Talk:Sur le Pont d'Avignon

I recall a story I heard that "sur" should really be "sous", and that the whole song refers to a rather macabre story: that in one or other of the various religious conflicts the bridge was used as an elongated gallows, so the "dancing" people were more Strange Fruit ...

Has anyone else heard this version?

Dr Shorthair

Absolutely. The song predates the Revolution, but at that time, it became a grim, popular double-entendre: there was widespread slsughter of the French nobility at and around Avignon. Whether anyone was actually strung up on the bridge is unclear. Mostly, they were just hacked to death or burned in their own homes. But the image was a good one by Jacobin standards-- gentlemen turn this way; ladies now turn that way. The joke was that this referred to the dead bodies swaying in the wind beneath the bridge. Hardcore, man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.131.141.130 (talk) 13:31, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

translation issues
Isn't "we all dance" or "everyone dances" a much more natural and better translation of "on y danse"? &mdash; David W. Hogg 18:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I think it's for the metre of the song, rather than the most literal transaltion. -Tpacw (talk) 22:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one article was rated and this bot brought all the other ratings up to at least that level. BetacommandBot 08:08, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Sound clip
Pardon me, but that is a truly dreadful sound clip. It's not at all clear when the song actually starts, and it's a bit confusing. Might be better without it at all? -Tpacw (talk) 22:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Dance description
Is it really necessary to say "pairs of two"? Is this construction used to distinguish pairs of two from pairS of three or five or seven? Seriously, pairs of two?154.5.40.122 (talk) 23:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 08:08, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

history unclear
There are no citations, so it's hard to judge the accuracy of this history. We do know that the bridge has been unusable for hundreds of years (16th century?), and is now less than half its original length. Is it possible that there was dancing on the otherwise unusable bridge at one time? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikimikef (talk • contribs) 22:40, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Source text
Many sources give the text ″L'on y danse″ rather than ″On y danse″. I think this should be mentioned. Jivingfrog (talk) 14:10, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Avignon papacy
I always thought the song was a reference to the abundance of prostitutes during the Avignon papacy. Since I have no proper sources I will not edit the article though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:1C03:B00:8C00:D53E:C812:A808:689D (talk) 16:27, 9 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I just heard this version of the song--being about prostitutes--from a French native guide in Avignon. 2601:1C0:847C:71A0:D809:9D60:4F5E:7897 (talk) 21:21, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Catullus 17
This page is frankly useless at the moment. Catullus 17 is a poem about dancing on a bridge (probably Verona's in the first century BC). Unless this page's owner does some better research, I'll have to assume that dancing on new bridges was symbolic of testing their strength. Vince Calegon 12:35, 8 February 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vince Calegon (talk • contribs)

Hypocrite
§In popular culture cited "[t]he French fantasy comic book Hypocrite: comment decoder l'etirograph". The made-up word "etirograph" is a error, but it appears in many, many web references to the book, in many languages. All the mentions in English begin with exactly the same phrasing used here, suggesting that they're all copying from the same source. The actual word used in the title is "Etircopyh", which is simply "Hypocrite" spelled backward.

Thnidu (talk) 02:23, 8 April 2021 (UTC)