Cajun music has a long and complex genealogy. French people who settled in Acadia, Nova Scotia, preserved a musical heritage rooted in medieval France. After their expulsion by the British in 1755, those seeking refuge in subtropical south Louisiana apparently carried no instruments, though they had obtained fiddles by the 1800’s. The exiled Acadians performed not only old compositions that had survived the expulsion, but also composed new tunes, often concerning themes of death, loneliness, and ill-fated love — a reaction to their harsh exile and rough frontier experience. ydeco is a popular accordion-based musical genre - the blues and dance music of Louisiana Creoles, the French-speaking blacks of the prairies of south-central and southwest Louisiana. Contrary to popular belief, it is not Cajun in origin. Rather, zydeco is the music of south Louisiana’s “Creoles of Color,” who borrowed many of zydeco’s defining elements from Cajun music. (In turn, Cajun music borrowed many of its traits from Creole music.)The word zydeco (also rendered zarico, zodico, zordico, and zologo) derives from the French expression les haricots, meaning "beans." Folk etymology holds that the genre obtained this name from the common Creole expression Les haricots sont pas salés ("The snap beans aren’t salty"). This phrase has appeared in many Creole songs, and serves as the title of a popular zydeco recording (also called "Zydeco est pas salé"). Les haricots sont pas salés can be considered a lyrical metaphor for difficult times: in the past, Creoles seasoned their food, such as beans (les haricots), with salted meat — when times were bad, salted meat became too expensive, which explained why "the beans aren’t salty."
