Je m’en va z-au marché [first line] (AU1998-1070-014)

Je m’en va z-au marché [first line] (AU1998-1070-014)

Je m’en vais au marché

Excerpt from interview of Alberta Gagné (TC1998-1070-014) 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.

“Je m’en va z-au marché” (“I Went to the Market) is one of thousands of versions of this ancient and widespread song, which has been widely documented in Europe (Belgium, France, Switzerland, Spain) and in French-speaking regions across Canada, Louisiana, and Franco-American New England. Longer versions of the song open with a young woman telling of a heavily laden orange tree (sometimes an apple tree) on her father’s land and asking her parents when the fruit can be picked. In some versions, she is told that the fruit can be picked when her lover comes; in others, the harvest will coincide with the feast day of Saint-Jean. The oranges ripen, but the lover fails to appear, or the feast day arrives and no-one picks the fruit. In either case, the young woman harvests the fruit and off she goes, basket in hand, to sell it. She meets up with a young man, most often the son of a lawyer. Here the story goes one of several ways. Sometimes the song concludes with the young woman being cheated of her sales by the conniving lawyer’s son or his father. In other versions, she is raped as well; in still others, she makes a narrow escape.

Alberta Gagné’s version is a short version in which the young man’s exploitation of the young woman is limited to his father cheating her out of her sales money. The young man is not identified as a lawyer’s son; he is however clearly an anglophone who speaks primarily in English.

The dialogue in Alberta Gagné’s song is “macaronic” (a term used to designate lyrics sung in two or more languages). Macaronic versions of this song have been documented in both Canada and the United States. In 1976, Quebec’s premier poet-songwriter-composer, Gilles Vigneault, after hearing a francophone airline pilot complain of being obliged to speak English, even with a fellow francophone, above a certain altitude, borrowed a macaronic version of this song as the framework for a new set of seemingly light-hearted, but nonetheless pointed lyrics allegorizing the suppression of French in Canada and the emerging aspirations for self-determination then flourishing in Quebec.

VFC1998-0007 Martha Pellerin Collection. TC1998-1070 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_tc1998-1070

fra

vfc1998-0007_tc1998-1070-002a_003

La fille aux oranges, I, H-01

La marchande d'oranges chez l'avocat, 2205

I Went to the Market

Je m’en vais au marché mon panier pendu au bras (BIS)

Vigneault, Gilles

Rochon, Gaston

Vigneault, Gilles

Je m’en va z-au marché, mon panier pendu au bras. [x2]      

“ I want some apples, combien les vendez-vous ? ”

[Refrain] :

“ I love you, ” “ Non, monsieur vous m'aimez guère, ”

 I love you, ” “ Non, monsieur, vous m'aimez pas. ” [x2 both lines]

 

“ I want some apples, combien les vendez-vous ? ” [x2]

“ A dollar a dozen, combien en voulez-vous ? ”

                        Refrain

 

“ A dollar a dozen, combien en voulez-vous ? ” [x2]

“ I'Il take one dozen, le bonhomme vous les paiera. ”

                        Refrain

 

 ” I'Il take one dozen, le bonhomme vous les paiera. ” [x2]

I went at home, le bonhomme i était pas.

                        Refrain

 

I went at home, le bonhomme il était pas. [x2]

I went upstairs, le bonhomme il était là.

                        Refrain

 

I went upstairs, le bonhomme il était là. [x2]

 ” I want some money, “ ” Non, tu en aura pas. “

                        Refrain 

 

 ” I want some money, “ ” Non, tu en aura pas. “

I looked in the pocketbook, d’l'argent y en avait pas.

                        Refrain 

sound cassette (analog)