Malgre tes serment (MS2011-3222-027)

Malgre tes serment (MS2011-3222-027)

Malgré tes serments

I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now

French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-027 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 49-50.

Strophic song; two verses followed by same refrain.

“Malgré tes serment” [“Malgré tes serments” ; “Despite your Vows”] is French songwriter-composer Henri Christiné’s French-language translation of the popular American song, “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” with music by Harold Orlob and lyrics by Will M. Hough and Frank R. Adams. The American song was first published in 1909 and was popular on the American stage, in films, and on sound recordings through the first half of the 1900s.


Born in Switzerland, Henri Christiné ( 1867-1941) rose to fame after WWI as a talented lyricist, songwriter, and operetta composer in Paris, where his sparkling, witty, jazzy musical plays were well received by musical theater-goers. In 1920, Montreal baritone, pianist and actor Hector Pellerin (1887-1953), recorded a 78rpm of Christiné’s setting of “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” on the Victor His Master’s Voice label (issue # 263039, side A), distributed by Montreal’s Berliner Gram-O-Phone Company. Pellerin recorded over 140 wax cylinders and 78-rpm discs between 1916 and 1928 and recorded several Chistiné songs on the Columbia, Starr, Edison, and His Master’s Voice labels (see MS2011-3222-027 for reference to another Christiné song recorded by Pellerin).

Lover returns home to find his sweetheart has abandoned him; he imagines her with her new lover.

VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.

Malgre tes serment

Despite your Vows

Je tavais et pour toujour

Orlob, Harold

Christiné, Henri

Hough, Will M.

Adams, Frank R.

1
Je t’avais et pour toujour
Donne mon name et toute ma tendresse
Pensant qu’a retour avoir ton amour
Mais la vie est cruelle et taitresse
En entrant chez vous un soir
J’ai trouve la maison triste et deserte
J’ai guette ton retour
Par la porte entrouverte
Jeusqu’au matin sans te revoir

Refrain
Malgre tes serments tes promesses
Malgre tes baisers tes caresses
Tu parti un jour sans un mot d’amour
Sans regret pour toujour
Et chaque soir a ma fenetre
J’attendais l’espoir que peut etre
Dans les bras de l’autre
Un jour tu souffrira
Et que vers moi tu reviendra

2
J’ai trouve depuis ce jour
Dans la chambrette
Helas qui fut la notre
Au fond d’un tiroir
Un billet d’amour
Qui m’a pris enfin le nom de l’autre
Et cette autre que je hais ne serais pas
Voit tu comme moi meme
Te bercer doucement
En te disant je t’aime
Comme le soir je le faisais
Refrain