David Harley Words & Music & Pictures &…

[Edited extract from my book So Sound You Sleep, recently posted to Substack]

This is a song reassembled from traditional sources, but so heavily restructured and freely translated that I can’t point to any single version as its prototype. I acquired a recording of it on my way back from a school trip abroad, and made my first pass at a translation when I still lived in the county (was still at school, probably.).

This is not, of course, related to the well-known nautical ballad The Nightingale, nor to any of numerous songs with similar titles such as The Sweet Nightingale. And yes, I know that Á La Claire Fontaine doesn’t mean ‘Nightingale’ – it means by a clear spring or fountain, literally. I simply chose to change the title to something that fits better with the translated version than with the best-known French version.

This was possibly originally a Jongleur song from the 15th or 16th century: the translation is based on French-Canadian versions. I was never quite happy with my original translation, and never sang it in public – if I sang it at all, it would have been in French. This version is much more recent than my unsatisfactory 1960s translation. The evolution of the World Wide Web during the interim enabled me to research the song’s origins much more easily, allowing me generate a version of the story that appealed to me more.

I’ve always liked one particular tune to this French song (also widely found in Belgium and Canada), but the words as I’d heard them have always seemed problematical to me, with the lover whining that he was unjustly discarded for being reluctant to give his lady a spray of roses. It’s hard to be too sympathetic toward a cheapskate, but the Wikipedia article linked below includes a version that doesn’t sound much different, but makes it clear that the singer is female, which sheds a very different light on the story.

When I found this and other versions where the protagonist was clearly female and the spray of roses symbolizes her maidenhead, it made much more sense, though it also makes it more difficult for me to sing it convincingly myself. (I have thought of attempting a male version that is nearer to the original sense, but that seems much more challenging.)

This is a rather free translation, picking up a possible interpretation that the lady lost out by giving in too easily, then being considered too ‘easy’ to marry.

C’est de mon ami Pierre, qui ne veut plus m’aimer,
Pour un bouton de rose, que j’ai trop tôt donné.

…my friend Peter is no longer in love with me
because I gave him my rosebud too soon…

Other versions suggest that she was dropped because she didn’t give in, as described below. As well as making my chosen subtext a little clearer, I’ve compressed the story by dropping a couple of very common lines referring to the protagonist bathing, as somehow that doesn’t seem to translate well. The song is often seen as a children’s song, but this particular take on the story should probably be considered a bit too explicit for that.

The version of the lyric on Wikipedia is closer to the version I originally learned, but a couple of small but very significant differences make it clear that the singer is female, rejected because she refused to give in to her suitor and let him take her ‘bouquet de roses’. The version I first learned included the misleading line “J’ai perdu ma maîtresse” (“I have lost my mistress…”) rather than “J’ai perdu mon ami” (“I have lost my [male] friend.”) The Wikipedia article includes a more-or-less literal translation. I’ve borrowed the best-known French refrain for the end of my recording: Il y a longtemps que je t’aime / Jamais je ne t’oublierai. A more literal translation of that chorus than I’ve used in translation would be “I have loved you for a long time, I will never forget you.”

Here’s a link to the track on Bandcamp.

[Music and original words traditional. Translated, arranged and adapted by David A. Harley. Guitar and vocal also by David A. Harley.]

The Nightingale Lyric

By the spring where we once lay
From the top of a mighty oak tree
A songbird sang to me

It’s been so long that I’ve loved you
I never will love again

Sing, happy nightingale,
Sing, for your heart is light
Sing out your notes so merry
But all that I can do is cry

My love has wed another
Though I was not to blame
I gave to him my love too freely
Now someone wiser bears his name

Oh, how I wish that the rosebud
Still flourished on the vine
And that my false true lover
Still returned this love of mine

It’s been so long that I’ve loved you
I never will love again

Il y a longtemps que je t’aime
Jamais je ne t’oublierai