C’est l’aviron (MS2011-3223-037)
Dublin Core
Title
C’est l’aviron (MS2011-3223-037)
Subject
Description
French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223-037 Alice Lacourse Danis Songbook. Pp. 33.
“C’est l’aviron” (“It’s the Oar”) is a version of a traditional French folk song which has been in circulation since at last the early 1500s. French-Canadian ballad scholar Conrad Laforte, who catalogued it under the title “Le cavalier revenant de La Rochelle,” lists versions from France, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Maine, and Rhode Island. This particular setting and refrain are virtually identical to the setting popularized in Franco-American New England in the late 1930s via La Bonne Chanson (vol. 2, p. 64), the ten-booklet series published between 1938 and 1954 by Quebecois priest, musician, publisher, composer, and impresario abbé Charles-Émile Gadbois (1906-1981).
“C’est l’aviron” (“It’s the Oar”) is a version of a traditional French folk song which has been in circulation since at last the early 1500s. French-Canadian ballad scholar Conrad Laforte, who catalogued it under the title “Le cavalier revenant de La Rochelle,” lists versions from France, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Maine, and Rhode Island. This particular setting and refrain are virtually identical to the setting popularized in Franco-American New England in the late 1930s via La Bonne Chanson (vol. 2, p. 64), the ten-booklet series published between 1938 and 1954 by Quebecois priest, musician, publisher, composer, and impresario abbé Charles-Émile Gadbois (1906-1981).
Abstract
[refrain: its the oar that takes us upwards]; returning from Rochelle, I met three young ladies; I didn’t choose, but took the prettiest and put her behind me on my saddle and went one hundred hours without speaking to her; at the end of a hundred hours, she asked for a drink; I took her to a fountain, but she did not want to drink from it; I took her to her father’s; when she was there, she drank by the glassful to the health of her father, mother, sisters, brothers and he who she loves.
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
C’est l’aviron
Standard Title Reference
M'en revenant de la jolie Rochelle I, K-04
Le cavalier revenant de La Rochelle 01325
Tranlsated Title
It’s the Oar
First Line
M’en revenant de la jolie Rochelle repetez
Scribe
Transcription
M’en revenant de la jolie Rochelle repetez
J’ai rencontre trois jolies demoiselles c’est l’aviron qui nous mene
Qui nous mene c’est l’aviron qui nous mene en haut
2. j’ai point choisi mais j’ai prit la plus belle
3. j l’y fis monter derrier moi sur ma selle
4. j’y fit sent heure sans parler avec elle
5. au bout d’cent heures elle me d’mandit a boire
6. je l’ai menee aupres d’une fontaine
7. quand elle fut la elle ne voulut point boire
8. je l’ai menee au logis de son pere
9. quand elle fut la elle buvait a plein verres
10. a la santé de son pere et sa mere
11. a la santé de ses soeurs et de ses frères
12. a la santé d’celui que son coeur aime
J’ai rencontre trois jolies demoiselles c’est l’aviron qui nous mene
Qui nous mene c’est l’aviron qui nous mene en haut
2. j’ai point choisi mais j’ai prit la plus belle
3. j l’y fis monter derrier moi sur ma selle
4. j’y fit sent heure sans parler avec elle
5. au bout d’cent heures elle me d’mandit a boire
6. je l’ai menee aupres d’une fontaine
7. quand elle fut la elle ne voulut point boire
8. je l’ai menee au logis de son pere
9. quand elle fut la elle buvait a plein verres
10. a la santé de son pere et sa mere
11. a la santé de ses soeurs et de ses frères
12. a la santé d’celui que son coeur aime
Files
Collection
Citation
“C’est l’aviron (MS2011-3223-037),” Vermont Folklife Center Digital Collections, accessed April 29, 2025, https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/803.
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