Frère Jacques in popular culture

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The song "Frère Jacques" often appears in popular culture. Frère Jacques is one of the most widely-known songs on earth, and it can be found many places in modern world culture. For example:

  • A version of the Frère Jacques tune appears in the third movement of the Symphony No. 1 by Gustav Mahler. Mahler presents the melody in a minor key instead of a major key, thus giving the piece the character of a funeral march or dirge; however, the mode change to minor might not have been an invention by Mahler, as is often believed, but rather the way this round was sung in the 19th century and early 20th century in Austria.[1][2]
  • Francesca Draughon and Raymond Knapp argue[3] that Mahler had changed the key to make Frère Jacques sound more "Jewish" (Mahler converted to Catholicism from Judaism). When it was first performed, many thought it was a parody or grotesque.[3] Draughon and Knapp claim that the tune was originally sung to mock non-Catholics, such as Protestants or Jews. To support this, they point out that the subject of one version of the lyrics in Austria was "Bruder Martin", a possible reference to Bruder Martin Luther, and another Austrian version was about a "Bruder Jakob". Mahler himself called the tune "Bruder Martin", and made some allusions to the piece being related to a parody in the programs he wrote for the performances. Many also detect Gypsy influences in this Mahler work.[4] Interpretations similar to this are quite prevalent in academia and in musical circles.[5]
  • The French performer known as Le Pétomane entertained live audiences in the late 1800s and early 1900s with his own unique rendition of Frère Jacques, according to the BBC.[6]
  • Frère Jacques has led to many parodies. For example, Allan Sherman is noted for writing new lyrics to Frère Jacques based on typical Jewish-American family gossip and small talk. The resulting song, "Sarah Jackman", became quite famous at the time, and led to Sherman's career in musical parody.
  • Versions of Frère Jacques can be reproduced using a DTMF ("touch-tone ") telephone keypad (the push-button telephone dialing system prevalent in the USA, Canada and some other countries).[7] The aricle on numbered musical notation uses Frère Jacques as an example, and demonstrates that numbered musical notation systems like jianpu and the Ziffersystem have some similarity to DTMF representations of tunes.
  • Mon Frère Jacques was a French comedic film directed by Marcel Manchez, and released in 1925.[10]
  • Frère Jacques is a type of semi-soft cow's milk cheese with a mild hazelnut taste, produced by Benedictine monks from the Saint-Benoit-du-lac Abbey in Quebec, Canada.[11]
  • Four French singers, brothers André and Georges Bellec, François Soubeyran and Paul Tourenne formed a comedic singing group in 1944 known as the Frères Jacques, even though none of them were named "Jacques". The group name was a bit of a play on words since a common French expression, "faire le jacques", means to act like a clown. They had successful careers over the next few decades.[12]
  • The demonstrators in Tiananmen Square chanted political slogans to the tune of Frère Jacques.[15]
  • In one Loopy de Loop cartoon, Loopy sings a song to the tune of Frère Jacques.
  • The 1973 Spanish horror film with the US title House of Psychotic Women directed by Carlos Aured made use of the song Frère Jacques to set the mood.
  • Frère Jacques is also the name of a chain of franchised French restaurants in the UK[17] and the name of a French restaurant in the Murray Hill section of New York City.[18] Les Frères Jacques is the name of a French restaurant in Dublin.[19]
  • The post-punk group Television Personalities used Frère Jacques as the chorus to their song "Hello Edward", found on their album 'Paisley Shirts & Mini Skirts' (1996).
  • Ron Haselden, a British artist living in the French town of Brizard, in Brittany, has produced a well-known interactive multimedia piece featuring Frère Jacques in collaboration with Peter Cusack.[20]
  • The Swedish punk rock band Millencolin closed the song "That's Up To Me" on their 1994 Skauch album with a rendition of Frère Jacques on a kazoo.
  • The Frère version of the Jerusalem computer virus plays Frère Jacques if the day is Friday or on the 13th of any month.
  • Sam Shaber, a New York City folksinger, released a song based on Frère Jacques on her 1999 album, "perfecT".
  • The Matthew Shipp Quartet jazz group's album Pastoral Composure in the year 2000 includes a piece called Frère Jacques that draws on the Frère Jacques melody.
  • The Chinese song "Dadao lie qiang" ("Cut down the great powers", or rather: "Let's beat together the great powers", also known as 'The "Revolution of the Citizens" Song') celebrates the cooperation in China in the 1920s of Mao's Communist Party and the Kuomintang against warlords and imperialist powers, and is sung to the tune of Frère Jacques.[21]
  • On an episode of Sports Night, Dan Rydell, after finding out that the song Happy Birthday is copyrighted (and the station is being sued for copyright infringement, since Dan sung it to his partner Casey on air), decides to sing songs that are in the public domain, and settles on Frère Jacques for his boss Isaac.
  • Argentinian composer Juan Maria Solare's piece "Frère Jacques the Ripper (deconstructing the Canon) for Flute, Clarinet, Violin and Cello" transforms the familiar "Frère Jacques" melody by altering the speed, the tonality, the key, inverting the tune and applying fractal transformations to the tune. This piece was performed in Cologne in 2003.
  • In 1971, the Allman Brothers Band slipped in the "Frère Jacques" melody during the extended jam portion of "Whipping Post" on their At Fillmore East album. It can be heard starting at about 17 minutes and 40 seconds into the song. The melody is transposed into the key of C.
  • The Band Blues Traveler sings a song "Brother John" off of their album "Four" which references the song
  • In an episode of Justice League called "Only a Dream", Batman humms "Frère Jacques" in order to prevent a villain from entering his mind.
  • On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Jean-Luc Picard and the winners of the school science fair aboard the Enterprise-D sung this song while climbing up a turbolift shaft in 2368. (TNG: "Disaster")
  • On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Frère Jacques was one of the first tunes that Captain Picard, as Kamin, learned to play on his Ressikan flute. (TNG: "The Inner Light")
  • On Star Trek: The Next Generation, Picard (playing his Ressikan flute) and Nella Daren (playing her portable piano) performed a duet (actually, a canon) of Frère Jacques in Picard's quarters on the Enterprise-D in 2369. (TNG: "Lessons")

