Zydeco Sont Pas Sale

Song from Louisiana via Clifton Chenier in the 1950s built around the Cajun Creole folk expression "les haricots sont pas sales" (the beans are not salted), a saying that reflected hard times when people could not afford to put salt pork in their pot of beans.

(Instrumental intro with stop)

Verse:

Les haricots sont pas sale

Hip-a-Hip et Taiaud

Hip-a-Hip et Tai-ai

(instrumental with stop)

(verse)

(solos)

(instrumental with stop)

(drum solo)

(instrumental with stop)

(verse)

(instrumental and end)

Notes on the music:

The chorus response vocal in the video was a spontaneous development with one group of friends that seems like a good idea for a sing along but we shall see. Likewise the melody played on the accordion in the “instrumental with stop” part which is often doubled/tripled on voice, guitar, and trombone when the song is performed live by the band Big Mamou.

The structure of that part (noting rhythm of melody with italicized x’s, you are on your own for the notes) is as follows (note that numbers are beats here, not bars):

1/16 note x 7 lead in starts after stop on 3 so

(countoff) 1 2 3xxxxxxx

G xxxxxxxx xxxxxx Dx xx xxxxxxxG x x x

1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx

x x xxxx x x x x x xxxx x x x Dx xx xx xxxxxxxG xxxxxx xxxxxx

1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx

(stop)

xxxxxx xxxxxxxD………...x xxxxxG xxxxxxx

1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx1xxx2xxx3xxx4xxx

The first 4 bar line of this is typical for both the verse and the solos which we will extend as long as needed with no set length. The 2nd and 3rd line is the cue that ends the solos and starts the drum(s) solo… a variation on that gets us back to the final verse.

Links:

More on the history of Zydeco music here.

Clifton Chenier version here.

A little explanation of the 2 dogs Hip and Taiaud that are the source of the “Hip and Ti-yo” in the lyrics here.