The essential Quebec call-and-response songs ⚜️
The chanson à répondre (call-and-response song) is the heart of Quebec's veillées and kitchen parties. Here are 22 classics we have recorded, each with its origin, when it's sung and how the group answers, plus links to the full French lyrics.
What is a chanson à répondre?
A leader sings a line and everyone repeats it or answers with a refrain. Nobody needs to know the verses: you just follow the leader. That is what makes these songs so easy to share at a veillée, around a table or in a logging camp.
The 22 songs
1.Le loup, le renard, le lièvre (M'en revenant de Sainte-Hélène)
Call-and-response song / enumeration song
It descends from an old French song-type, "J'ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre", with a musical attestation as early as 1560, and settled in Quebec and Acadia, where it also served as a heel-stamping dance tune. The leader calls out "M'en revenant de Sainte-Hélène", the whole room sings the line back, and everyone lands on the wolf, fox and hare refrain.
2.Alouette, gentille alouette
Call-and-response song / cumulative song
Documented in Montreal by 1879 in a McGill songbook, "Alouette" has a clearly Canadian printed history before its worldwide spread. It is a cumulative song: the leader names a part of the lark (head, beak, eyes…), the group echoes it, and then everyone recaps the whole list before the refrain.
3.La poule à Colin
Call-and-response song / comic song
From the countryside of Normandy, Poitou and Vendée, it came over with 17th- and 18th-century settlers and was collected in Quebec by Barbeau, Lacourcière and Laforte. The leader sings a line, the group repeats it, and everyone joins the refrain "Tu n'entends pas mon lanlire", a gentle dig at the Church's Latin.
4.En roulant ma boule
Call-and-response song / paddling song
Ernest Gagnon printed it in 1880 and linked it to an older French family of songs known as Le Canard blanc; its refrain travelled so widely it almost became a song of its own in voyageur repertoire. The leader launches each line, the group sings it back, and "En roulant ma boule" punctuates every verse.
5.Vive la Canadienne
Call-and-response song
A song with French roots that really lived in French Canada's taverns, parties and veillées. There is no complicated plot: the leader launches the line, the group answers "et ses jolis yeux doux", and the pleasure is in singing the refrain together.
6.V'là l'bon vent
Call-and-response song / voyageur song
One of the best-known songs of the voyageur and road repertoire, sung in both Quebec and Acadia. The "V'là l'bon vent, v'là l'joli vent" refrain opens the song, and each line of the story, the three ducks and the king's son, is echoed by the group: perfect for a veillée, a classroom or a village party.
7.Le bon vin m'endort (Passant par Paris)
Drinking song / call-and-response song
A great drinking song found from the 18th century in western France, it crossed with sailors and indentured workers, La Rochelle being one of the main ports for New France. The group repeats each of the leader's lines, then answers "Le bon vin m'endort, et l'amour me réveille encore".
8.Trinque l'amourette
Call-and-response song
It belongs to the call-and-response songs where courtship, drink and quick comebacks travel together, and it circulated in variants rather than as one fixed text. The leader sings two lines with "Trinque l'amourette, nous irons danser" and the room sings them right back: the group's answer is the whole point.
9.La ziguezon zinzon
Call-and-response song
It depends less on a storyline than on its vocable refrain, "La ziguezon zin zon", built to pull an answer out of the room. The leader sings the lines and the group repeats them as a block: exactly the kind of song that thrives at veillées, holiday nights and trad stages.
10.J'entends le moulin
Call-and-response song
A French-language classic popularized in Quebec form by Hélène Baillargeon and Alan Mills in the 1950s, it imitates the wheel, wind and water of the mill. The group repeats each line, then everyone turns the mill with "tique, tique, taque", which is why it lasted so well in schools.
11.Youpe ! Youpe ! sur la rivière
Call-and-response song / paddling song
Described by the Maine Folklife Center as a Quebec song popular with French-Canadian loggers and canoe men, it belongs with the paddling songs. The soloist tells of an evening at old man Gauthier's, and the "Youpe! Youpe! sur la rivière" refrain keeps time.
12.C'est la belle Françoise
Lament / call-and-response song
Sung in Canada as early as 1650 by French soldiers according to The Canadian Encyclopedia, it is one of the oldest documented songs of New France; Ernest Gagnon published three versions in 1865. The group echoes each half-line from the leader, then answers "ma luron lurette, ma luron luré".
