ridgewood crate beat

I’ve been a Francophile since 5th grade and a fairly mediocre speaker of the French language for a few decades. The great experience, since meeting him in ‘82, of working, playing, eating and talking with Guigou Chenevier has been a boon to my language skills - and my awareness of the world beyond North America. That’s not to mention his influence on me as a musician, obviously! One of the oddest situations our group Les Batteries encountered was being commissioned in ‘86 by the Museum of the French Revolution to create a program about the revolution, using texts (and a melody) from their archives. One period of rehearsal in the museum itself found us practicing next to the parts of a de-commissioned guillotine, which I believe to have been the genuine article. While I still do not have a great grasp of the many political and social intricacies of the final decade of the 18th Century in France, some of the pieces on the album we made of the program resonate in these times… Jan. 21, 1793 was the day the former “Louis XVI”, properly known as Louis Capet, felt a guillotine in action.

Le 21 Janvier 793, Capet, tyran dernier, Qu'on nommait Louis XVI A reçu ses étrennes Pour avoir conspiré, Faut avoir une tête Pour être couronné Étant faible et trop bête Il fut guillotiné