"Gens du pays" is a Québécois song that is often considered the unofficial national anthem of

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

. Written by poet and singer-songwriter

Gilles Vigneault Gilles Vigneault (; born 27 October 1928) is a Canadian poet, Publishing, publisher, singer-songwriter, and Quebec nationalism, Quebec nationalist and Quebec sovereignty movement, sovereigntist. Two of his songs are considered by many to be Qu ...

, and with music co-written by Gaston Rochon, it was first performed by Vigneault on June 24, 1975 during a concert on

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

's Mount Royal at that year's Fête nationale du Québec ceremony. It quickly became a folk classic, and it has been played frequently at Fête nationale ceremonies since then. The chorus is by far the most famous part of the song: ''Gens du pays, c'est votre tour / De vous laisser parler d'amour'', which, translated, says, "people of the land, it is your turn to let yourselves speak of love." The song is also associated with the Quebec sovereignty movement and the sovereigntist Parti Québécois, which use it as a sort of anthem. A famous instance of this took place at

René Lévesque René Lévesque ( ; August 24, 1922 – November 1, 1987) was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 23rd premier of Quebec from 1976 to 1985. He was the first Québécois political leader since Confederation to seek, ...

's concession speech after the citizens of the province rejected independence in the

1980 Quebec referendum The 1980 Quebec independence referendum was the first referendum in Quebec on the place of Quebec within Canada and whether Quebec should pursue a path toward sovereignty. The referendum was called by Quebec's Parti Québécois (PQ) government ...

. At the end of Lévesque's speech, the crowd assembled to hear him speak stood up and sang "Gens du pays", which Lévesque called "the most beautiful Québécois song in the minds of all Quebecers."

Birthday adaptation

In Quebec, a modified version of the chorus is often sung to celebrate a person, for example on a birthday (in the specific case of the birthday, the idea was explicitly introduced by Vigneault, Yvon Deschamps and Louise Forestier at the song's 1975 introduction): :''Mon cher ami'' (or ''Ma chère amie'')'', c'est à ton tour'' :''De te laisser parler d'amour.'' ("My dear friend, it's your turn / To let yourself be lovingly spoken to.") Alternatively, "ami(e)" (friend) is replaced with the name of the person being celebrated. For instance, at

's funeral, mourners outside the church broke out singing "Mon cher René, c'est à ton tour de te laisser parler d'amour." The birthday adaptation uses the familiar, informal and singular "tu" form of

French personal pronouns French personal pronouns (analogous to English English personal pronouns, ''I'', ''you'', ''he/she'', ''we'', ''they'', etc.) reflect the grammatical person, person and grammatical number, number of their referent, and in the case of the third pe ...

, in contrast with the original which uses "vous" pronouns, which are either singular but formal, or plural (as with other

Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...

such as Spanish).

References

1975 songs Quebecois patriotic songs Songs about birthdays Gilles Vigneault songs Songs written by Gilles Vigneault Parti Québécois Political party songs Canadian anthems Regional songs {{1970s-song-stub

Birthday adaptation

See also

References