Occitan culture. Nadau to the readers of “Sud Ouest”: “Our fuel is you”

Alain Laurier (born Nadeau, he specifies), from Braud-et-Saint-Louis: I knew you at the time of Los de Nadau. When did this go back?

The first concert took place on February 10, 1974, between the Cretaceous and the Jurassic. My whole life has been marked by song, but I also worked as a mathematics teacher, which gave me time to do what I loved to do. Then, I ended up leaving teaching, after 38 years of good and loyal abuse. Los de Nadau means “Those of Christmas” in Occitan. We ended up abandoning the particle to become only Nadau.

Christophe Séguier, from Martillac: How was your passion for music born?

When I was a kid, I went to mass just to hear the hymns. These songs moved me, they were my first musical emotions.

Charly Griffe, from Fargues-Sainte-Hilaire: I have been an admirer for a long time and I always have tears in my eyes when I hear “L’Encantada”. What still drives you, where is your motivation?

What drives us? It’s you: our fuel. This is the feedback you give us, when you tell us that we did you good, that our music spoke to you. Without all this feedback, I would have stopped a long time ago. The rooms are often full, people come because these are moments of sharing.

Éric Avril: What are your sources of inspiration and your working methods?

It is first of all individual and artisanal creation. You should know that I don’t know a single written musical note, I do everything by ear. Besides, I can tell you, by listening to singers, if they did the music or the lyrics first. If the text is written first, it’s very hard to stick a melody on it. Brassens, who I listened to a lot, is the exception that proves the rule. That’s it, and then I send it to the musicians and then we argue.

Philippe Poussade, from Bordeaux: Your tours sometimes pass through Paris. Why go all the way there?

This is a trick, a feint! As soon as we went to the Olympia the first time, the people back home took us a lot more seriously. Much more than having three times as many spectators at home. From then on, the media also began to come to see us. I remember, I was in the boxes of the Olympia while three trains arrived from the South-West, full to bursting with Gascons, with sausages hanging everywhere. In Orthez, they even distributed garbure on the quay! On the train, my son called me. I heard a terrible cantéra there, like the Béarnais know how to do it. I, who until then had not had stage fright, suddenly I had it. I told myself that I could never give them what they expected. Those who left Saint-Gaudens and had never been to Toulouse, arrived in Paris! But actually, they didn’t care at all, they sang “Aqueras Montanhas”, I could have even made them sing the directory after that.

Éliane Teulé, from Langon: We know your commitment to the Occitan language. How can I make sure she doesn’t die?

A language is alive when it no longer speaks for itself. It’s not my role to tell people to do this or that. Occitan, I heard it at home, it was the language of my home [à Luchon, en Haute-Garonne, NDLR] but I didn’t speak it. It was me who went for every word, like a victory. At high school, in Saint-Gaudens, I discovered mathematics, Latin and especially reading. I was devouring. But Occitan culture, I had to leave it on the rack, it had no place here.

I remember an anecdote: I found myself in the waiting room of a doctor in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. Everyone spoke Basque. A gentleman spoke to me in this language, but I did not speak it. So he asked me where I was from. This marked me […] I think I made songs out of guilt at having left those I loved. My songs were also postcards for them. Another anecdote: when her neighbor was sick, my grandmother would go and spend the night with her and bring her soup. This is what we need to draw inspiration from to stay the course. There are still people who carry soup.

Philippe Gaye, from Mont-de-Marsan: In certain families, speaking Gascon was forbidden…

It even happened, at school, that they made you wash your mouth with soap. But the worst was this self-regression in families. One day, I told my grandmother that I wanted to relearn the patois, that’s what she called it. She didn’t want, even though she only spoke that, that it was her language! But for her, if I spoke it, I was going to get in trouble at school and that wasn’t good.

Philippe Gaye: Do you think that the longevity of Nadau is due to the craze for regional languages?

I think it’s because we’ve never been fashionable. Although it seems that we are becoming one. That’s when I say to myself that it smells like pine! I would like to wish everyone who learns or transmits Occitan half the happiness I had in taking this path. I still saw a prefect ban a Calandreta newspaper [école immersive en langue occitane, NDLR]because he was called “Le Papagay”, which means the parrot. But he had read “Gay Dad”… Fortunately, ridicule doesn’t kill, there would have been a lot of deaths […] Today, in Béarn, the return of Occitan takes a lot. I see it as a desire to take root.

“Sud Ouest”: What do you think about musical creation using artificial intelligence?