A s’etait un petit cordonnier (MS2011-3223-058)
Dublin Core
Title
A s’etait un petit cordonnier (MS2011-3223-058)
Alternative Title
Le p’tit avocat
Subject
Description
Looseleaf French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223-058 Alice Danis Lacourse Songbook.
“A s’etait un petit cordonnier” (“Ah! It was a Little Shoemaker”). This is a version of a traditional French song which has been in circulation since at least 1724. Versions of the song have been documented in France and Quebec, as well as New Brunswick. This particular version is virtually identical to that published under the title “Le p’tit avocat” (“The Little Lawyer”) in abbé Charles-Émile Gadbois’s 1948 compilation, Les cent plus belles chansons, except that in this version, the protagonist is initially described as a shoemaker; at the song’s end, he is described as a lawyer.
Gadbois (1906-1981) was a Quebecois priest, musician, publisher, composer, and impresario. After extensive musical studies, he was ordained as a priest in 1930 and taught at the St-Hyacinthe Seminary. In 1937, influenced by the Congrès de la langue française held in Quebec City, Gadbois established La Bonne Chanson, to assemble and publish “good” songs to inculcate French-Canadian and Franco-American families with the Quebec Catholic church’s vision of piety, morality, family values, anti-modernism, nostalgia for the idyllic peasant life, and the virtues of the French language, love of country, and attachment to France. Gadbois worked tirelessly to promote La Bonne Chanson, organizing chorales, commercial sound recordings, radio programs, festivals, contests, and congresses, including those at the Montreal Forum (1942), the Quebec Coliseum (1943), and in Lewiston, Maine (1944). The Bonne chanson series was widely disseminated in Franco-American New England as well as Quebec. Another version of this song appears earlier in this manuscript under the title “Le petit avocat.”
“A s’etait un petit cordonnier” (“Ah! It was a Little Shoemaker”). This is a version of a traditional French song which has been in circulation since at least 1724. Versions of the song have been documented in France and Quebec, as well as New Brunswick. This particular version is virtually identical to that published under the title “Le p’tit avocat” (“The Little Lawyer”) in abbé Charles-Émile Gadbois’s 1948 compilation, Les cent plus belles chansons, except that in this version, the protagonist is initially described as a shoemaker; at the song’s end, he is described as a lawyer.
Gadbois (1906-1981) was a Quebecois priest, musician, publisher, composer, and impresario. After extensive musical studies, he was ordained as a priest in 1930 and taught at the St-Hyacinthe Seminary. In 1937, influenced by the Congrès de la langue française held in Quebec City, Gadbois established La Bonne Chanson, to assemble and publish “good” songs to inculcate French-Canadian and Franco-American families with the Quebec Catholic church’s vision of piety, morality, family values, anti-modernism, nostalgia for the idyllic peasant life, and the virtues of the French language, love of country, and attachment to France. Gadbois worked tirelessly to promote La Bonne Chanson, organizing chorales, commercial sound recordings, radio programs, festivals, contests, and congresses, including those at the Montreal Forum (1942), the Quebec Coliseum (1943), and in Lewiston, Maine (1944). The Bonne chanson series was widely disseminated in Franco-American New England as well as Quebec. Another version of this song appears earlier in this manuscript under the title “Le petit avocat.”
Abstract
[refrain: turn my wheel, turn, turn, turn]; singer relates story of a little shoemaker who twirled his hat under his arm; he went into an inn, asked to eat; they gave him fish and he swallowed a fish bone and unfortunately died; he was taken to church and after the service, they put him into the grave and on his tombstone inscribed: here lies a little lawyer.
Source
VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223 Alice Danis Lacourse Songbook. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.
Song Item Type Metadata
Supplied Title
A s’etait un petit cordonnier
Standard Title
Ah! C’était un petit cordonnier
Standard Title Reference
L’avocat gourmand I, P-18
L’avocat gourmand 11318
Tranlsated Title
Ah! It was a Little Shoemaker
First Line
A s’etait un petit cordonnier
Scribe
Transcription
A s’etait un petit cordonnier
Tourne ma roulette vire vire vire
A s’etait un petit cordonnier tourne ma roulette
Viron la son petit chapeau sous son bras
Dans une auberge il entra a manger il demanda
Du poisson on lui serva une areche il avala
Par Malheur il en mourra a l’eglise on l’emporta
Un servise on lui chante
Sur sa fosse on marquera
Jai dit le petit avocat
Camille le violeneux laissait pas le temps de soufflé
Pour mettre plus soulevant tappait de ses deux pieds
Tourne ma roulette vire vire vire
A s’etait un petit cordonnier tourne ma roulette
Viron la son petit chapeau sous son bras
Dans une auberge il entra a manger il demanda
Du poisson on lui serva une areche il avala
Par Malheur il en mourra a l’eglise on l’emporta
Un servise on lui chante
Sur sa fosse on marquera
Jai dit le petit avocat
Camille le violeneux laissait pas le temps de soufflé
Pour mettre plus soulevant tappait de ses deux pieds
Files
Collection
Citation
“A s’etait un petit cordonnier (MS2011-3223-058),” Vermont Folklife Center Digital Collections, accessed April 29, 2025, https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/824.
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