X-mas in Q-bec

Guestpost! Natashka on French Canadian Christmas:

Joyeux Noël! Here’s three totally weird yet funny Christmas songs from Québec, which I am prepared to bet real money has produced the most French-language Christmas songs in the world. First up, “Y neige” (“It’s snowing”) from a 1970s comedy group called Les Frères Brosse. A guy “pops some little smarties” and sees the snow in all kinds of colours and wants to play spin the bottle with his female cousin Claire. Not long after that weird tune came out, comedy group Paul et Paul (both members of the first group added a third guy) had a country music Christmas song called “C’est Noël car il neige dans ma tête” (“It’s Christmas because it’s snowing in my head”) that strings along words that should not be used together (amusingly called a “bad marriage” in French linguistics), with lines like “Christ is purring in his manger” and “everywhere, everywhere the snowflakes have come together”. The last song by Otarie is from a year or two ago, a cover of “Baby it’s cold outside” (“Bébé, y fait frette dehors”), a song where some guy tries to convinced a girl to stay over because there’s no more metro, it’s cold and he wants to get her to crash at his place preferably not on the couch. Perfect to hone your Québécois dirty slang skills.

Les Freres Brosse - Y Neige
Paul & Paul - C'est noel car il neige dans ma tete
Otarie - Bebe, y fait frette dehors