[edit] References

  1. ^ Reinhold Schmid: 50 Kanons. Vienna, n.d. [ca. 1950] (Philharmonia pocket scores No. 86)
  2. ^ Ute Jung-Kaiser: Die wahren Bilder und Chiffren „tragischer Ironie“ in Mahlers „Erster“. In: Günther Weiß (ed.): Neue Mahleriana: essays in honour of Henry-Louis de LaGrange on his seventieth birthday. Lang, Berne etc. 1997, ISBN 3-906756-95-5. pp. 101–152
  3. ^ a b Mahler and the Crisis of Jewish Identity by Francesca Draughon and Raymond Knapp, ECHO volume III, issue 2 (Fall 2001)
  4. ^ Symphony No. 1 in D major, Composer: Gustav Mahler, Program note originally written for the following performance: National Symphony Orchestra: Leonard Slatkin, conductor/Dotian Levalier, harp/Mahler's First Symphony Jun 7 - 9, 2007 © Richard Freed
  5. ^ MAHLER'S MUSIC, Dean Olsher, of NPR's Morning Edition, July 31, 1998, discusses jazz musician and composer Uri Caine's reinterpretations of Mahler.
  6. ^ You don’t see many of those these days, Joker - Trivia, Follow your Dream, BBC
  7. ^ Frère Jacques, Touch Tone Tunes website
  8. ^ Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature, edited by Jean Albert Bede, William Benbow Edgerton, Columbia University Press, 1980.
  9. ^ Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, Merriam-Webster, Encyclopedia Britannica, ISBN 0877790426, 1995
  10. ^ Mon Frère Jacques, a film directed by Marcel Manchez, 1925
  11. ^ SAINT BENEDICT-DU-LAC ABBEY, Quebec, Canada website.
  12. ^ Les Frères Jacques, Biography, RFI Musique, March 2004
  13. ^ What Makes Music Symphonic?, Leonard Bernstein, 13 December 1958.
  14. ^ Young People's Concerts, Leonard Bernstein, 1958
  15. ^ Comrade Jiang Zemin does indeed seem a proper choice, Jasper Becker, London Review of Books, Vol. 23 No. 10, 24 May 2001
  16. ^ Eating the mosquito: Transmission of a Chinese children's folksong, David Seubert, Chinoperl papers/Chung-kuo yen chang wen i yen chiu hui lun chi, vol. 16 1992. p. 133-43. ISSN: 0193-7774
  17. ^ About Frères Jacques, Frères Jacques Restaurant-Bar-Cafe, a UK franchised restaurant chain (depuis 1994)
  18. ^ Hello and Welcome to the Frère Jacques Website, Frère Jacques Restaurant, Murray Hill section of New York City
  19. ^ Les Frères Jacques, Dublin, Ireland restaurant review
  20. ^ Frère Jacques et autres pièces à Francis: Expositions. 1997. Saint-Fons Ron Haselden, Saint-Fons, Centre d'Arts Plastiques, 1997, ISBN: 2-9509357-2-9
  21. ^ Une utilisation insolite de la musique de l'Autre, Pom pom pom pom: Musiques et caetera Neuchatel: Musee d'Ethnographie 1997 p. 227-241.