Spirit of '76 (1976, that is)

Following on yesterday's frog theme, I found myself remembering and re-examining "The Frog Song", a fairly hefty hit for Québecois singer Robert Charlebois during the summer of 1976.

It's a song which has had some popularity for anglophone Canadians taking part in French immersion courses in the province of Quebec over the years, probably due to the chorus in English, with the cheeky reference to the ancient English insult to francophones.

It's a song that gets a bit lost in translation, and not just because of the joual:

Ton beurre est dur pis tes toasts sont brûlées. 

Ton lait est sûr, ton jaune d’œuf est crevé. 

T’as pus d’eau chaude pour te faire un café instantané. 

You’re a frog, I’m a frog, kiss me! 

And I’ll turn into a prince suddenly! 

Donne-moi des peanuts, j’m’en va te chanter "Alouette" sans fausse note.

(Your butter is hard; your toast is burnt/ Your milk is sour; your egg yolk is broken/ You don't have hot water to make instant coffee . . . . Give me some peanuts; I'll sing you "Alouette" flawlessly)

Yeah.

The following verses are about grabbing your bag, getting on the bus to get to work, and your boss (doubtless some rich Anglo) is spending the winter on the Ivory Coast, while you work too hard, and your family is unappealing, and you are uncomplaining and polite...

See, another song popular with immersion students in the 80s and 90s (mainly the adolescent and post-adolescent males) was "Bye Bye, Mon Cowboy" by Mitsou, because, like "The Frog Song", it also had some English words, and, unlike "The Frog Song", the message was unmistakeable - and the French was really easy to decipher.

"The Frog Song" (composed by Jean Chevrier, about whom I've been able to find out nothing, apart from some random blog saying he is/was a writer in Montreal) came out in the midst of widespread frustration and anger with Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, who was swept out of power the autumn of 1976 by René Lévesque and his separatist/sovereigntist Parti Québécois.  (Bourassa got back in less than ten years later, and stayed in power for almost another ten years, ultimately defeated by cancer.)

The adolescent immersion students who danced and hopped and kissed happily to the song were, for the most part, blissfully unaware of the satire and rage between the lines and the notes.