C'est L'Aviron (Pull on the Oars)

DESCRIPTION: French: "C'est l'aviron, qui nous mene, qui nous mene, c'est l'aviron qui nous mene en haut." A young man goes riding, picks up a pretty girl, and takes her home to get a drink. Once home, "turning to me, she toasted her own lover"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1865 (Gagnon, Chansons populaires du Canada, according to Fowke/Johnson)
KEYWORDS: courting drink family foreignlanguage
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf,Que)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Fowke/Johnston-FolkSongsOfCanada, pp. 58-59, "C'est L'aviron (Pull on the Oars)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan-PenguinBookOfCanadianFolkSongs 49, "C'est L'Aviron" (1 English and 1 French text, 1 tune)
Peacock, p. 517, "En Revenant de la Jolie Rochelle" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pottie/Ellis-FolksongsOfTheMaritimes, pp. 46-47, "De Paris a Rochelle" (1 French text plus a semi-singable English translation, lacking the "C'est Laviron" chorus and substituting a nonsense refrain)
Salt-BuckeyeHeritage-OhiosHistory, pp. 16-17, "C'esst L'aviron Qui Nous Mene En Haut" (1 English and 1 French text, 1 tune)
48MuchLovedFolkSongs, p. 23, "It Is the Oar" (1 text, 1 tune)
33MuchLovedSongs, p. 7, "It Is the Oar" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Edith Fowke and Richard Johnston, _Folk Songs of Quebec (Chansons de Quebec)_, Waterloo Music Company, 1957, pp. 72-73, "C'est L'aviron (Pull on the Oars)" (1 French text plus English translation, 1 tune)
ST FJ058 (Partial)
RECORDINGS:
Mme Josephine Costard, "En Revenant de la Jolie Rochelle" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
ALTERNATE TITLES:
It's the Oars
NOTES [116 words]: "Over the years, more than ninety variants of this song have been written down or recorded on cylinders, discs, or tapes in French Canada. A few variants have also been found in the northeastern United States and France." [from] "'M'en, revenant de la Joli'Rochelle'::A song from c/ 1500 in the current French-Canadian repertoire" by Jay Rahn in Canadian Journal for Traditional Music, vol 16, 1988. See archives of the site for the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music. - BS
The 48MuchLovedFolkSongs/33MuchLovedSongs translation, which is quite different from the one in Fowke, is credited to "K. F. R." It is probably a little more literal than Fowke's, but it's also much more stiff. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.5
File: FJ058

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