This was posted in "The cajunpress.com" as copied from "Cajun Music" by Ann Savoy
If you need the Cajun-French words, I also have them
1. Me and my girl had gone to the dance,
We went to all the honky-tonks,
We came back the next morning,
The day was breaking,
I passed in the back door.
2. That afternoon I was in the village,
I got so drunk I couldn't walk,
They brought me back to the house,
There was company there, some strangers,
I passed in by the back door.
3. My old father, one evening when I arrived,
He tried to change my way of looking at things,
I didn't listen to him, I had too hard a head,
"A day will, my friend, you'll be sorry,
You passed in by the back door".
4. I had a lot of friends when I had money,
Now that I don't have any money they don't want to see me anymore,
I was in town, I got myself into trouble,
The law picked me up, and I was put in jail,
I'm gonna pass in through the back door.
Rufus Jagneaux English/Cajun Version of THE BACK DOOR
There's a GREAT funky English/Cajun version of "The Back Door" that I hear played quite frequently on KBON 101FM. I couldn't recall the name of the group, so finally asked Paul Marx, who provided me with the answer.
The English version of "The Back Door" is by the group "Rufus Jagneaux". See information regarding them on the CajunCulture.com website at:
http://www.cajunculture.com/People/rufusJag.htm
(active link at #3 above!) From that website comes this information:
Another recording, "The Back Door" (1975), was a bilingual swamp pop re-recording of D. L. Menard’s Cajun classic "La porte d’en arrière"; it became a belated swamp pop classic when re-issued on compact disc in the 1990s.
The song is on the CD "SWAMP POP Vol. 3" on the JIN record lable. The CD is available and Todd Ortego of the Music Machine (337)-457-4846 in Eunice can get it for you.
Re: Rufus Jagneaux English/Cajun Version of THE BACK DOOR
Looks like its the Rufus Jagneaux version that I might be looking for. Thanks to Gary for Queen Ida's version. The words Leon sent is an english translation of the french version and doesn't sing right in english.
The Back Door is a simple song but somewhat different from others in that it has a tune part only (no turn) and the tune part is 12 measures long (instead of most 2 steps being in groups of 8 measures).
We don't do it much anymore but up here in the North it never hurts to have english lyrics in songs so we are revisiting this one hoping to get some good english lyrics.
I've taken my accordions (both the Cajun box and a piano-key) to blues jams. One of the tunes I usually suggest to the blues-types to play is The Back Door because it is a straight 12-bar blues tune (I play it in G on my C Cajun box) and the blues folks don't have any problems playing it.