"Sur le Pont d'Avignon,
on y danse,
on y danse,
sur le pont d'Avignon,
on y danse
tous en rond..."

In the fifteenth century, many popular songs that accompany marriage evoke the Pont d'Avignon. They are called "songs of pillows". We find traces in different regions of France, and even Canada.

These popular songs inspired perhaps Certon Pierre, composer of the King's chapel in the sixteenth century. Very experienced at the time, this song, apart from anecdotes and outrageous comedy, also wrote religious works. He composed a Mass "Sus le Pont d'Avignon", whose melody is fairly distant from the song we know today. The air of the rhyme in its present form, appears in 1853 in the operetta by Adolphe Adam, entitled "l'Auberge Pleine".

The international success comes after several years with another operetta, launched in 1876, which eventually was called "Sur le Pont d'Avignon".

The Avignon, in fact, not dancing on the bridge, its narrowness does not allow nor farandole sarabande. For cons, the formation of islands including that of Barthelasse, has developed an intense picnic and taverns which has transformed the banks of the Rhone in a place of relaxation and leisure in the nineteenth century. So this time we danced, not on, but .... under the bridge.