Dani Atkinson wrote me…
I spent several years in Quebec as a kid. While I was there, somebody gave me a picture book and an accompanying tape of French/French-Canadian folk songs. Both book and tape have since disappeared, but I remember some of the tunes, and I recently hunted up the lyrics to refresh them in my mind.
This one was my favourite. Apparently it’s Acadian, over three hundred years old. There are several gazillion variations; I’ve pieced together the one I remember.
V’la l’Bon Vent (Go Good Wind)
(Chorus)
V’la l’bon vent
V’la joli vent
V’la l’bon vent
M’amie m’appelle
V’la l’bon vent
V’la joli vent
V’la l’bon vent
M’amie m’attend(verses)
Derrière chez nous y’a t’un étang (x2)
Il n’est pas large comme il est grandTrois beaux canards s’en vont nageant (x2)
Le fils de roi s’en va chassantAvec son grand fusil argent (x2)
Visa le noir tua le blancO, fils de roi, tu es méchant (x2)
Tu as tue mon canard blancPar dessous l’aile il perd son sang (x2)
Et par les yeux les diamantsEt par le bec l’or et l’argent (x2)
Que ferons-nous de tant d’argent?Nous mettrons les filles au couvent (x2)
Et les garçons au régimentMy translation:
Go good wind
Go pretty wind
Go good wind
My friend is calling
Go good wind
Go pretty wind
Go good wind
She waits for meBehind our house there is a pond
It’s not as deep as it is wideThree handsome ducks went for a swim
The king’s son went huntingWith his great silver gun
Wounded the black, killed the whiteO, son of the king, you are cruel
You have killed my white duckFrom ‘neath its wing it loses blood
and from its eyes, diamondsAnd from its beak, gold and silver
What use to us is lots of money?We send all our girls to the convent
And all the boys to the army.I don’t swear to the accuracy of my translation, Quebec and French class were a while ago.
That’s it for now. Maybe some other time, I’ll send you the lyrics to Cadet Rouselle, who has three houses, and three large dogs, and three of just about everything else you can think of, and is really a good child. :-)
Dani Atkinson
Many thanks to Dani for this song!
Here’s a Midi of V’la l’Bon Vent (Go Good Wind).
Many thanks to Monique Palomares for the midi!
Come visit the Mama Lisa’s World Canada page for children’s songs and rhymes from Canada with their English translations and…
The Mama Lisa’s World en français Canada page for kids songs from Canada with their French translations.
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10 Responses to “Canadian Folk Song, “V’la l’Bon Vent (Go Good Wind)”, in French with an English Translation”
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November 23rd, 2005 at 6:31 pm
“V’la” must be spelled “V’là” with an “à” cos it’s short for “voilà” meaning “vois là (see there) which is usually translated into English as “Here is” or “Here comes”. Then it’d be “V’là l’bon vent, v’là l’joli vent” meaning “Here comes the wind, here comes the pretty wind”. About “m’amie”, it does literally mean “my friend”, but it rather means “sweetheart”. “m’amie” (m’friend) was later understood as “ma mie” (my friend) as it shows in another song about the wind and a king’s son: “Il les porte à sa mie pour lui faire un présent” = He brings (brought) them to his sweetheart as a present.
Does “What use for us is lots of money?” mean “What will we do with so much money?” cos it’s what this question means, the answer being “we’ll send the girls to the convent and the boys to the army” cos people had to pay some good money for both if they didn’t wish to be lower-ranking nuns or soldiers -which nobody really wished that much to be if it could be avoided!
February 9th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Do you know of a song that sings about “Les Canadiennes, ce sont les miennes; Oui, oui, je les marie”? I’d appreciate a quick response since I’m a writing a paper for an internation conference, here at the University of North Texas, on the status of French in Berlin, N.H. on or about March 1, 2007. Merci.
Arthur J. Gionet
June 3rd, 2007 at 9:35 am
I might have missed mention of this, excuse me if I did.
Ian and Sylvia did a stirring version of the song way back in the 60’s in the early part of their career.
Thank you for your translation. (I think they must do an abridged version, and they wrote that the song was often used for rowing……..)
May 31st, 2009 at 11:31 pm
Ah, the memories.
My recollection of this is as a song of les Voyageurs, not of les Acadiens – though I’ll bet that they swapped songs, if they weren’t often one and the same people. And “Visa” means “To have aimed for,” not “To have wounded.” (Literally: “viser,” to sight – with a weapon) In other words, the prince missed! Hit the wrong duck. The meanie.
The version I know ends with “O! fils du roi, tu es méchant / d’avoir tuer mon canard blanc!”, with none of that jazz about diamonds and gold. Neat to see another version about!
May 31st, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Thank god for your post!! I learned this song in school 30 years ago and it has been stuck in my head for three days but I couldn’t remember the words. Thanks :D
February 2nd, 2014 at 12:01 pm
I have been paddling for 50 years now. This song is in the rivers and the lakes. What did it mean to the people who made it? Bien certes, Louis XV was the son of the King and represented the Nobility. France was full of desperate criminals in the latter part of his reign. Could those ‘meserables’ have been the canards noir? Could the honest farmers be the white ducks? Or does it refer to particular individuals?
March 26th, 2014 at 11:50 am
Monique wrote from France:
I don’t know about the symbolism of the ducks and their colors, though the obvious idea is that he meant to kill the “bad” one and killed the “good” one. Now, what/who were the ducks? I thought I read somewhere that it might be about a girl losing her virginity by the evil king’s son “silver shotgun”, but I find that farfetched.
As far as I know, the song originated in France but the Canadians made it their own by making some changes. As I mentioned on Mama Lisa’s World page for V’la l’ bon vent, “According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, folklorist Ernest Gagnon thought the lyrics to the chorus and the tune of ‘V’la l’ bon vent’ were Canadian. The theme of the three ducks came from France in the 17th century, but nobody knows for sure whether the verses came from France or were written in Canada.”
What I have an idea about is that Louis XV never was the son of a king. His father was “Le petit dauphin”, his grand-father was “Le grand dauphin” and his great-grandfather was king Louis XIV. When king Louis XIV died (1715) Louis XV was 5 years old and a cousin of his served as a regent. So there was King Louis 14 † 1715 and next was King Louis 15 his great-grandson, no other king in between.
December 24th, 2016 at 8:02 am
I live in Illinois and I am an avid canoeist who listens to folk and traditional music especially canoeing songs. I ran across this song a few years back and loved it not knowing the language at all. LOL! Music is great like that! https://youtu.be/JVzdMxVDSBI
May 31st, 2020 at 10:27 pm
Hello Lisa,
I just saw your post on this wonderful old Canadien, Acadien and Cajun song. My mother and grand-mothers and aunts used to sing it to me in Quebec when I was young. I am 62 now.
Dani Atkinson’s translation of the refrain is just a bit off, she renders it as:
Go good wind
Go pretty wind
Go good wind
My friend is calling
Go good wind
Go pretty wind
Go good wind
She waits for me
It’s a song about longing for a loved one from whom one is separated. Ma mie in old French is closer to « my beloved » or « my heart », and « my friend » does not really fit in this context. As such a translation closer to the meaning in the French original would be:
Go fair wind
Go pretty wind
Go fair wind
My beloved is calling
Go fair wind
Go pretty wind
Go fair wind
My beloved waits for me.
Keep up your good work.
Regards,
Gaston
September 17th, 2022 at 10:24 am
Wondering if this can be considered a voyageur song.