Sibérie m'était contéee
| Siberie m'etait contéee | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Manu Chao | ||||
| Released | 2004 | |||
| Genre | Chanson | |||
| Length | 72:58 | |||
| Label | Radio Bemba | |||
| Manu Chao chronology | ||||
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Sibérie m'était contéee [sic] ("if [the story of] Siberia was told/recited to me", but see discussion below) is the first French language-only album by Manu Chao, released in 2004. This album features, along with a CD, an oversized book with lyrics to songs from the album and previous Manu Chao albums, as well as illustrations by Jacek Woźniak. Hit singles include "Petite blonde du Boulevard Brune" ("Little blonde from Brune Boulevard", which is a Parisian boulevard). The album's songs refer heavily to Paris, and Parisian life. The song "Helno est mort" ("Helno is Dead") is dedicated to the memory of his friend Helno (Noël Rota), the singer of Les Négresses Vertes who died of a drug overdose in 1993.
Note that the title incorporates an intentional misspelling (contéee instead of contée). It may or may not incorporate an intentional dropping of acute accents in Sibérie/Siberie and m'était/m'etait.
The grammatically correct title would be Sibérie m'était contée. The title as written in capital letters on the album cover is SIBERIE M'ETAIT CONTÉEE. To interpret this, it is necessary to understand that the French language usually drops accents (diacritics) on capital letters, but nevertheless very often retains the accent for capital É (E with acute accent) when it occurs in a word-final or near word-final position, because in this position it could be mistaken for silent "e" and the word could be mistaken for another word: e.g., conté (told [masculine]), conte (tale).
Thus, nearly all French language references interpret the title as Sibérie m'était contéee (Amazon.fr, album reviews, etc). However the official Manu Chao website manuchao.net gives the title as Siberie m'etait contéee (without accents on Sibérie or m'était) even though Sibérie appears elsewhere on the same webpage with the accent. It is not known if this dropping of accents in Sibérie and m'était actually reflects the singer's intentions or was merely done by the site's webmaster.
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