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Mille après mille / Mile After Mile (WORD)
Mille après mille / Mile After Mile (PDF)
Thanks to Sylvie Lambert for bringing this song to BUG! Sylvie writes: "As a Franco-Ontarian, originally from Northern Ontario, and having lived a few years in Hawkesbury during my childhood and now living in Gatineau, I feel a special connection to this song."
The songsheet is a bilingual version, though Sylvie would like to play it using the Willie Lamothe recording (which is all in french) but she'll lead us in it slower at the BUG Jam. You can play in the same key as the Willie Lamothe recording in GCEA tuning if you put your capo on the 7th fret. You can play in the same key as the other recordings in GCEA if you put your capo on the 5th fret. It's important to play the [D7] chord using the two-finger shape (2020).
The country classic Mille après mille / Mile After Mile is a rarity — a song that became a chart-topping hit in both French and in English for two different artists.
It was originally recorded by Joly, with one French verse, on his 1971 album “Gerry Joly Duo – Live at the Belle Claire.” It was soon covered by the well-known country singer Orval Prophet (“The Canadian Ploughboy”), a fellow eastern Ontarian, who used the title for his 1971 album.
As a Franco-Ontarian, Joly wrote and sang in both English and French. His French version of the song, "Mille après mille", was made famous by Willie Lamothe, known in Quebec as “the king of western” (“le roi du western”) and was subsequently recorded by a number of French-Canadian artists. Lamothe recorded Joly’s French version, Mille après mille, with a more middle-of-the-road sound, on his album “Le soleil se lève avec papa Willie” in November 1972. The successful 45-rpm single followed the next month with Puisque tout est fini on the reverse. It proved to be the second hit for the Joly composition, firmly establishing Mille après mille as a long-term favourite of French Canada’s country, pop and folk scenes. Lamothe also chose it for his albums “Album souvenir” (1981) and “Je reviens” (1983) and sang it on his popular television show, “Le Ranch à Willie.”
Part love song, part introspective query about the meaning of life, Mile After Mile was written in Elliot Lake in Northern Ontario in 1969, after a long drive during which Joly’s car gave him mechanical troubles. This moody country ballad has since been recorded by a multitude of pop, country and folk artists, including Céline Dion, and continues to grow in popularity. The song was inducted in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016.
Gérald Joly was born in 1934, in Hawkesbury, Ontario – deceased 29 December 2008, in Gatineau, Quebec.