toujours d actualité! for all the anglos how are wondering what this song is about:it was written in the great depression of the 1930 and is basically a keep your chin up, things will get better!
La Bolduc was my Grandmere. Unfortunately when my dad and mom moved out west for employment, my dad needed to learn to speak English. We never grew up speaking French but I spent a lot of time listening to her music.
This is a song of hope for the people starving and jobless in the city of Montreal in the 1930's. La Bolduc was one hard working woman in her time that started her career from nothing and managed to bring joy to a nation in despair.
Les gens peuvent encore s'inspirer d'elle aujourd'hui.
Mary Travers was cranking out these songs in an era when life was really tough - the Depression Years - and most folk could unwind to her music and forget their troubles, even if only for an ephemeral measure of time. She embodies the most meaningful impact music can have on culture, to provide a distraction when it is truly needed. Kids in the modern era like to pretend they have it tough and so exalt their ofttimes hollow music as a balm for their imagined problems. But La Bolduc exercised her art for a generation that knew true hardship, and derived meaningful relief from their travails through her music. And, in the end, is this not the noble purpose of music?