His name does not resonate like that of the great performers who propelled his texts — Joe Dassin, Serge Reggiani, Michel Fugain and Nana Mouskouri, for example — but Claude Lemesle remains a monument of song nonetheless. The great lyricist, to whom we owe a good hundred classics, will take a tour of Montreal on July 8, the time to tell and even interpret some of his key pieces in his own way. The duty took the opportunity to talk about creation with him.
At 77, Claude Lemesle can boast of writing song lyrics for more than five decades, his first attempt entitled In England this summer which goes back according to his great memory to 1966. “It’s a totally unknown song, of course! exclaims the Parisian, never short of anecdotes. It was a rather funny story of a young French man, not so smart, who left for England to try, as they said at the time, to throw off his strangles a little, what, to be shameless! »
During the first hour of his performance, which will be held at Salle Claude-Léveillée at Place des Arts, the lyricist will meet with host Monique Giroux, before pushing the note for the next hour. We shouldn’t learn a lot about his very first song, but the great lyricist will certainly come back to his long and fruitful collaboration with Joe Dassin, for whom he wrote some 130 texts. Of the lot, we count Hello lovers, Indian summer, And if you did not exist And The Luxembourg Garden.
“I started with Joe, he says on the phone. We were very young, but it was he who got me started and it was he who asked me to write my first songs for performers, especially for him. »
In his show, Claude Lemesle can therefore interpret his own words in his own way. “A song like Hello lovers, which most people know, is the story of a real breakup, of my breakup with a woman I loved very much. So, obviously, I transmit it differently, that’s for sure. So I’m not saying it’s better, eh, because I was wonderfully served by my interpreters, but it’s my own reading. »
In total, Mr. Lemesle wrote more than 3000 texts and, of the lot, a little less than half were recorded by one or other of the singers with whom he collaborated. The palette is wide, ranging from the dramatic to the playful, fromA girl with clear eyes from Michel Sardou toSeñor Weather of Carlos.
A few minutes before our interview, Claude Lemesle happened to come across a television quiz where the host surprised himself when asked about the quality of the prosody of his title. Rosalie, always colorful Carlos, where you can hear “Where does it come from, my cuddly toy, your great disdain”. The lyricist, a good player, specifies that “it is not because we write a song with a whimsical or humorous vocation that we are going to screw up the writing! “. Moreover, according to him, “funny songs are much more difficult to write”. For example, he had logged more on Señor Weather that on And if you did not exist.
Marry the times
Claude Lemesle, also author of several books, including the most recent on Gilbert Bécaud, struggles however to put his finger on what makes a song become a success. “But it’s the public who is the king, anyway, he believes. We like all our songs the same way, and then the public makes their choice. There are times, we are pleasantly surprised by the success of a song, and then the opposite also happens, when there is a song in which we believe a lot and then finally, well, the public does not adopt it. »
The prolific lyricist still believes that, with the exception of a few timeless artists, like Brassens, there is an important question of linking up with the times, with society. “There are songs that ten years ago or ten years later wouldn’t have worked, but hey, they come when people want to hear them for such and such a reason. »
He specifies that, if society changes, music also takes turns. “Each era generates its own tastes and, in France, what we mainly hear is rap, slam, urban music. And he refrains from slandering these genres, quite the contrary: he considers rap and its multiple approaches to scansion to be “quite fascinating”. “We are moving away from classical versification, from the alexandrine or the octosyllable. It’s more unbridled, that’s good! »
According to him, a lyricist must avoid becoming ossified and backward-looking. “If we look back too much, we completely depart from life and from the truth, believes Mr. Lemesle. I think you really have to watch things evolve without any fear, without indulgence, but also without severity, simply, naturally, it’s absolutely essential. »
You have to follow the parade, just as you also have to pass on your knowledge, he believes. Mr. Lemesle has been busy for a long time taking part in workshops with young creators. “I have been a songwriter for 57 years. You know, there’s an African proverb that says a man who dies, a library burns. Well, I don’t want the library to burn after my death, so I try to pass on what I thought I had learned. »