Les fraises et les framboises (MS2011-3223-061)
Dublin Core
Title
Les fraises et les framboises (MS2011-3223-061)
Subject
Description
Looseleaf French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3223-061 Alice Danis Lacourse Songbook.
“Les fraises et les framboises” (“Strawberries and Raspberries”). This song text has a rather complicated history. Its title and its final chorus are the same as a French-Canadian popular song first recorded by the Trio Soucy on the RCA Victor label (55-5335. side A) in 1949, featuring Fernando Soucy (1927-1975) as lead vocalist with his father Isidore on fiddle. However, other than a shared melody and the final chorus, the Danis text is otherwise unrelated to the Soucy setting.
Fiddler Isidore Soucy (b. Ste-Blandine, near Rimouski 1899, d. Montreal 7 Dec 1963) was a seasoned village fiddler when he moved to Montreal in 1924. He worked for the city and in 1928, began recording for Montreal composer and music studio impresario Roméo Beaudry’s Starr label in 1928. Soucy’s recordings landed him a full-time radio contract on Montreal station CKAC for four years; he also performed in Conrad Gauthier's Veillées du bon vieux temps (Evenings from the Good Old Days) at the Monument National theater. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Soucy was heard on many radio shows as the leader or a member of several popular groups, including his family orchestra, the Trio Soucy. “Les fraises et les framboises” was one of their early and most successful recordings.
The Soucy song itself is not original either; it is a highly sanitized version of a French chanson grivoise (a bawdy song with thinly veiled or explicitly sexual content) whose poetic structure and language suggests that it may date back to a much earlier era. An arrangement of this earlier song was popularized in the 1920s by celebrated Parisian actress, singer, and theatrical director Marcelle Josse (aka Parisys; 1892-1986). “Parisys,” as she was known to her audiences, sang and acted in Paris’s cabarets and casinos before launching an international career between 1924 and 1933. She later appeared in several French films.
Parisys recorded “Les fraises et les framboises” in 1926 on the Idéal label (#8061), crediting E. Wolff and G. Matis with the musical arrangement. A 1928 sheet music edition published in Paris by L’Édition Arlequin credits E. Wolff with “collecting” the melody, and G. Matis with the musical arrangement. The lyrics are described as “une vieille chanson” (“an old song”) arranged by Serge Plaute. You can see this edition on the online collection of the Médiathèque Musicale de Paris:
https://bibliotheques-specialisees.paris.fr/ark:/73873/pf0001493610.
Parisy’s performance of this song was clearly a hit in Paris; at least two other Parisian singers came out with recorded versions shortly after her setting was recorded.
Exactly how the Soucy family came across this song is unknown. Fernando Soucy is generally credited with their version, which uses the same melody, and the same opening line of the chorus as that of the Parisy setting. The opening verse is also similar, although Soucy changes the locale from the road between Montmartre and Paris to that between Longueuil and Chambly, in Quebec. However, the story line similarity ends there; in Soucy’s setting, the encounter between the couple goes no further than a smile and an invitation to share a drink.
In the Danis song, the singer reminisces about his courting days and how twenty years later, the chorus of “Les fraises et les framboises,” which he and friends would sing as they went courting, is all that remains as a souvenir of his youth. This version does not include the iconic refrain; however, there is another version of this song earlier in the manuscript (using the same title) which does include the Parisy refrain.
“Les fraises et les framboises” (“Strawberries and Raspberries”). This song text has a rather complicated history. Its title and its final chorus are the same as a French-Canadian popular song first recorded by the Trio Soucy on the RCA Victor label (55-5335. side A) in 1949, featuring Fernando Soucy (1927-1975) as lead vocalist with his father Isidore on fiddle. However, other than a shared melody and the final chorus, the Danis text is otherwise unrelated to the Soucy setting.
Fiddler Isidore Soucy (b. Ste-Blandine, near Rimouski 1899, d. Montreal 7 Dec 1963) was a seasoned village fiddler when he moved to Montreal in 1924. He worked for the city and in 1928, began recording for Montreal composer and music studio impresario Roméo Beaudry’s Starr label in 1928. Soucy’s recordings landed him a full-time radio contract on Montreal station CKAC for four years; he also performed in Conrad Gauthier's Veillées du bon vieux temps (Evenings from the Good Old Days) at the Monument National theater. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, Soucy was heard on many radio shows as the leader or a member of several popular groups, including his family orchestra, the Trio Soucy. “Les fraises et les framboises” was one of their early and most successful recordings.
