Élise meets Liza meets Liese

Unfortunately, Tall Mountain introduced me to the hick (TM’s qualifier), depressing Liza and Henry’s bucket hole the other day. Liza officially shattered my image of sweet Élise gallivanting in fields of dandelions and poppies forever.

Anglophones, meet Liza’s French counterpart Élise – the soft-spoken, gentle, polite aid to Eugène (despite his irritating questions):

Francophones, je vous présente Liza (prononcé Laïza), la pauvre campagnarde américaine, pas très éduquée et franchement pas très raffinée:

It’s really fun to me to see how the songs are contextualized for each country. So which one came first?

Well apparently, it was in fact the German version that came first, appearing around 1750, with Heinrich answering Liese’s many annoying questions:

(I don’t think there were talking animals in the original lyrics, but here is a taster)

Amazing how many French and English children’s songs originally came from the German. What a rich cultural heritage Germany has given us.

5 thoughts on “Élise meets Liza meets Liese

  1. Rigolo qu’en français et en anglais, c’est le Monsieur qui découvre le pot percé et que c’est Elise/Lisa qui lui dit comment réparer, alors qu’en allemand, les rôles sont “inversés” 🙂

    1. J’ai trouvé quelques sketches en ligne où les rôles sont inversés en allemand aussi mais on dirait que le texte original est effectivement plus machiste avec Heinrich qui sait tout!

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