Laments, call and response songs and other ballads inherited from
tradition, the "songs for laughing and crying" presented here express
the daily life, joys and suffering or the tragedies that afflict
individuals. Some tell of unhappy or forbidden. Some evoke death.
Others depict desire and the joy of living, the delight of wine and the
urge to have fun, the enjoyment or disappointment when two people meet
again. Chronicles of good and bad fortunes, they may relate a news item
or the life of a lumberjack. Satirical, they make fun of good language,
gibe at the Church, or parody funeral prayers to mock the misdeeds of
drinking. Rooted in the land, they are the mirrors of a community and
its history.
