My Country (Mon Pays)

MY COUNTRY

My country isn't a country, it's winter
my garden isn't a garden, it's the plain
my road isn't a road, it's the snow
My country isn't a country, it's winter

In the white ceremony
where the snow is married to the wind
in this land of blizzards
my father had a house built
and I'm going to be true
to his ways, to his example
my guest room will be the one
that you go back to, season after season
to build beside it

My country isn't a country, it's winter
My refrain isn't a refrain, it's a gust of wind
My house isn't my house, it's the winter cold
My country isn't a country, it's winter

About my solitary country
I cry out before I am silenced
to everyone on earth
my house is your house
inside my four walls of ice
I put my time and my space
to prepare the fire, the place
for the people of the horizon
and the people are of my race

My country isn't a country, it's winter
my garden isn't a garden, it's the plain
my road isn't a road, it's the snow
My country isn't a country, it's winter

My country isn't a country, it's the contrary
of a country that was neither land nor nation
My song isn't a song, it's my life
It's for you that I want to possess my winters

(translation originally by Robert S. Richmond, with very extensive corrections by June-Etta Chenard, a Canadian who is fluent in both languages. June-Etta can also sing "Mon Pays" and did at my workshop at the FGC Gathering in 2000. Thanks, June-Etta!)

Original French text.

Information (in French) about Gilles Vigneault.

Return to workshop page.

June 20th, 2001