Sibérie m'était contéee ("if [the story of] Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

 was told/recited to me", but see discussion below) is the first French language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

-only album by Manu Chao

Manu Chao

Manu Chao , is a French singer of Spanish roots . He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Galician, Arabic and Portuguese and occasionally in other languages...

, 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

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, 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

Les Negresses Vertes

Les Négresses Vertes, formed in 1987, is a French music group that is best described as a fusion of world music and some aspects of alternative rock. Their tracks often feature acoustic guitar and accordion, as well as some tracks containing many other 'traditional' instruments such as piano and...

 who died of a drug overdose in 1993.

Spelling of the title

Note that the title incorporates an intentional misspelling (contéee instead of contée). It may or may not incorporate an intentional dropping of acute accent

Acute accent

The acute accent is a diacritic used in many modern written languages with alphabets based on the Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts.-Apex:An early precursor of the acute accent was the apex, used in Latin inscriptions to mark long vowels.-Greek:...

s 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

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 usually drops accents (diacritic

Diacritic

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter, or basic glyph. The term derives from the Greek διακριτικός . Diacritic is both an adjective and a noun, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritical marks, such as the acute and grave are often called accents...

s) 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: eg, 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.

Puns and wordplay

The title is a pun

Pun

The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

 or word play

Word play

Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...

. There are many books or articles in French with the title "Si X m'était conté" or "Si le X m'était conté" (for masculine

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

 nouns X) or "Si X m'était contée" or "Si la X m'était contée" (for feminine

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

 nouns X). These translate literally as "If X was told to me" or figuratively as "What X is all about" or "An introduction to X". Thus in Sibérie m'était contée the first syllable of Sibérie (Siberia) could be interpreted, in wordplay, as the word si (if): "If 'bérie' was told to me" (whatever "bérie" --which just happens to rhyme with the French pronunciation of Paris (Par-ee)--might be). It can be another wordplay with Jean Tiberi

Jean Tiberi

Jean Tiberi is a French politician who was mayor of Paris from May 22, 1995 to March 24, 2001. , he is mayor of the 5th arrondissement of Paris and deputy to the French National Assembly from the second district of Paris....

, mayor of Paris until 2001.

Note also a 1974 album by Melina Mercouri

Melina Mercouri

Melina Mercouri , born as Maria Amalia Mercouri was a Greek actress, singer and politician.As an actress she made her film debut in Stella and met international success with her performances in Never on Sunday, Phaedra, Topkapi and Promise at Dawn...

 with the title Si Melina m'était contée.

The album cover also includes the words (in capital letters): "…A TOUS LES PECHEURS DU FLEUVE AMOUR…", which is also a pun. It can be understood as either "to all those who fish the Amur river" (a river in Siberia), or as "to all the sinners of the river Love". The French words pécheur (sinner) and pêcheur (fisherman/fisher) are spelled the same way when the accent is dropped in capital letters.

Track listing

1. "Le P'tit Jardin"
2. "Petite Blonde du Boulevard Brune"
3. "La Valse à Sale Temps"
4. "Les Milles Paillettes"
5. "Il Faut Manger"
6. "Helno Est Mort"
7. "J'ai Besoin de La Lune"
8. "L'automne Est Las"
9. "Si Loin de Toi... Je Te Joue"
10. "100.000 remords"
11. "Trop Tôt, Trop Tard"
12. "Te Tromper"
13. "Madame Banquise"
14. "Les Rues de L'Hiver"
15. "Sibérie Fleuve Amour"
16. "Les Petites Planètes"
17. "Te Souviens Tu..."
18. "J'ai Besoin de La Lune... Remix"
19. "Dans Mon Jardin"
20. "Merci Bonsoir..."
21. "Fou de Toi"
22. "Les Yeux Turquoises"
23. "...Sibérie..."