M'y promenant dedans la ville [first line] (AU1998-1072-006)

M'y promenant dedans la ville [first line] (AU1998-1072-006)

Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1072-006) by Martha Pellerin. Part of a project (VFC1998-0007) on Franco-American song in New England funded by the Vermont Folklife Center and undertaken by Pellerin. Interview is one in a series of six conducted between 1995-01-09 and 1995-12-06 as an effort to document the French language song repertoire of Gagné.

“M'y promenant dedans la ville” (”While walking in the city“) is a traditional French song dating back to at least to the early 18th century with at least two distinct song text variants with clearly different verse structures, as well as two distinctly different melodic types, each of which exist in many versions. The other version of the song is catalogued by Laforte as “Le galant a fait l’amour à cinquante“, II-E-29, which Coirault catalogued as “La chasse à la bécasse”, 3908.

There are relatively few documented versions of Alberta. Gagnè’s version of this song in Canada and, to the cataloguer’s knowledge, this is the only known version of this song in Franco-American New England.

In 1964, Eddie Comeau recorded Georges Comeau, then 89 years old, of Comeauville in Nova Scotia, singing an astonishingly similar version to that of Alberta Gagné (AFEUL, coll. Eddie Comeau, 89).

VFC1998-0007 Martha Pellerin Collection. TC1998-1072 interview with Alberta Gagné. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.

Copyright (c) Vermont Folklife Center

Full Interview: vfc1998-0005_tc1998-1072

fra

vfc1998-0007_tc1998-1072-001a-006

M'y promenant dedans la ville (first line)

La bague soustraite 2509

M'y promenant dedans la ville

(BEGIN SINGING)

 

M'y promenant dedans la ville, [repeat]

Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré, hé, hé,

Uns jolie fille parfaite à mon gré. [repeat last two lines]

 

Tout doux, tout doux, j'm'suis approché d'elle. [repeat]

J'ai fait semblant de l'embrasser, hé, hé,

Ses anneaux d'or, je lui ai ôté. [repeat last two lines]

 

« Amant, amant, donnez-moi mes gages, [repeat]

Donnez-moi les, si vous voulez, hé, hé,

Car j'ai grande peur que vous vous en moquez. » [repeat last two lines]

 

« Je ne suis pas moqueur de fille, [repeat]

J’estimerais mieux perdre la vie, hi, hi,

Que d'une fille m'y moquer. [repeat last two lines]

 

J'ai de l'argent dans ma boursette, [repeat]

J'ai des écus, j'ai des trente sous, hou, hou,

J'ai de l'argent pour prendre un coup. [repeat last two lines]

 

Quand ma bouteille, elle sera vide, [repeat]

Je m'en irai dans mon pays, hi, hi,

J’ferai l'amour à mon loisir. » [repeat last two lines]

 

(END SINGING)

strophic, three-line verses, six verses

sound cassette (analog)