“Adam et Eve dans le Paradis” (1960) – Frank Schildt * Trad. Arr. * LP: Songs of Love, Play and Protest * Label: Folkways
Frank Schildt was a Dutch folksinger with a stentorian vocal delivery. All seven of the languages he uses on his only album, Songs of Love, Play and Protest, come at you full throttle. After moving to the US in the late fifties and working the folk scenes in New York and Chicago during the folk revival years, his activities go undocumented. One of the album’s clear highlights comes from the island of Martinique where, as he explains in the notes, the French missionaries found its inhabitants abiding in the nude. Charitable clothing donations were immediately sent for, leading to an eventual protest at mission HQ, in which the islanders, all sans vêtements, sang “Adam and Eve in paradise.” The lyrics, as Schildt translates them in his liner notes, go as follows: “Adam and Eve in paradise wore no clothes, so why should we wear them? Tonight we are going to dance with no shirts and pants.” Schildt delivers them here with the gusto of a dirty-minded schoolboy.