For some reason, it really warms my heart to hear people playing music in front of Sacre Coeur with a crowd watching and joining in from the steps. Today's entertainment was an Eric Clapton song as well as R.E.M's "Bigger" among others. There was something cool about hearing "Life... is bigger.." while looking at the city laid out for miles below.
Twenty years ago, you could hear a group of Algerians singing CSNY's Suite: Judy Blue Eyes, and Bob Dylan's Hey Mister Tambourine Man. During their break, I tried to speak to them in English. I assumed they knew English because they sang the songs
perfectly. It turns out they knew the lyrics by heart, but not the language. I now get that if singing songs made one fluent, I would know Portuguese from singing the songs on the Brazilian Tropics CD (produced by David Byrne). The whole world would know English from the Beatles, Stevie Wonder and Petula Clark. And my in-laws would all know French from singing the racy Jacques Brel songs. If only...
It seems like it's always a sunny day at the Sacre Coeur.
2 comments:
Wouldn't it be great if it were that easy to learn a language? I have been trying to learn French for years, and though I can speak it rather well, read it okay and even write it with the help of a few keystrokes, I simply cannot understand when hearing it spoken by a Frenchman(woman).
It would be great, and think of all the different music people would be exposed to.
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