Youp Youp Sur la riviere (MS2011-3222-057)

Youp Youp Sur la riviere (MS2011-3222-057)

French language song text from VFC2006-0002 Beaudoin Family Collection. MS2011-3222-057 Eva Lacourse Songbook. Pp. 98-101.

“Youp Youp Sur la riviere” [“Youpe ! Youpe ! sur la rivière”; “Youp! Youp! On the River”] is a transcription of a setting of a very well-known traditional, locally-composed French-Canadian song. The earliest known printed setting appears in Ernest Gagnon’s 1865 collection Chansons populaires du Canada. Quebec folksong scholar Conrad Laforte classified this song under the title “Le p’tit bois d’ail” (VI-A-68); there are no known versions from France. According to Laforte, the melody commonly associated with this song is more commonly associated with another traditional French folksong, “Les Métamorphoses.”

Versions of this song have been widely collected in Quebec as well as from French-speaking communities in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario. The earlier printings do not include the refrain.  In 1924, Conrad Gauthier made a recording of this song under the title “Youp! Youp! sur la rivière” for the Victor/Berliner Gram-O-Phone Co. (issue # 263180, side B).  In 1929, baritone Charles Marchand (1890-1930) recorded a version under the same title for the Columbia Phonograph Company at their New York studio (issue # 4035-F; matrix # 106467, side B).

Gauthier (1885-1964) was at various times a director of silent movies, a journalist, an accountant, and a municipal officer, but it was as a singer and actor that he made his name in Canada and the United States. In the 1920s, Gauthier was a pioneer in radio and in the recording of Quebec folk music, making 78s of more than 100 songs and monologues for the Victor and Columbia labels, often with Elzéar Hamel. He also was a concert impresario and lead vocalist at the immensely popular Veillées du bon vieux temps, a theatrical show featuring skits, songs, dances, and monologues evoking rural Quebec traditions, music, and dances. Gauthier founded the Veillées in 1921 and produced them until 1941 at the Monument national theatre in Montreal.

Charles Marchand abandoned his career as a civil servant in Hull, Ontario to become a professional singer in Montreal after several successful performances in which he featured traditional folksongs. In 1922, he founded a vocal quartet, Le Carillon canadien, which became the basis of a movement dedicated to promoting Canadian songs. A monthly publication, Le Carillon or 'the voice of song,' was launched in 1926 but was absorbed soon by La Lyre. During this period, Marchand performed throughout Quebec, in Ontario, elsewhere in Canada, in Franco-American centers in New England, and in New York City. He also founded another successful vocal quartet, Les Troubadours de Bytown,whose settings of traditional French-Canadian folk songs appeared on the Columbia, Brunswick, Edison, Diamond, Victor, and Starr labels.

You can hear Gauthier’s recording on Library and Archives Canada’s webiste, The Virtual Gramophone: “Youp! youp! sur la rivière”

You can hear Charles Marchand’s recording at the same site: “Youp! youp! sur la rivière”

Country suiter visits his sweethear who rebuffs him for being too fickle.

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

Youp Youp Sur la riviere

Youpe ! Youpe ! Sur la rivière!

Youp! Youp! On the River!

L’Dimanche après les vepres

1
L’Dimanche après les vepres
M’en allant me promener
C’est moi et pis Francis
Tout deux de compagnie
Chez le bonhomme Gauthier
J’avons ete veiller
J’men vas vous raconte c’qui nous est arrive

Refrain
Youp! Youp! Sur la riviere
Vous ne m’entendez guere
Youp youp sur la riviere
Vous ne m’entendez pas

2
J’ai z’allume ma pipe
Comme c’etais la facon
En disant queu’qu’parole
Au gens de la maison
J’ai dit z a Delima me permetteriez vous
De m’eloigner des autre
Et m’approcher de vous
Refrain

3
Ah oui vraiement dit elle
C’est avec grand plaisir
Mais sit u viens ici te
C’est ben rien qu’pour en rire
Tas ta p’tit Marie-Louise que t’aimera toujours
Tu m’es trop infidele
Pour v’nir me faire l’amour
Refrain

4
V’la t’y pas que l’bonhomme
Qu’etait a se dechausser
Y dit za Delima va t’en donc te coucher
Vous autres les gens de la ville
Des cots et pis les faubourgs
Retirez-vous d’icitt car y f’ra betot jour

5
J’me l’sus pas laisser dire
Pour une seconde fois
J’ai ditz au petit Francis
T’en viens tu quant et moi
Adieu, ma Delima j’enfile mon chemin
Et j’sus parti nu tete
Mon chapeau s’a la main

Fin