Mon Pays

"Mon Pays"
"Mon Pays." Song commissioned from Gilles Vigneault by the National Film Board for Arthur Lamothe's 1965 film La Neige a fondu sur la Manicouagan. Vigneault wrote both the words and the music and completed the song in 1964. The opening phrase - "Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver" ("My country is not a country, it's winter") - provides a good illustration of the metaphoric character of the song, in which Vigneault speaks above all of winds, cold, snow, and ice. The weather of northern Quebec can be viewed as a metaphor for its cultural isolation. But "in this land of snowstorms" the author still vows to remain faithful and hospitable like his father before him, who built a home there: "the guestroom will be such that people from the other seasons will come and build next door to it." He also evokes in the second verse the solitude of wide open spaces and the ideal of brotherhood. Vigneault then ends with these words: "My country is not a country, it's the reverse of a country that was neither country nor homeland. My song is not a song, it's my life. It is for you that I want to possess my winters."

Listen to Gilles Vigneault perform the song 'Mon pays'. From YouTube.

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This chanson has assumed a political character. Benoît L'Herbier, for example, describes it as "a Quebec anthem if there is one at all, hummed with self-respect and pride" (La Chanson québécoise, Montreal 1974). In an interview with Pierre Nadeau, Vigneault denied having intended to compose a national anthem (L'Actualité, September 1979).

"Mon Pays" earned its author, among other honours, the Prix Félix-Leclerc, awarded by the Montreal Festival du disque (1965). For her performance of the song, Monique Leyrac won the International Day grand prize at the International Song Festival, Sopot, Poland (1965). Patsy Gallant recorded a disco version in French and also one in English under the title "From New York to L.A." with lyrics completely different from those of the original, which was disowned by the author. This version was extremely popular in Canada and the US in 1976. Vigneault performs "Mon Pays" on the LPs Gilles Vigneault à la Comédie-Canadienne, Mon Pays, and Les Grands Succès de Gilles Vigneault, as well as on Les Chansonniers du Québec (2-RCI 360-361), J'ai vu le loup, le renard et le lion (Les Productions du 13 août VLC-13), and Les Chansons d'or du Québec (Deram DEF-1000). Several other artists have recorded the song, including Salome Bey, Neil Chotem (instrumental version), Roger Doucet, the Ensemble Claude-Gervaise, Judy Lander (as "My Country"), Danielle Licari, Monique Leyrac, Ginette Reno, Gaston Rochon, Catherine Sauvage, Michel Louvain, Michèle Richard and René Simard. André Gagnon used it as the theme for the first movement of the fourth concerto of Mes Quatre Saisons. The text alone has appeared in a collection of Vigneault's poems, Avec Les Vieux Mots (Quebec 1964). Edith Fowke gives the words and music in Canadian Vibrations (Toronto 1972). The sheet music (harmonization and arrangement by Gaston Rochon) was published by the Éditions du Vent qui vire.

Vigneault composed a sequel, "Mon Pays II," originally published by the same firm (again in a harmonization and arrangement by Rochon), but later also by Sibecar (Paris 1969) for France, Switzerland, and the Benelux countries. The lyrics of "Mon Pays II" at first reduce the country to very small dimensions and then go on to identify it with a town, a province, and finally a planet "which on a window sill is spun around by a child's finger."

"Mon Pays" was inducted by the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005.

Author Hélène Plouffe, Suzanne Thomas, Stephen Willis

Links to Other Sites
Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame
The website for the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, an organization dedicated to promoting Canadian popular music songwriters. Check out the annual list of inductees and click on a name to read an inductee’s biography. Also offers video highlights of previous award ceremonies.

Gilles Vigneault : "Mon Pays"
Listen to Gilles Vigneault perform the song 'Mon pays'. From YouTube.