Music can be used to grab attention as well as to link students back to the timeline, and is a great way to start or end a class! Some days you may just want to play the music and leave it at that, other days you may have students jot down words they hear (or think they hear) and concepts they have pulled from listening. Sometimes you will want to play the music once without the words and then offer the words, other times you may want to have students explore the lyrics first and then play the song.
I find the story of the Canadian national anthem particularly compelling. What follows is a series of songs that can tell that story little by little each day, hopefully causing students to think about what it means to have a national anthem and how it must connect to a country's people. I think we tend to take our own for granted, accepting that it is without really thinking about what the original motivations and emotions behind it were. It was the Francophone Canadian population that really hungered for a national anthem, and this search must be considered in the context of the history of division and unification within Canada. This story will take us from Canada, to France, back to Canada, and then to New England, which I hope will show students how music moves with the people who both create it and appreciate it.
In 1835, Canadian statesman Georges-Étienne Cartier wrote and sang a nationalistic song called
Ô Canada! Mon Pays! Mes Amours!
that became quite popular. (18) I have included a link to the lyrics and a video clip of the song in the
Classroom Resources
section.
Vive la Canadienne (Long Live the Canadian Girl)
was a folk song and sung as the national anthem in the nineteenth century. Later, during WWII, it was turned into the official march of the Royal 22
nd
Regiment. The clip listed in
Classroom Resources
for the march has a 43 second version that quite fast in tempo and high in pitch, and will serve as an excellent attention getter in class! The second version in the clip is slower and softer and can perhaps be used during transitions. I've also included a version from Bonnie Dobson in 1972 and one that sounds more traditional, to represent the original.
À la claire fontaine
is a traditional French song that was also widely sung in French Canada from its beginnings. There are many versions of the song, both in France and Canada. It was designated as a national anthem in 1878. In the
Classroom Resources
section is a traditional version of the song, rich with images from the early settlement period. There is also a link to the song as sung by children in France, with lyrics and videos. I have also included a beautiful version from the 2006 film
The Painted Veil;
it has scenes from the movie so I would only play the audio and not the video in class.
French Canadians kept searching for their national anthem, but although the ones we have explored were lovely, the search was still on. Somehow they just didn't fit the bill. There was a festival scheduled for June of 1880, during the National Holiday
(La Fête Nationale).
This was the time! The music committee set the task of getting a national anthem ready for the festival, and through a series of events they succeeded with
O Canada!
(19) Until 1964, versions of this song were used as the national anthem throughout the whole of Canada; because there was no official anthem, some (non-Francophone) municipalities would use "God Save the Queen," which was the de facto anthem of Great Britain and some of its territories. As Canada approached the point of confederation, in 1964 Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson decided that the country should have one national anthem, and committees were formed which ultimately created the solution that
O Canada
would be the national anthem, and
God Save the Queen
would be the royal anthem. It took another fifteen years for the song to officially become the national anthem, in 1980.
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings has gathered songs that reflect the heritage of "French Canadians who immigrated to New England and became Franco-Americans," called
Mademoiselle, Voulez-Vous Danser?: Franco-American Music from the New England Borderlands.
(20) The compilation was recorded between the years of 1994-1998 at festivals, informal gatherings, and small studios in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and eastern New York. There are so many great and relevant songs, but in particular I recommend "
Entre Moi
(Between Me)" because it starts with a take on
O Canada
and is about the songwriter's conflict between the "traditions of her French heritage and contemporary American culture." I think that using more of the songs on this compilation can be effective in showing students how people connect with their culture through music, whether or not they are presently living within the community of their heritage. It connects people over both time and place, and can be a point of entry for others to understand their heritage as well. Sometimes there are performances by Franco-American musicians in the area, which would be a fun field trip to consider!