French Acadian new song The Moon, The Sun, and the Truth: Exposing the Clique Controlling Acadian Culture with a Talkin’ Stick
French Acadian Song lyric project Cajun Dead et le Talkin; Stick World music That Names What’s Been Buried by self-serving racist Cultural Honkies
Three Things You Cannot Hide: The New Cajun Dead et le Talkin’ Stick Anthem for Acadian Cultural Rebirth
By Claude Edwin Theriault – Artist, Lyricist, and Acadian Cultural Outlier
1. Moon, Sun, and Truth: A Song That Names What’s Been Buried by Cultural Honkies
They say there are three things you cannot hide for long: the Moon, the Sun, and the Truth. That line kicks off our latest track and cuts to the core of what Cajun Dead et le Talkin’ Stick is all about. This isn't just another Acadian folk tune wrapped in accordion nostalgia or fiddle fluff. This is a call to awareness, a lyrical wake-up.
In “Three Things You Cannot Hide,” I spotlight the high-school clique-style control running the French Acadian heritage patrimonial industry. Ten xenophobic straight with Catholic racist oligarchs. That’s right—ten. A tight little circle of power broker Hillbillies with money, in prim and proper dress, paid well to keep the cultural narrative tidy for the tourist brochure industry, unchallenged, and blissfully ignorant of deeper truths.
But here’s the thing: the people?
They’re waking up.... they are since the majority of locals come from away and are not interested in the old Pride and Kitchen party narratives.
There’s only so much a person can take before seeing through the fake. And when that moment hits, when the veil lifts, the spirit of the family—of real Acadie—returns.
2. A Clique of 10 Running the Show: The Problem with Institutionalized Culture
Do you want to talk about “heritage”? Then, let’s talk about ownership—not just of land or artifacts, but of narrative. Who gets to say what Acadian means in 2025?
The answer is a gatekeeping group of ten, sitting pretty in places like the Tour Charles de Menou d’Aulnay, playing cultural gods with federal grant money and careerist motivations. They decide who’s in, who’s funded, who gets published, promoted, and paraded around during summer festivals. It’s the Francophone Pride Machine, all shiny and performative but with zero room for nuance, critique, or—God forbid—queer voices, neurodivergent artists, or new world perspectives.
And let me be real clear:
I’m not here for that paycheck.
I won’t play dress-up and toe the heritage line to be accepted.
Cheap is easy—but that ain’t me.
This song is a mirror held up to the institution and a map forward. Knowing your roots so deep, you don’t fear the wind. You let it blow. You let it clear the air. You welcome it.
3. From Faux Nostalgia to Purposeful Rebirth
We live in a time of prompt engineering and generative AI, where a single line of code can build a digital empire. So why is our cultural narrative still stuck in 1975?
The “Trudgeon Talkin’ Stick” lyric in the outro is a metaphor for a new Acadian storytelling framework—one born not of institutional rubber-stamping but from lived truth, creative resilience, and decentralized voices. We’ve beta-tested this approach for years, from Nova Scotia to New Orleans, threading through beat, image, voice, and code.
Like so many of us, the song admits:
We’re stuck in the bottle, trying to read the label from the inside.
And yet we keep tryna love.
Keep tryna push forward.
That’s what this song is. It’s a zero-shot, few-shot system prompt in musical form. It’s a call to function—a template of resistance and rebirth—a fable for a new world.
Claude Edwin Theriault
Three chords and the truth lookin' right back at you
4. Marching Toward a Real Acadie—One Verse at a Time
Three things you cannot hide for long… the Moon, the Sun, and the Truth.
When we sing that refrain, we’re not just vibing to a catchy hook. We’re channelling the Saints, the ancestors who were expelled, erased, and then celebrated posthumously as symbols of perseverance, without ever being asked what they wanted.
Our youth deserve better.
They deserve a future rooted in more than curated festivals and government slogans.
They deserve a culture that’s not scared to tell the truth, even when it burns.
So we march like the Saints.
Not in bitterness but in purpose.
Not backward, but forward.
Because Acadie?
It’s not just a past—it’s a prompt.
A system. A template.
And now, it’s time to run the new code.
Claude Edwin Theriault
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: What inspired the song “Three Things You Cannot Hide”?
A: The song was born from years of witnessing the insider politics and exclusionary practices within the French Acadian heritage industry. It's a critique, reclamation, and a creative call to bring truth and unity back to the culture.
Q2: Who are the “10 oligarchs” mentioned in the lyrics?
A: Symbolically, they represent the small group of gatekeepers who control Acadian cultural funding, messaging, and access. These institutional elites run the show behind closed doors, often out of touch with the real grassroots artistic movement.
Q3: What is meant by “Trudgeon Talkin’ Stick”?
A: It's a metaphor for a new kind of leadership and storytelling rooted in truth, creativity, and technology. It is inspired by traditional talking sticks used in Indigenous cultures but updated with language model symbolism and AI prompt engineering to reflect today’s realities.
Q4: How does this song differ from traditional Acadian music?
A: Unlike most Acadian songs that focus on nostalgia, folklore, or romanticized history, this one uses modern metaphor, social critique, and spoken-word narrative to challenge the status quo and rewire what cultural music can do.
Q5: What role does Claude Edwin Theriault play in this movement?
A: As a multidisciplinary artist and cultural outlier, I use everything from 3d motion graphics to NFT publishing and poetic lyrics to offer alternative narratives. I'm not here to fit in but to liberate the narrative.
Conclusion: This Is the World Music Talkin’ Stick Now
This song isn't meant for the polished stages of government-sanctioned festivals.
It’s meant for the streets, jam sessions, youth with earbuds, and elders who’ve had enough of being silenced.
So, if you feel like the truth has been hidden, if you’re sick of cultural gatekeeping, and want to be part of something real...
Grab the Talkin’ Stick.
Could you speak your verse?
And let the Moon, the Sun, and the Truth shine on Acadie—once and for all.