Before the hidden tune, the legendary album Break syndical ends with the poignant ballad Ruelle Laurier, the text of which is one of the rare ones written by Karl Tremblay. Drawing inspiration from the difficult childhood of a guy he worked with in a video store, the singer takes his most visceral voice to do what Les Cowboys Fringants does best: tell human stories as if they were was theirs. With a melody of burning fire.
I know, I know… In the aftermath of Karl Tremblay’s death, we should talk about love – not the end of the world. But I will defend No More under any circumstances. I remember, at age 8 or 9, listening to the play on repeat, both terrified and amazed by the desolate scenes it depicted: cities swallowed by the ocean, destructive hurricanes, men dressed in head to toe in a virus-resistant suit… Twenty years later, nothing has aged. Even though it looks more and more like a prophecy.
The album Break syndical was the soundtrack of the summer when I was 12. A choice that was not mine, but rather that of my best friend (and especially her big sister). In full disclosure, I was no longer able to hear it! When my mother bought the double concert album Attache ta tuque!, my opinion changed. I listened to it then re-listened so many times that I still know it by heart today, transitions between pieces included. With their committed songs, like En Berne (the live version of which gives shivers), Les Cowboys Fringants gave birth to a great interest in politics in the teenager that I was and nourished the hope that it could be done otherwise.
I’m 40 years old and have this strange feeling that Les Cowboys Fringants and I experienced the same things, at the same time. When I discovered the group, I was 19 years old and studying at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal. The song Un p’tit tour (Motel Capri, 2000) transports me to my first apartment, rue de Normanville. It’s a song that evokes precariousness, but above all first loves and an exhilarating freedom. “Come and take a little walk in my apartment fret / We’re freezing our ass off but it doesn’t matter, we’ll stick together under the covers. »
Here, Les Cowboys Fringants are at the height of their irony and a form of disillusionment. To a catchy rhythm, Jean-François Pauzé paints in detail a ferociously mocking scene where the demonstrators “coming mainly from the CEGEP of Old Montreal” are “freezing their asses […] in the cold rain of March.” “It’s going to take a lot of sunshine / Otherwise it’s not tomorrow the day before / We’re going to make the revolution,” concludes Karl Tremblay with great discernment. Ten years later, in 2012, the temperature was particularly mild from the end of February. And spring was… maple.
You don’t need to be a soothsayer to predict that this song won’t be a shooting star. Jean-François Pauzé is at the top of his art here: he anchors the emotional charge of his piece in a very Quebecois expression, orchestrates a dramatic progression in the chorus, plays subtly with the levels of language and all that without getting lost. On my shoulder is a very simple song, easy to strum on the guitar, of infinite tenderness. Something like a great love song, which tightens the throat and makes the eyes water.
The live version of this song appeared on Attache ta tuque! resonated with me in many ways… Firstly because I was working in a TV station at the time – the text of La tête à Papineau was particularly apropos. Its rock energy also takes me back to the heart of the frenzied crowd at the Spectrum, where the album was recorded in December 2002. But above all, it takes me back to a time when I had the chance to share the microphone with Karl, on the stage of a karaoke bar on rue Masson… An unforgettable memory, you say?
8 seconds encapsulates what Les Cowboys Fringants does wonderfully well: tackling serious, difficult, even apocalyptic subjects, with festive tunes. This song, which precedes the album La Grand-Messe la les enjouée Plus rien, accompanied the beginning of my awakening to the environmental crisis. 8 seconds is four minutes of frenzied indignation, a fierce denunciation of the privatization of water, free from fatalism. There may soon be only 8 seconds left, but, “citizens, the future begins now.”
I knew a few songs by the Cowboys, Les Etoiles Filantes touched me, but they generally left me indifferent. Then there was America is Crying in 2019, which got into me. Literally. For the sensitive relevance of its text, for the painful melancholy of its melody. But it is the inhabited interpretation of Karl Tremblay, his power, his crack, his tragic appeal – “The question I ask myself all the time / But how do these poor people / To get through the whole course / D ‘a life without love? » – which still moves me today. And God knows we listened to this song: my three teenage children have appropriated the entire album Les Antipodes, which is part of our family history forever. Time passes, two of my children are now young adults, and that’s probably (also) why I cry during America Cries.
At the turn of the millennium, two members in good standing of the Cowboys arrived at the offices of the local Repentigny newspaper – hello, L’Artisan! – to tell me, then a young journalist without a beard, that the group would become “big” and that I had to follow its career “carefully” so as “not to miss it”. Their confidence struck me. Their music then? Less. But that was before hearing this song, released in 2004, and which confirmed their prophecy. JF Pauzé’s text on this piece takes a lucid look at life, while “the dreams of the ti-culs fade away or are repressed” and in the end, we can only “hope to be happy a little before to die “. A difficult song to listen to since last Wednesday…
At the time, circa 2000, I thought “vermouth” was a state. I had no idea what a big Impala looked like, but I was beginning to know what life was like, with its highways and cul-de-sacs. In this dark song with a cathartic chorus, Karl sits in the passenger seat of all the accident victims to yell with them. Pity? No ! Empathy. Because this pathetic crescendo, thanks to the interpretation of the singing cowboy, results in collective and jubilant catharsis. This was especially true on stage. “But tonight, I realize that my life is like an old tank / No matter how much I cringe, but I never leave.” He left, but he forgot to turn off the headlights.
