Speaking of French

After my recent fixation with Edith Piaf, I tried to banish French from my mind. By way of saying goodbye to it, I listened to this song. It's "Orleans" by David Crosby (for you folks who have your Flash blocked). Pretty tune.

Last year I tried to find out what the lyrics meant. Although I only understand a bit of French, the words didn't seem to make sense to me. I recognized that the sounds didn't seem to be valid French words. I finally located the answer on the net. These aren't lyrics at all. They are the names of French cathedrals. I like this unexpected answer.

Today, when I visited YouTube to snag the embed code, I saw this explanation, which includes the "lyrics":

"Orléans, Beaugency, Notre-Dame de Cléry, Vendôme, Vendôme !"
Famous french nursery rhyme dating from the fifteenth century... The french original title is "Le carillon de Vendôme".

Those are indeed the words. Interesting, no? And the tune is beautiful.