13.Si tous les garçons du monde
Call-and-response round / children's song
A French round documented in Quebec by the 1920s on a 78 rpm disc by Conrad Gauthier, who co-founded the Veillées du bon vieux temps with Marius Barbeau. The leader sings the verse and the group answers "Non, non, je n'en veux pas": simple, quick and easy to learn.
14.Je n'ai pas de barbe au menton
Call-and-response song / cumulative song
A song from the old French stock built on a dialogue between a father and a daughter who would rather see the house burn than give up boys. The group repeats each pair of lines, and the refrain "Le beau temps s'en va, le mauvais revient" is made for laughing and singing together.
15.Pour boire il faut vendre
Drinking song / call-and-response song
A drinking song from oral tradition, with no known author or date. The leader calls "Pour boire il faut vendre" and the next item sold, the group repeats it, and everyone answers "J'ai d'l'argent pour boire" for each new round.
16.Sur la route de Berthier
Call-and-response song
A Quebec adaptation of "Sur la route de Louviers", with Louviers swapped for Berthierville in Lanaudière; Abbé Gadbois printed a cleaned-up version in La Bonne Chanson, which spread it among children and scouts. The group echoes every short phrase, so anyone can follow without knowing the words.
17.La loutre
Call-and-response song / cumulative song
A living example of a cumulative call-and-response song from Quebec folklore. Each round the leader adds a new link (the otter, the dog…), the group answers, and the chain is recapped from last to first, a real veillée memory game.
18.Dans tous les cantons
Call-and-response song
A French-Canadian call-and-response song from oral tradition, probably 18th or 19th century, recorded around 1926 by Charles Marchand for Columbia. An old villager hands out wry marriage advice, and the shared chorus brings the whole room in.
19.La destinée, la rose au bois
Call-and-response song
A traditional French song carried early to French Canada, where the form "la rose au boué" keeps an older pronunciation; a version was recorded in the Berry region in 1913 for the Archives de la parole. The group repeats each pair of lines, and "La destinée, la rose au bois" returns from verse to verse.
20.Wing tra la (Le couturier)
Call-and-response song with syllabic refrain
A call-and-response song from the Acadian oral repertoire, collected by Fathers Daniel Boudreau and Anselme Chiasson for their Chansons d'Acadie. A tailor asks for a young woman's hand and her father refuses; between verses, the nonsense refrain "Wing-tra-la-deli" gets everyone singing.
21.Au chant de l'alouette
Call-and-response song
A well-loved variant from the family of lark songs, less famous than "Alouette" but firmly in the Quebec corpus. The group repeats each line, then takes up "Au chant de l'alouette je veille et je dors", a light tune that travels easily from group to group.
22.Je le mène bien, mon dévidoir
Call-and-response song / work song
Often written "Le Dévidoi", it belongs to the old body of songs tied to textile work and formula refrains. The soloist tells the story and the group punctuates each line with "Je le mène bien, mon dévidoir", sly double meanings included.
The one-hour compilation
Fifteen of these songs run back to back in our one-hour compilation: the leader sings, everyone answers. Click a timestamp to jump straight to a song.
- 0:00Le loup, le renard, le lièvre (M'en revenant de Sainte-Hélène)
- 3:50La poule à Colin
- 8:26Trinque l'amourette
- 13:24Si tous les garçons du monde
- 16:35Le bon vin m'endort (Passant par Paris)
- 21:18Pour boire il faut vendre
- 25:17C'est la belle Françoise
- 29:52Quand j'étais chez mon père (apprenti pastouriau)
- 32:45Je n'ai pas de barbe au menton
- 37:03Je me suis fait une blonde (Les Métamorphoses)
- 40:38Alouette, gentille alouette
- 45:00Avoine, avoine
- 49:34Marianne s'en va-t-au moulin
- 53:09J'ai tant dansé, j'ai tant sauté
- 57:46La ziguezon zinzon
Leading a call-and-response song
- Pick a leader with a voice that carries and let them set the tempo.
- Start with a song whose answer is very short, like "Alouette" or "J'ai vu le loup, le renard, le lièvre".
- Print the lyrics for the leader only: the group answers by ear.
- Tap your feet or clap: foot-tapping (podorythmie) is part of the tradition.