Je mourron ben sans qu'on nous tue

"Exciting, steeped in rare sincerity", Jean-Luc Porquet, Le Canard Enchainé

A hundred years have passed since Gaston Couté was sung in the barns and homely rooms of France. In the intimate warmth of those gathering places, many will have felt the unique force and range of his texts, as pertinent today as they were then. In French or Beauce dialect, Couté depicted the world around him with brilliant insight, giving pride of place to the common people overlooked by history.

Combining theatre, song and dance, Suzanne Tandé brings to life, with emotion and authenticity, some of the people Couté portrays. The direct, sometimes harsh speech of this man of the soil, full of love and loam, feeds a narrative in which gestures and music tell a story in which characters and ideas appear and vanish as those that follow emerge, creating an ode to the universality of the human condition.

Francis Jauvain, who plays brilliantly both accordina and accordion, has for years retrodden the route that Couté traced. Familiar with all the nuances of his instruments, he deploys his musical palette with delicacy and precision.

One hundred years ago, in the ardor of youth, Couté was already telling us about the follies that cause an unhappy humanity to grimace, while at the same time offering the keys to a simple happiness that might be fearlessly reclaimed.

His poetry remains as vibrant as it is powerful in the face of today’s struggles as it was then.