MA MAISON VOYAGEUSE

Vocals: Michael Johnson
Piano: Jenny Conlee

Recorded in 2007/2008 In Jenny Conlee’s living room and at Reclinerland HQ in Portland, OR. Mixed and mastered by Michael Johnson and Scott Garred.

When in 1946 Gaston Fournier became separated from his two children in a terrible divorce, he was moved to write the song “Ma Maison Voyageuse.” The song, dedicated to his two children Gigi and Felix, is about a man in the city of Amiens who travels to and from the village in a giant pudding-dollop-shaped flying house. Four times a year, at every change of season, the man chooses one boy and one girl from the city to travel around the world with him in his flying house. The song depicts the children of the village gathering around to cheer on the house’s return to the village from its many travels in a flamboyant manner particular to the season. In springtime the house flies in on giant wings. In summer, it sails in using great sails. In autumn it floats in like a hovercraft, and in winter time it glides down the snowy hills on great skis. After finishing the song in 1949, Fournier was arrested by the local gendarmes in Amiens when, In spite of a restraining order against him, he pushed a piano up to his ex-wife’s home and serenaded his children with the song just underneath their bedroom window. While in prison in 1950, Fournier hung himself when he heard the song “Rue St. Vincent (Rose Blanche)” by Aristide Bruant and Yves Monand, which coincidentally used the same melody.