The Soucy song itself is not original either; it is a highly sanitized version of a French chanson grivoise (a bawdy song with thinly veiled or explicitly sexual content) whose poetic structure and language suggests that it may date back to a much earlier era. An arrangement of this earlier song was popularized in the 1920s by celebrated Parisian actress, singer, and theatrical director Marcelle Josse (aka Parisys; 1892-1986). “Parisys,” as she was known to her audiences, sang and acted in Paris’s cabarets and casinos before launching an international career between 1924 and 1933. She later appeared in several French films.
Parisys recorded “Les fraises et les framboises” in 1926 on the Idéal label (#8061), crediting E. Wolff and G. Matis with the musical arrangement. A 1928 sheet music edition published in Paris by L’Édition Arlequin credits E. Wolff with “collecting” the melody, and G. Matis with the musical arrangement. The lyrics are described as “une vieille chanson” (“an old song”) arranged by Serge Plaute. You can see this edition on the online collection of the Médiathèque Musicale de Paris:
https://bibliotheques-specialisees.paris.fr/ark:/73873/pf0001493610.
Parisy’s performance of this song was clearly a hit in Paris; at least two other Parisian singers came out with recorded versions shortly after her setting was recorded.
Exactly how the Soucy family came across this song is unknown. Fernando Soucy is generally credited with their version, which uses the same melody, and the same opening line of the chorus as that of the Parisy setting. The opening verse is also similar, although Soucy changes the locale from the road between Montmartre and Paris to that between Longueuil and Chambly, in Quebec. However, the story line similarity ends there; in Soucy’s setting, the encounter between the couple goes no further than a smile and an invitation to share a drink.
In the Danis song, the singer reminisces about his courting days and how twenty years later, the chorus of “Les fraises et les framboises,” which he and friends would sing as they went courting, is all that remains as a souvenir of his youth. This version does not include the iconic refrain; however, there is another version of this song earlier in the manuscript (using the same title) which does include the Parisy refrain.
Abstract
Singer reminisces about his youthful courting days when he was 20 and kissed the girls and sang the refrain.
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
Les fraises et les framboises
Tranlsated Title
Strawberries and Raspberries
First Line
On se souvient toujours
Scribe
Transcription
On se souvient toujours
Quand on avaient vingt ans
Le coeur remplit d’amour
Joyeux comme le printemps
Par les beaux soirs d’ete
Comme des amoureux
Le soir au clair de lune
On disait les mots doux
A la blonde ou la brune
Et on chantait partout
2
Par les beau soirs d’ete
Comme des amoureux
On allais s’embrasser dans les coins ombrageux
Je t’aime et je t’adore on le disait souvent et on chantait
Encore se refrain (entrainant) entrainant
3
Les annees ont passe on pense a nos vingt ans
Comme un reve efacee a tout nos beau serments
Ils ne restent plus rien pas meme un souvenir
De ce petit refrain qui nous fait rajeunir
Quand on avaient vingt ans
Le coeur remplit d’amour
Joyeux comme le printemps
Par les beaux soirs d’ete
Comme des amoureux
Le soir au clair de lune
On disait les mots doux
A la blonde ou la brune
Et on chantait partout
2
Par les beau soirs d’ete
Comme des amoureux
On allais s’embrasser dans les coins ombrageux
Je t’aime et je t’adore on le disait souvent et on chantait
Encore se refrain (entrainant) entrainant
3
Les annees ont passe on pense a nos vingt ans
Comme un reve efacee a tout nos beau serments
Ils ne restent plus rien pas meme un souvenir
De ce petit refrain qui nous fait rajeunir
Files
Collection
Citation
“Les fraises et les framboises (MS2011-3223-061),” Vermont Folklife Center Digital Collections, accessed December 27, 2024, https://vtfolklifearchive.org/collections/items/show/827.
Position: 1021 (342 views)