Viens avec moi, son père, pour fêter le Jour de l'An [first line] (AU1998-1074-016)

Viens avec moi, son père, pour fêter le Jour de l'An [first line] (AU1998-1074-016)

Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1074-016) 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.

“Viens avec moi, son père, pour fêter le Jour de l'An” (“Come with me, old man, to celebrate New Year’s Day”) presents four of seven verses from the 1930 original song, “Le Jour de l’An” (“New Year’s Day”) by Québécois singer-songwriter, fiddler, and harmonica player Madame Édouard Bolduc (1894-1941, née Mary Rose Anne Travers). “La Bolduc,” as she was affectionately known by her audiences, learned to play fiddle, jaw harp, and to sing traditional songs from her family before leaving her small village in the Gaspé region in her teens to work as a domestic in Montreal. She married factory worker Édouard Bolduc when she was barely twenty. By the second half of the 1920s, a poor housewife and mother struggling to help her invalid husband make ends meet, Bolduc joined a Conrad Gauthier’s popular theatrical company, Les veillées du bon vieux temps, which presented “old-fashioned country-style” stage shows in Montreal to the delight of large, working class audiences.

Bolduc’s popularity with audiences led to her being signed on as a Compo studio artist in 1929 by songwriter, composer, pianist, and recording studio owner/producer Roméo Beaudry (1882-1932). Beaudry was, along with his friend Herbert Berliner, the most important producer of Canadian artists in the first half of the 20th century. Bolduc’s songs, often set to fiddle tunes she had learned back home or on the Montreal stage, humorously related current events and the tribulations of the working poor of French-speaking Montreal. Her recordings sold by the thousands in Quebec and she also had a dedicated following among Franco-Americans in the mill towns of New England, where her records were distributed by Columbia.

You can hear Madame Bolduc’s 1930 recording of “Le Jour de l’An” on the Compo/Starr label (issue # 15771; matrix # 4649) on the Library and Archives Canada website, The Virtual Gramophone:
http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone-bin/Main/ItemDisplay?l=0&l_ef_l=-1&id=109656.166940&v=1&lvl=1&coll=24&rt=1&itm=31394108&rsn=S_WWWpfaEiWPPs&all=1&dt=AW+|le|+AND+|jour|+AND+|de|+AND+|l%27an|&spi=-&rp=1&v=1

VFC1998-0007 Martha Pellerin Collection. TC1998-1074 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_tc1998-1074

fra

vfc1998-0007_tc1998-1074-001b-006

vfc1998-0007_tc1998-1074-001b-006b

C’est l’bon temps du Jour de l’An

Le Jour de l’An

Viens avec moi son père

(BEGIN SINGING)

 

J'va t'faire des belles tourtières et un ragoût de l'ancien temps,

            [Refrain] :

C'est l'bon temps du Jour de l'An,

Qu'on donne la main qu'on s'embrasse,

C'est l'bon temps d'en profiter,

Ça vient qu'une fois par année.

 

Fais-toi faire une perruque, fais-toi poser des dents,

Tu n'as rien qu’moi à plaire, tu seras plus ragoûtant,

            Refrain

 

Et tu retournes cutter-e, fais ferrer ta jument,

Nous irons voir ta sœur qui reste là-bas dans l’troisièm’ rang,

            Refrain

 

Y’en a qui sent la pipe, d'autres qui sentent les oignons,
J'aime autant vous l’dire tout d’suite, la plupart sent la boisson,

 

(END SINGING)

AG: La...I remember we used to..He used to..New Year's we had to kiss my uncle, you know. My father didn't drink but, one of my uncles he used to drink a lot.

 

AG: Boy! C'a sentait...c'a sentait la boisson.

 

AG: Yeah. We had to..in those days...we had to go and see...my father and mother. They were still to bed. And we were up early and we had hung our stockings, but we couldn't touch our stockings until we went to...to ask benediction from my father. Then we could go . We'd wake them up. My father would say .... well "May God bless you? Then my mother would say the same and kiss us, you know. We had...After that we used to get our stockings.

 

UV: You didn't...like that

 

AG: No. Cause I didn't...

 

UV: ...I remember one time...It must have been at the house. My uncle Wifrid...in front of them...

 

AG: Even when we were older, we still had to ask for benediction.

 

AG: I know a song about that too.

 

AG: My grandfather used to have somebody sing that song every New Year's.

 

sound cassette (analog)