Feet of Clay Work

To turn a passion for music into a career is a rare achievement; to write a song that is remembered ten years down the line is an even rarer one. Calixa Lavallée not only achieved both of these, but also the exceptional achievement of having his song was adopted as his country's national anthem 100 years after it was first written. Yet, in Burnished Rows of Steel, Calixa Lavallée is demnstrated to be possibly the worst songwriter in recorded human history - and also, ironically enough, very bad at French.


In the course of explaining how Lavallée's life story was mischaracterised to make the French-Canadians seem disloyal, we noted that his first big musical hit in the service of the Union propaganda effort consisted of 'Can You Hear The People Sing' from Les Misérables run through Google Translate. There must obviously be some allowance made for the fact that TFSmith is probably worse at writing songs in French than he is at writing alternate history in English. Yet Lavallée's second big hit is equally poor, to the extent that the only advice we can give him is to stick to his day job of shotgunning British war heroes in the chest.

This second hit, which appears in Chapter 9 Part 1, is a version of 'Marching Through Georgia,' ingeniously re-titled 'Marching Through Canada'. Both 'words and music' are credited to the historical author, Henry Clay Work, and 'Major Calixa Lavallee, Canadian Volunteers,'. To be clear, this means that it was a joint production worked on by both men at the same time. When lyrics and music were produced separately, the phrasing differs: for instance, we are told that 'Garryowen' had 'lyrics by Thomas Moore, 1807; tune is traditional', and 'Eternal Father, Strong to Save,' had 'lyrics by the Rev. William Whiting, 1860; music by Rev. John B. Dykes'. Historically, both words and music were written by Work in Chicago in 1865; here, we are told that they were written in Albany in 1864. However, there is absolutely no explanation as to why Work would be in Albany, or why he would know Lavallée well enough to want to collaborate with him. As Work is not given a military title, we can assume (with a certain amount of relief) that TFSmith did not place him among the the ranks of the 'ralliers'.

The conversion of the English lyrics from 'Marching Through Georgia' into 'Marching Through Canada' is not that bad, largely because little changes in the process. As the repeated line that gives the song its title is drawn out, there is little difficulty fitting the three syllables of 'Canada' in place of the two of 'Georgia'. However, the difference in stressed syllables between 'Atlanta' and 'Montreal' is palpable and awkward, and it beggars belief that this was not replaced with 'Toronto' or 'Niagara' instead. Nevertheless, this work is acceptable for an amateur: it is only when we get into the translation that things begin to fall apart.

Just to be clear on what a good translation looks like, here's an illustration drawn from a song used in its original form by TFSmith in the timeline:

Un Canadien errant,
Banni de ses foyers,
Parcourait en pleurant
Des pays étrangers.

Once a Canadian lad,
Exiled from hearth and home,
Wandered, alone and sad,
Through alien lands unknown.

In French, the number of syllables per line is 7-6-6-5. In English, this becomes 7-6-6-6 - one syllable being a manageable difference, as we saw with 'Georgia' and 'Canada'. For an alternative, more modern example:

Déjà, à Waterloo Napoléon a dû se rendre
Et moi, je crois que mon destin prend aujourd'hui le même chemin
Les livres d'histoire et la vie
Racontent la même comédie

Waterloo - tu es vainqueur et je perds la guerre
Waterloo - je me constitue ta prisionière
Waterloo - je ne peux plus fuir et plus t'échapper
Waterloo - pour la vie je promets de t'aimer
Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Waterloo
Il est arrivé mon Waterloo

My, my, at Waterloo Napoleon did surrender
Oh yeah, and I have met my destiny in quite a similar way
The history book on the shelf
Is always repeating itself

Waterloo - I was defeated, you won the war
Waterloo - Promise to love you for ever more
Waterloo - Couldn't escape if I wanted to
Waterloo - Knowing my fate is to be with you
Wa-Wa-Wa-Wa-Waterloo
Finally facing my Waterloo

As we can see, the syllabic structures of each version are basically similar:
French verse: 15-16-7-7
English verse: 14-17-8-8

French chorus: 12-12-13-12-7-9
English chorus: 12-12-12-12-7-9

Where they differ, they are generally made to fit by eliding syllables while singing. For instance, in line 1 of the verse ABBA skim the 'a' in 'Napoleon a dû' to reduce the line to 14 syllables; in line 2 of the verse they reduce the 17 English syllables to the 16 in French by pronouncing 'sim-il-ar- as 'sim-lar'; and in line 3 of the chorus they trim the 'ne' from 'je ne peux plus' to get down to 12.

TFSmith's translation, however, goes completely off the rails:
English verse: 13, 13, 13, 9
French verse: 22, 14, 19, 15

English chorus: 10, 10, 13, 9
French chorus: 13, 13, 16, 15

How the hell are you supposed to sing these two versions to the same music? What makes 'Marching Through Georgia' an inspiring military song is that it can be sung calmly and cleanly. Imagine the French-Canadians mumbling and babbling their way through their lines, rushing to finish before they have to start the next one, as loyalists in their audience smirk at their plight!

Just as the song does not scan, nor does it rhyme. 'song'-'along'-'strong' in English becomes 'chanson'-'monde'-'solide' in French; 'liberty'-'free'-'sea' in the original is translated as 'liberté'-'libre'-'mer'. These words, you will notice, cannot be made to rhyme by even the most sycophantic mispronunciation. In effect, the French lyrics to 'Marching Through Canada' are some kind of free-form avant-guarde beat poetry, better fitted to a San Franciso cafe in the late 1950s than a marching military unit.

Of course, all this could be forgiven if the translation was a good one: needless to say, it isn't. Admittedly, I don't know much more French than is necessary to enjoy a classic piece of 1970s Eurovision pop. However, I do know people who teach French for a living, and their verdict was not favourable. Apparently, though not surprisingly, the translation is littered with basic errors of the kind produced by simply running text through Google Translate.

For instance, the line 'So we sang the chorus' is translated using 'donc' as 'so'. However, 'donc' would more accurately be rendered 'therefore': 'so' in the sense of 'thus' would be 'ainsi'. Another howler is the phrase 'Sing it as we used to sing it'. TFSmith translates this as 'chanter comme nous avons utilisé pour le chanter', which fundamentally understands the role of tenses in grammar. 'We used to sing' is the imperfect tense, indicating an action which happened in the past over a period of time and has now stopped happening. Instad, TFSmith has taken the perfect tense of the verb 'to use,' creating a line that could better be translated as 'We employed for the purposes of singing' than 'We sang [on more than one occasion]'.

The same goes for 'we were marching'. Here it is translated as 'nous ont défilé,' meaning 'we marched [once]'. The most accurate translation, apparently, would have been the gerund (i.e. 'en défilant', meaning 'while marching'). I am informed that, taken as a whole, the use of the most basic past tense coupled with the shortcut of using of 'aller' ('to go') plus the infinitive, rather than the actual future tense, indicates the average French language skill possessed in Britain by a moderately intelligent twelve-year-old.

'The level of a moderately intelligent twelve-year-old' may well sum up Burnished Rows of Steel, with its elaborate revenge fantasies and its authorial fiat. Calixa Lavallée's legacy, however, proves that he was capable of more - in both writing music, and in speaking his native languge.