J'ai descendu dans mon jardin (AU1998-1075-013)

Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1075-013) 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.

“J'ai descendu dans mon jardin“ (“I went down to my garden“) is a version of a traditional French song which has been in circulation since at least the 1500s. Versions of this song have been widely documented in France and Quebec, as well as Belgium, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Italy, and Switzerland. The motif of a bird (often identified as a nightingale) making pronouncements about love, and using Latin to do so, shows up in several songs from medieval France. In that period, “parler en son latin” (to speak in one’s Latin) meant “to speak using one’s own special terminology.”

AG: « J'ai descendu dans mon jardin... »

[BEGIN SINGING]

J'ai descendu dans mon jardin, [repeat]

C'était pour cueillir du raisin,

[Refrain] :

J'ai mis des cordes dans mon violon,

J’ai mis des cordes. [repeat these two lines]

C'était pour cueillir du raisin, [repeat]

J’en ai cueilli seulement trois graines,

            Refrain

J’en ai cueilli seulement trois graines, [repeat]

Un p’tit oiseau est v’nu me dire,

            Refrain

Un p’tit oiseau est v’nu me dire, [repeat]

Trois petits mots, mais en latin,

            Refrain

Trois petits mots, mais en latin, [repeat]

Il dit qu'les fill’s sont bonnes à rien,

            Refrain

Il dit qu'les fill’s sont bonnes à rien, [repeat]

Et les garçons sont encore moins,

            Refrain

[END SINGING]

Refrain:
I put strings on my violin,
I put on strings.

laisse, 8-syllable lines, seven lines (“in” end-rhyme)