"Mon pays" ("My Country", or "My Homeland", in English) is a song composed by Gilles Vigneault in 1964.
The song was written for the NFB film La Neige a fondu sur la Manicouagan, directed by Arthur Lamothe. The song, with its lyrics about winds, cold, snow, and ice, of the solitude of wide open spaces and of the ideal of brotherhood, has become a kind of anthem in Quebec, with many people seeing it as expressing the free spirit of the province; Vigneault, however, has denied that this was ever his intention.
Vigneault won the Prix Félix-Leclerc at the 1965 Festival du disque de Montréal for the song. Later that same year, Monique Leyrac performed it at the International Song Festival in Sopot, Poland, taking first prize with it.
In 1976 "Mon Pays" was reworked into the disco song "From New York to L.A." recorded by Patsy Gallant. This song with English lyrics by Gene Williams unrelated to the original French, was an international hit for Gallant - Canada/ #6, the UK/ #6, Ireland/ #5, Australia/ #10, the Netherlands/ #15, Norway/ #7, South Africa/ #5, Sweden/ #17, - and in 1995 reached #5 in Austria via a remake credited to N.Y.L.A. featuring Stephanie McKay.
Famous quotes containing the words mon and/or pays:
“Je célébrai mon jour de fête
Dans une oasis d’Afrique
Vêtu d’une peau de girafe.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)