La Chanson du prisonnier (AU1998-1073-007)

La Chanson du prisonnier (AU1998-1073-007)

Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1073-007) 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.

“La Chanson du prisonnier” (”The Prisoner’s Song“) is a French-language re-imagining/translation of “The Prisoner's Song,” one of the best-selling songs of the 1920s, which first appeared on a recording by professional lyric tenor turned hillbilly singer, Vernon Dalhart (born Marion Try Slaughter (1883-1948) on the Victor label in 1924 (issue #19427). It was one of the best-selling records of the early 20th century, selling well over one million copies in the 1920s. Dalhart copyrighted the song in the name of his cousin Guy Massey, who had sung it while staying at Dalhart's home and had in turn heard it from his brother Robert Massey, who may have heard it while serving time in prison.

‘The Prisoner’s Song” has an even longer and complex history in oral tradition, with bits and pieces of it appearing to a number of older ballads going back at least as far as the late 1800s in the United States, and farther back in English balladry. American folksong collector Vance Randolph reported that at least a dozen of the older singers he visited in the early 1920s reported having learned their versions in the 1880s. Randolph included a version titled “Meet Me, Tonight” from Mrs. Carrie Baber of Pineville, Missouri in his four-volume collection, Ozark Folksongs. Although he collected the song in 1924, the year that Dalhart recorded it, Mrs. Baber reported having first heard around 1889 (“Meet Me Tonight,” Ozark Folksongs, State Historical Society of Missouri, 1946, vol. 4, 746A, p, 226).

“La Chanson du prisonnier,” which borrows both the melody and some of the themes and content of “The Prisoner’s Song,” was created in 1925 by songwriting duo Almer Perrault and Roméo Beaudry. Perrault (1880-1944) Almer supported his family as a factory tailor but had a vibrant career in Montreal’s thriving entertainment industry. His work includes theater, radio, and the music industry, as a songwriter (both original songs and translations of popular English-language songs of the day), set designer, radio script writer and director of the popular CKAC “Living Room Furniture” troupe, a radio theater ensemble which presented music, songs, and skits in the format of a family gathering, and whose popularity led to a number of performance tours across Quebec. Perrault also co-published with J. Hervé Germain a gazette titled Canada qui chante between 1927 and 1930, which featured popular songs of the day.

Roméo Beaudry (1882-1932) was, along with his friend Herbert Berliner, the most important producer of Canadian artists in the first half of the 20th century. During the 1920s, Beaudry’s Montreal-based Starr studio produced 693 francophone records, featuring almost every great name in Quebec lyric, folk and variety song with equal success. He was also a gifted song lyricist who translated and/or reimagined more than 150 French-language adaptations of hit American songs from the 1920s. He also composed original songs, of which more than 75 were recorded.

The Perrault-Beaudry setting of this song incorporates the basic contents of the Vernan Dalhart version but adds an additional four verses which imagine the prisoner’s reflections on his imminent demise and what awaits beyond the grave.

Montreal baritone Hercule Lavoie recorded “La Chanson du prisonnier” in December 1925 on the Starr-compo label (issue # 15248, matrix # 2071, side B), the same month as another Montreal baritone, Hector Pellerin, recorded this song for the Victor/His Master’s Voice label.

VFC1998-0007 Martha Pellerin Collection. TC1998-1073 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_tc1998-1073

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vfc1998-0007_tc1998-1073-001a-007

vfc1998-0007_tc1998-1073-001a-007b

vfc1998-0007_tc1998-1073-001a-007c

La Chanson du Prisonnier

La chanson du prisonnier

S'il était quelque part en ce monde

(BEGIN SINGING)

 

LA CHANSON DU PRISONNIER

 

S'il était quelque part en ce monde,

Quelqu'un qui m'aimerait un peu,

Ma misère, elle serait moins profonde,

Car tout seul on est si malheureux.,

 

Ô, venez ce soir au clair de lune,

Entendre le récit si touchant,

Du malheur de mon infortune,

Qui m’oppresse depuis si longtemps.

 

Autrefois, j'avais t-une amie,

Plus belle, cent fois plus belle que le jour.

Un ami jaloux me l'a ravi-e,

Je l'ai tué pour venger mon amour.

 

Enchaîné jusqu'au fond de la terre,

Tout seul dans un sombre cachot,

Oui, je pleure en faisant ma prière,

Mais personne n'entend mes sanglots.

 

Si j'avais comme un ange des ailes,

De ma prison là je pourrais fuir,

Et j'irais dans les bras de ma belle,

Libre enfin je m'en irais mourir.

 

Oui demain je voirai le soleil-e,

Debout sur un échafaud achalant,

Le bourreau de sa main si cruelle,

Sur mes yeux baissera le bandeau.

 

Et dans l'éternité il me lance,

Pour paraître devant le Créateur,

Oui j'ai peur, oui j'ai peur et je tremble,

De ce crime II me juge sans peur.

 

Et plus tard sous un amas de pierres,

Quand je serai descendu dans l'tombeau,

Une croix et un peu de poussière,

Voilà ce qu'il restera bientôt.

 

J'ai fini d'écrire cette complainte,

C'est l'histoire d'un pauvre malheureux,

Et plus tard, vous qui saurez me plaindre,

Dites pour moi une prière au bon Dieu.

 

(END SINGING)

 

MP: That's--that melody is familiar. So--maybe I heard it in English?

 

UV: Like she said it's in English too.

 

MP: Yeah.

 

AG: You know---

 

MP: When she started singing I thought, boy that's familiar but I couldn't place where I heard it. But when you said it's also an English song, maybe that's where it's from. Maybe---

 

UV: I don't remember how it starts.

 

UV: (Singing) Oh, I wish I had someone to---- (Stops singing)

 

AG: (Starts singing) Oh, I wish I had someone-- (Stops singing)

 

AG: You want me to sing it in English?

 

MP: Sure.

 

(BEGIN SINGING)

 

Oh, I wish I had someone to live with

Someone to call me their own

Oh, I wish I had someone to live with

Cause I'm tired of living alone

 

Oh, please meet me tonight in the moonlight

Please meet me tonight all alone

For I have a sad story to tell you

It's a story that's never been told

 

I'll be carried to the new jail tomorrow

And there I'll be left all alone

With the cold prison bars all around me

And my head on a pillow of stone

 

Oh, I had ships on the ocean

All covered with silver and gold

And before my poor darling would suffer

All the ships would be anchored and sold

 

(Hesitates)

 

AG: Umm, the last--- (Hums)

 

(Resumes singing)

 

If I had the wings of an angel

Over these prison bars I would fly

And I'd fly to the arms of my darling

And there I'd be willing to die

 

(END SINGING)

 

strophic, four-line verses, nine verses

sound cassette (analog)