I discovered that I had Marjo’s music and words tattooed on my heart five years ago during the Coup de coeur francophone. The singer had become more rare during the previous decade after a nasty fall at the bottom of an outdoor stage in Jonquière. Acoustic show at the Quai des Mists, a few hundred curious music lovers were present.
When she opened the show by dropping Illegal as if his life depended on it, we understood that we were going to be entitled to a great evening. Suddenly, as if by magic, my mouth began to sing and I noticed, with astonishment, that I knew all the words by heart! I had listened to his songs on a cassette with my father when I was little, and the words and the melodies were imprinted on me forever.
That night, Marjo killed me with Elsewhere. How could I have forgotten this song as tasty as a power ballad Aerosmith or the Scorpions? I listened to it over and over in the days that followed. Jean Millaire’s solo from the intro… A declaration of love from the guitarist to the singer. Marjo told Dominic Tardif in an episode of the podcast Do you become what you have desired ? that she creates when she loves, that it’s a story of desire. How could I have done without listening to his songs all these years? “Are you the words, are you the music,” she growls. We never knew — probably the perfect mix of the two.
During her most recent show at the Francos de Montréal in a pumped-up Club Soda, she said “I left my mark”, before praising Lou-Adriane Cassidy and Ariane Roy, two excellent authors. – up-and-coming singer-songwriters. Marjo imitated their signature looks and gestures, while paying homage to them.
There is a braid tied between the musical girls and which can be put together at will. In my own little musical pantheon, a trio of champions made up of PJ Harvey, Björk and Tori Amos immediately imposes itself. I’m a 90s girl; all from there. PJ, her wild mermaid blackness and her big mouth begging Billy to come back. Björk, the brilliant Icelander, whose album Beginning appeared 30 years ago. Tori Amos, the bizarre and magnetic redhead… These musicians conveyed to the teenager that I was strong enough and confident enough to propel herself in the world.
Since the beginning of the summer, I have dragged my sneakers to several festivals. At Santa Teresa, I loved seeing Les Shirley (special mention to Lisandre Bourdages on drums), a group that reminds me of the swag of girls from L7. The same evening, there was Bon Enfant, led by the imperial and undulating Daphné Brissette. Then, I rinsed my ears to the sound of the roaring guitars of the Vulgaires Machins, including that of Marie-Ève Roy, planted in the center of the stage, fiery, biting, inspiring.
I think back to the autobiography of Kim Gordon, bassist of Sonic Youth. The book is titled girl in a bandin reference to the lazy question they all must have been asked at some point: it’s how to be the daughter of the band ? Kim Gordon, role model as far as I’m concerned, turned 70 in April!
I watch them triumph on the stages, these girls “cast in rock”, I write to hijack an old sexist beer ad. They are there, shine and occupy the space without apologizing. It couldn’t always have been easy, but here they are, regal, hungry, devouring the stage…
At the Tadoussac Song Festival in June, I had lunch at the hotel not far from the Vulgaires Machins. They are in their forties, have young children. They let ten years pass before releasing an album again last year. The teenage rage that infuses their punk-rock rants doesn’t seem to have abandoned them… “How do you manage to rekindle that fire night after night?” I asked Marie-Ève Roy. The guitarist mimed the gesture of a thread that we plog into an amp and replied that it always came back to him when he heard that sound, like energy flowing through his veins, you just have to plug in the wire for the electricity to come back.
From Marjo to Safia without forgetting Pâquerette Cocktail, thank you to all the musical flame-girls who allow us to catch fire in our turn and to feel more free.