Sur la route de Berthier (MS2011-3223-038)

Sur la route de Berthier (MS2011-3223-038)

French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223-039 Alice Lacourse Danis Songbook. Pp. 33.

“Sur la route de Berthier” (“On the Road from Berthier”). This text appears to be virtually identical (with the exception of Gadbois’ second verse, which is missing in the manuscript) to the setting of this song popularized in Franco-American New England in the late 1930s via La Bonne Chanson (vol. 2, p. 62), the ten-booklet series published between 1938 and 1954 by Quebecois priest, musician, publisher, composer, and impresario abbé Charles-Émile Gadbois (1906-1981). The history of this song is unclear. There are at least two versions of this song in circulation in France, where the scene is set on the road to Louviers rather than Berthier: one of which recounts an erotic adventure between a beautiful wealthy lady in a gilded carriage who passes by a road maintenance laborer breaking rocks into gravel for the carriage path; the other has the same cast of characters, but there is no erotic adventure. In both cases, the lady remarks on the wretchedness of the laborer’s job and he retorts that he works to feed his sons and that if he were as rich as her he would not be breaking rocks. Swiss ballad scholar Arthur Rossat reported in 1903 that versions of the latter song (some of which cast the rich carriage-rider as a gentleman and re-localize the route a city on the French-Swiss border) were in wide circulation in French-speaking regions of Switzerland.

[refrain: ah how the road is lovely in Berthier]; on the road to Berthier, there was a road maintenance worker who was breaking rocks into gravel for put on the roadways; the roadworker responded to her: I have to feed my boys; if I rolled on the road like you, I simply would not break rocks; this response stood out in its simplicity, the proof that the misfortunate are in their situation despite their wishes.

VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223 Alice Lacourse Danis Songbook. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.

Sur la route de Berthier

Le cantonnier et la dame 06409

On the Road from Berthier

Sur la route de Berthier sur la route de Berthier

Sur la route de Berthier sur la route de Berthier
Il y avait un cantonnier je y avait un cantonnier
Et qui cassait des tas de cailloux pour mettre sous
l’passage des routes des routes des routes ah que la route
est belle belle que la route est belle belle a Berthier

3
Le cantonnier lui repond Faut que j’nourriss mes garcons
Car si j’roulions caross comm vous j’en casserions
Point d’cailloux iou iou iou pour mettre sur le passage de route

4
Cett repons fut Remarque par sa grande simplicite
C’est c’qui prouv que les malheureux
S’ils le sont c’est malgre zeux zeux zeux zeux