La chancon des Jumelles (MS2011-3223-002)
Dublin Core
Title
La chancon des Jumelles (MS2011-3223-002)
Alternative Title
Les cinq jumelles
Subject
Description
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223-002 Alice Lacourse Danis Songbook. Pp. 2.
“Les cinq jumelles” (“The Quintuplet Sisters”) is a 1934 original song celebrating the Dionne quintuplets, whose birth May 28 in Callendar, Ontario caused a sensation in the press in both Canada and the United States. The song was created by 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 to large audiences in Montreal.
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.
“Les cinq jumelles” is set to the melody of “Little Brown Jug,” an American drinking song written in 1869 by Joseph Eastburn Winner, originally published in Philadelphia with the author listed as Winner's middle name “Eastburn."" The song passed rapidly into oral tradition on both sides of the border and the melody was pressed into service as a square dance tune in the early 1900s. The melody also was used for numerous parody songs in both Canada and the U.S. Bolduc recorded her song on the Compo label in 1934 (issue # 15907; matrix #7156), accompanying herself on harmonica. You can hear Bolduc’s performance on Library and Archives Canada’s website, the Virtual Gramophone: http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone-bin/Main/ItemDisplay?l=0&l_ef_l=-1&id=948842.123149&v=1&lvl=1&coll=24&rt=1&itm=31394474&rsn=S_WWWydaAtuBL3&all=1&dt=AW+|cinq|+AND+|jumelles|&spi=-&rp=1&v=1
“Les cinq jumelles” (“The Quintuplet Sisters”) is a 1934 original song celebrating the Dionne quintuplets, whose birth May 28 in Callendar, Ontario caused a sensation in the press in both Canada and the United States. The song was created by 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 to large audiences in Montreal.
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.
“Les cinq jumelles” is set to the melody of “Little Brown Jug,” an American drinking song written in 1869 by Joseph Eastburn Winner, originally published in Philadelphia with the author listed as Winner's middle name “Eastburn."" The song passed rapidly into oral tradition on both sides of the border and the melody was pressed into service as a square dance tune in the early 1900s. The melody also was used for numerous parody songs in both Canada and the U.S. Bolduc recorded her song on the Compo label in 1934 (issue # 15907; matrix #7156), accompanying herself on harmonica. You can hear Bolduc’s performance on Library and Archives Canada’s website, the Virtual Gramophone: http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone-bin/Main/ItemDisplay?l=0&l_ef_l=-1&id=948842.123149&v=1&lvl=1&coll=24&rt=1&itm=31394474&rsn=S_WWWydaAtuBL3&all=1&dt=AW+|cinq|+AND+|jumelles|&spi=-&rp=1&v=1
Abstract
In Calendar, Ontario, folks are good at multiple births, it takes a good French-Canadian farmer and a determined mother to produce quintuplets; the delivering doctor, hospital, and Father Xmas have been busy as well as a result, young suitors are trying to marry their sweethearts.
Source
VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223 Alice Lacourse Danis Songbook. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
Song Item Type Metadata
Supplied Title
La chancon des Jumelles
Standard Title
La chanson des jumelles
Tranlsated Title
The Quintuplet Sisters
First Line
A calendar Ontario ils sont fort sur les jumeaux
Scribe
Composer
Édouard Bolduc
Lyricist
Édouard Bolduc
Transcription
A calendar Ontario ils sont fort sur les jumeaux
Sa prend une bonne canadienne pour avoir ca a la demi douzaine
Ah ah ah les gens du Canada marche de
L’avant comme de braves soldats
Sa prend un cultivateur pour avoir autant d’ardeur
Et une mere bien decide pour donner le jour a 5 poupees
Je veut parler du Docteur Ca se n’est pas un chomeur
Il travaille jour et nuit affin d’prendre soin des petits
L’hopital qu’il a construit est rempli de bon petits lits
Esperant que l’annee prochaine reviendra l’autre demi douzaine
Quand les fetes ont arrive le pere Noel s’est decourage
Y a trouve que dans une annee que la famille avait augmentee
Depuis qu’ca est arrive les garcons veulent tous se marier
Les jeunes filles les regardent de travers et disent toi essaie par d’maon
Si un garcon veut se marier y a rien qu’a se presenter
If you wish me in your arms comme up and se me sometime
Sa prend une bonne canadienne pour avoir ca a la demi douzaine
Ah ah ah les gens du Canada marche de
L’avant comme de braves soldats
Sa prend un cultivateur pour avoir autant d’ardeur
Et une mere bien decide pour donner le jour a 5 poupees
Je veut parler du Docteur Ca se n’est pas un chomeur
Il travaille jour et nuit affin d’prendre soin des petits
L’hopital qu’il a construit est rempli de bon petits lits
Esperant que l’annee prochaine reviendra l’autre demi douzaine
Quand les fetes ont arrive le pere Noel s’est decourage
Y a trouve que dans une annee que la famille avait augmentee
Depuis qu’ca est arrive les garcons veulent tous se marier
Les jeunes filles les regardent de travers et disent toi essaie par d’maon
Si un garcon veut se marier y a rien qu’a se presenter
If you wish me in your arms comme up and se me sometime
Files
Collection
Citation
“La chancon des Jumelles (MS2011-3223-002),” Vermont Folklife Center Digital Collections, accessed December 26, 2024, https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/768.
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