunt has been filling me in on the extensive Genealogy research she’s done regarding our relatives and those of emigrants to Louisiana in general. With both Cajun and Quebecois grandparents, my own interest has been in those peeps coming from France. Honestly, I’m too new to understand much of what I’m learning, I’m just loving the names: Aglae, Arthymis, Oglarde, Octave, Maximeline, Vitaline, Seraphine, Janvier, Felanise, Domitile, Apoline, Hercule.

And the very best my Cajun great grandmother – Louisiana Champagne. SO I have to write a song about her. This is my tribute to New Orleans, why I don’t live there, why I still wish I did, and just in general love to my favorite American city.

Louisiana Champagne

Everybody knows that I can’t handle my liquor
Not long ago, I used to try but those days are past
Even with a name like a Bourbon Street stripper
my kind of fun don’t come by the bottle or the glass

Louisiana champagne that southern sensation
Louisiana champagne a lifetime libation
embracing the emotion, a personal devotion
to live it up the Louisiana way

I’m talkin about food that’s still worth tasting
music that makes you want to dance
If the night’s too short, the band keep’s playing
show you do it up a la Louisiane

Reading about social media and user experience all day is creeping into my lyrics. Of late, my characters have increasingly been unable to “connect”, they don’t listen to each other, they long for “human touch” and “real time.” Like this lyric I can’t seem to go through with

There’s no device
That reaches out and follows through

I think that the word device might be too loaded. Thanks, Internet!

A lot of people go somewhere private to write, a lot of people write on tour busses or Home Depot aisles. I wonder how much your setting effects your work? Can a writer completely shut out what they’re taking in and keep it out of their work?

In the interest of using the web to inspire my writing process, this is a Wordle word map of my last song. I’m comparing maps of songs to see what kinds of words I’m commonly using and see if it inspires any changes to my writing.

Maybe it’s time to explore the connection of the visual and songwriting. Do know anyone who uses interesting visual tools or props in their writing?

After seeing “Songs of wars I have seen”at On the Boards in Seattle, I just felt energized. Like I do after most every On the Board’s performance.

Why am I inspired? I don’t generally love classical, minimalist, experimental music, I mean to say that I like straight up melodies, pop songs, musicals, ear candy. My favortite On the Boards moment was a man with a boombox pretending to be a “Pip”, just one lonely pip dancing and singing a long with radio Gladys and the others. It was the saddest, funniest thing I’ve seen.

But Heiner Goebbels’ “Songs” had a amazing ensemble, the percussionist had ever imaginable sound maker going off back there while the keyboardist on the mac’s ultra modern “found sounds” were both haunting and elevating. In short, the sound effects rocked!

I want to collaborate again. I want someone to teach me to hear strange whistles and bells where now I only here upright piano. It’s time for me to make mac friends and make music.

What’s your day job? How does it influence what you create and what you present to the public?

For me, I’ve been interested in user experience since 2002 when I started graduate school in library and information science. Throughout, I tried to make my education and music meet by studying genre classification, designing music recommendation systems and I even played in a band with one of my favorite instructors.

Now that I’m in a music focus phase, I want to integrate my previous work experience with my musical persona. But after years of reading, talking and thinking about user experience and social networking, and online community – I’m much more shy online than I am in person. Why?

Perfectionism? I’m not an expert I’m just someone who likes user centered design AND and I write songs about dragons or bus rides or zombies, etc. I haven’t followed all the best practices in building this blog and I’m terrified of applying user centered design to song writing.

I’m hoping there is a whole world of ways to mesh these practices. And that my next day job leaves room to enjoy both.

Twitter – http://twitter.com/mdawnweaver
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