This is a well known tradition in international Tabling. If you’ve travelled the Round Table World, you must have heard that song. With its simple lyrics and catchy tune, no wonder it resonates between so many Tablers of different backgrounds and languages.
In some countries you can’t even start a meeting or try to say a word without hearing that song every 2–3 minutes, you probably already know the “dancing” of that song.
Origin
The Lala Song, originates from France in the early 1900s in Dijon, Burgundy; that’s why the original name is Ban Bourguignon. No real secret about this story, but really few reliable sources, due the local Bon Vivant Club who created this song.
They used to meet after work to share some drinks (of French wine for sure) and progressively people around Dijon started to hear the song in different places like restaurants or in pubs and it became a celebration song which it’s still used today during for example wedding, birthday party or simply for congratulating a cooking chef or during a family meeting in that specific part of France…
Today
When performing the gesture, you have to imagine that you are holding glasses of wine in each hand and that you want them to turn the wine inside. Some stories tell that the Lala song is the perfect lenght of time you need to turn the bottle of wine bottom up and to make the deposit inside to slip.
So just think about this story during your next Lala Song.
Thanks to Round Table, this song is now International, and so every time you perform it on your travels, you bring a small piece of France with you.
Add ons
At some meetings, the song is followed by a call-and-response of “yoggi yoggi yoggi”, and “Who let the dogs out?”.
Melody
This content is adapted from an Article published in RTI Legacy Magazine — 2 written by Romain from Round Table France
Lalala at the Round Table Germany AGM 2014 in Aachen