Origins: Il a Tout Dit

Subject: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 03:39 AM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O5trnPj_hA

I heard this song the other day, I was wondering if anyone could tell me anything about it. My google searches are coming up short and I don't understand a single word of French. I came upon something that suggested it may be a Louisiana folk song.

Anyone have any idea?

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: Monique
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 07:50 AM

I have no access to the video at the link. Is it this one? If so, you have the lyrics here and the story illustrated here.
I couldn't find any data online. In one of my songbooks it reads "refrain d'étudiants" which more or less means "back of the bus song". This one doesn't sound like a Louisiana song to me and my mom now in her mid-eighties would sing it when I was a child.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: Monique
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 07:55 AM

I've just come across this pdf that gives the song as being from Savoy (page 17).

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 08:56 AM

Edith Butler sings it on a 1975 album she did for Radio Canada International (#390). She is Acadian (New Brunswick). I'm unable to find anything about its origins, but thanks to the Savoy link Monique posted we know it did make its way across the Atlantic.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: Monique
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 11:29 AM

Conrad Laforte mentions it being collected in "CARRIER, Maurice et Monique VACHON, Chansons politiques du Québec 1834-1858. Montréal, Leméac, 1979, vol. 2. 450 p." page 366. So the song existed in Québec in the 19th century.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 11:33 AM

Hello, Monique. Thank you for the link to the book. I am printing this song for my friends to play on recorder tonight.

Subject: Lyr Add: IL A TOUT DIT (trad.)
From: Monique
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 12:13 PM

Here are the lyrics and a literal translation (not great literature!)

J'ai connu dans mon jeune âge
Le plus joli garçon du village
Mais il est devenu volage
C'est pourquoi je ne l'aime plus.

Refrain
Il a tout dit, tout dit, tout dit
Il a tout dit, tout dit, tout dit, tout dit, tout dit
Il a tout dit, tout dit, tout dit
Il a tout dit c'que j'lui avais dit.

Mais il est redevenu sage
M'a demandé en mariage
À l'église du village
Le curé nous a mariés.

Refrain
Il n'a plus dit, plus dit, plus dit
Il n'a plus dit, plus dit, plus dit, plus dit, plus dit
Il n'a plus dit, plus dit, plus dit
Il n'a plus dit c'que j'lui avais dit.

Résultat de notr' famile
Trois garçons et dix-huit filles
À l'église du village
Le curé les a baptisés.

Refrain
Il n'a pas dit, pas dit, pas dit,
Il n'a pas dit, pas dit, pas dit, pas dit, pas dit
Il n'a pas dit, pas dit, pas dit,
Il n'a pas dit que c'était fini.


I met, when I was young,
The cutest boy of the town,
But he became flighty,
It's why I don't love him any more.

Refrain
He said everything, said everything, said everything
He said everything, said everything, said everything, said everything, said everything,
He said everything, said everything,
He said everything I'd told him.

But he became well-behaved,
He proposed me.
In the town's church,
The priest married us.

Refrain
He didn't say any more, say any more, say any more....,
He didn't say any more what I'd told him.

Result of our family:
Three boys and eighteen girls.
In the town's church,
The priest baptized them.

Refrain
He didn't say, didn't say, didn't say...
He didn't say that it was over.

In some other sets of lyrics, 2nd verse,last line is "Nous venons de nous marier" (We've just married) and 3rd verse, 2nd line is "Une douzaine d'enfants sages" (a dozen of good [well-behaved] children) and last line "Nous venons les baptiser" (We['ve] come to baptize them). Some slightly different lyrics can be found.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 01:32 PM

Never heard this one, thanks, mudcat!

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 01:51 PM

Thanks, Monique. Was it from Savoy (or France) before it appeared in Quebec or the other way 'round, do you know?

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: Monique
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 02:28 PM

Probably from Savoy or Switzerland as in "Chantons un petit air", Albert Gonthier, Ed. Cabédita, 1998, there's a version stated as Swiss. Savoy and Switzerland being next to each other...

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST,#
Date: 24 Jun 15 - 04:45 PM

For those interested, the link below has lyrics and notation and chords.

http://www.chansons-net.com/index.php?param1=E455.php

Guest (OP), the song appears other places on the 'net as

Il a tout dit
J'ai connu dans mon jeune age
Dans mon jeune age

Merci encore, Monique.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 02:48 AM

Thank you for getting back to me! This helps a lot, I had no idea what the singer was even saying so googling the lyrics was kind of impossible for me.

I wonder how old the song is, I wonder if it goes back further than the 19th century.

I like the French women's version a lot, the version I found on the internet was from Custer Larue, it was a much slower acapella version from her 1999 album Ballads. Very pretty too.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: Monique
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 07:49 AM

Further than the 19th century? No idea. I couldn't find any source mentioning a date.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Jun 15 - 06:22 PM

When my friends came to my house to play recorders, I linked to the video with Custer LaRue singing this song. We listened to it, then tried to imitate her beautiful singing tone on recorders.

I didn't say a word about the foolish, trivial lyrics. It is all right to let a beautiful melody escape the clutches of people who have set doggerel to it.

The composer may have had something entirely different in mind for the song when s/he composed it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 Jun 15 - 12:43 PM

None of my french friends have heard of this one either... must be a quebecquois thing.

Subject: RE: Origins: Il a Tout dit
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Jul 15 - 04:36 PM

It is pretty, which is why I wondered what exactly they were saying. Custer Larue's version is almost melancholy.