A calendar Ontario ils sont fort sur les jumeaux (MS2011-3223-057)

A calendar Ontario ils sont fort sur les jumeaux (MS2011-3223-057)

Les cinq jumelles

Looseleaf French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223-057 Alice Danis Lacourse Songbook.

This is a transcription of “Les cinq jumelles” (“The Quintuplet Sisters”), a song celebrating the Dionne quintuplets, whose birth May 28 1934 in Callendar, Ontario caused a sensation in the press in both Canada and the United States. This song is also transcribed earlier in the collection under the title “Les cinq jumelles.”

This 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 in Montreal to the delight of large, working-class audiences.

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: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/films-videos-sound-recordings/virtual-gramophone/Pages/Item.aspx?idNumber=1019384882

In Callendar, Ontario, folks are good at multiple births, it takes a farmer to have that much ardor as well as a very determined mother in order to produce five dolls; I want to mention the doctor, who’s very busy night and day taking care of the little ones; the the hospital which he built is full of good little beds; let’s hope that next year there will be another half-dozen; when Xmas arrives, Father Xmas was discouraged: I found that in just one year, the family had grown; since that time, young suitors are trying to marry their sweethearts; the youn women look at them sideways and say [unclear]; if a boy wishes to marry, all he needs to to do is present himself: If you wish me on your arm, come up and see me sometime.

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

A calendar Ontario ils sont fort sur les jumeaux

À Callendar Ontario, ils sont fort sur les jumeaux

The Quintuplet Sisters

A calendar Ontario ils sont fort sur les jumeaux

Madame Édouard Bolduc

Madame Édouard Bolduc

A calendar Ontario ils sont fort sur les jumeaux
Sa prendune bonne canadienne pour avoir sa a la demi douzaine
Ah ah ah les gens du Canada marche de l’avant comme
De l’avant comme de braces soldat

2
Sa prend un cultivateur pour avoir autant d’arder
Et une mere bien decider pour donner le jour a cente poupee
refrain

3
Je veut parler du Docteur sa se n’est pas un chomeur
Je travaille jour et la nuit pour avoir soin des petits

4
L’hospital qu’il a contruit c’est rempli de bon petit slits
Esperant qu’l’annee prochaine reviendra l’autre demi douzaine

5
Quant les fetes ont arrive le pere Noel etait decorage
J a trouve que dans une annee que la famille avait augmente

6
Depuis qu c’a est arrive les garcons veulent tous se marier
Les jeunes filles les regarde d’travers et dise toi esscire m’avoir depa

7
Si un garcon veut se marier il y a rien qu’a s’presenter
If you wish me on your arm come up and see me sometime