Paroles (Lyrics)
Les paroles complètes de « Alouette » avec traduction en anglais.
Alouette, gentille alouette, Alouette, je te plumerai. Je te plumerai la tête, Je te plumerai la tête. Et la tête, et la tête, Alouette, alouette, ah!
#English translation
Lark, gentle lark, Lark, I will pluck you. I will pluck your head, I will pluck your head. And the head, and the head, Lark, lark, ah!
#Alouette at a glance
- Country of origin
- 🇫🇷 France
- Sung in
- French
- Words by
- Traditional
- First known
- first published 1879 (Montreal)
- Best for ages
- 2–7
- Mood
- playful, traditional
- Last updated
- 25 July 2026
How to sing it
- Sing it as a call-and-response — a leader names a body part and the group echoes it back.
- Add a new part each round (head, beak, neck, wings…) and pile up all the previous ones, like "The Twelve Days of Christmas".
- Speed up as the list grows longer; the fun is in keeping the whole chain going.
Meaning and origin
This is one of the most famous French songs in the world, and one of the most cheerfully absurd. Addressed to a “gentle lark”, it announces, with great warmth, that the singer is going to pluck it — and then sets about doing so part by part: the head, the beak, the neck, the wings, and onward. Each verse adds a new body part and then rattles back through all the earlier ones, so the song grows longer and faster with every round, like “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.
Despite its Frenchness, it is really Canadian. “Alouette” was first published in Montreal in 1879, and folklorists tie it to the French-Canadian fur trade, where voyageurs sang to keep time as they paddled. The lark itself is the morning bird of French folk song — the one that wakes sleepers, not always welcome — which may be the sly joke behind threatening to pluck it.
It works because it is a game, not a story. Sung as call-and-response, with a leader naming each part and the group shouting it back, it turns a room of children (or soldiers, or sports fans) into one big cheerful machine for remembering a list. Allied soldiers carried it home from the First World War, and it has served ever since as the unofficial anthem of French Canada — a nation represented, of all things, by a song about plucking a bird.
Common questions
- What does "Alouette" actually say?
- It is cheerfully gruesome: "Lark, gentle lark, I will pluck you." The singer then works through the bird's body part by part — I'll pluck your head, your beak, your neck, and so on — piling each new part on top of the last. It is a list-and-repeat game, not really about the poor lark at all.
- Where is "Alouette" from?
- From French Canada. Although many assume it is French, it was first published in Montreal in 1879, and is linked to the North American French fur trade — the first French (from France) printing came 14 years later.
- Why a lark?
- In French folk tradition the lark is the morning bird that wakes sleepers — sometimes unwelcomely — which may be why the song playfully threatens to pluck it. Today it is sung as a light-hearted game and stands as an unofficial anthem of French Canada.
