tl;dr; ya ya
I don’t remember the occasion (might have been to see the Genesis cover band, The Musical Box) but sometime in 2001, I visited my good friend Myke of MykesWorld in Hamilton, ON. While I was there, we were doing some site-seeing in Toronto proper. I remember seeing a postcard in a record shop advertising the debut album of a band called, Swamperella. The cover of the album showed a crayfish dressed in women’s clothing on the arm of a crocodile dressed in men’s clothing. This chuffed me to no end.
I had never heard of zydeco music, but i researched it when I got home because the band’s name and the album cover tickled me so much. During my research, I stumbled across Buckwheat Zydeco and discovered a bunch of heartfelt songs including the whimsical “Ya Ya”.
Ok, let’s take an quick unexpected trip through a little bit of history. From 1955 – 1964, the Acadian diaspora, the Expulsion of the Acadians, the Great Expulsion, occurred in the the maritime provinces of Canada. In all, of the 14,100 Acadians in the region, approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported.[7][8](A census of 1764 indicates that 2,600 Acadians remained in the colony, presumably having eluded capture.[9]) I’m sorry. I just realized that you might not know who the Acadians are. They are/were people of French heritage living in the Maritime provinces of Canada,
The Acadians that remainedin the Maritimes settled largely in northeast New Brunswick. My mother was born in a tiny fishing village called Tabusintac, NB. Tabusintac is the only English speaking village for a 50 – 60 miles. Growing up, I spent every summer in Tabusintac and I learned what “arrêt”, “rue”, and “fraise” meant. There was some animosity between the French and English speaking. With a healthy dose of Canadian First Nations culture thrown in.
One of the other places the Acadians settled was Louisiana. New Orleans, specifically. The Acadians, then Cadians, then Cajuns were fully represented as a result of the Acadian diaspora. And this helped to spawn that which we know as Cajun, or zydeco music. Give it a listen. You might like it!
Oh! I almost forgot. I noticed an an interesting (to me) phenomena in zydeco music: there is an overwhelming tendency for singers to shout “et tois!”, or “and you!” during their songs. I’m not sure why. It just is! I was listening to this Sesame Street song about zydeco music as I was typing this, and guess what? At the end of the song, they shout, “et tois!”. I can’t make this up.
wondering aloud 