The songs, one by one, arose. Without a pre-established plan. No definite direction. Without theme, a priori. Each in their corner of paradise. The garden where it is written. With pretty rhymes and all the stuff. The place of the exquisite. We continue, say? Ingrid St-Pierre smiles: “It’s embroidery! »
We could, if we wanted, write the text of our Friday afternoon meeting like this, like a fun game, a shared joy of linked words: it would be a great game. But let’s not forget that Ingrid the singer, Ingrid the designer are in this café on rue Jarry to talk about the album queens one week from release. Nevertheless, let’s admit a complicity that has been in the body for twelve years, interview after interview: when the journalist and the artist love to write so much, we talk to each other a little like we write. “You can’t help but taste the words. To enjoy rhymes. Beyond meaning, often. The meaning is implied. Not always aware. It was also made like that, this disc. Every word has been meticulously thought through, but with no clear intention as to what is being said. I knew I had something to say, I felt like it, but I didn’t know where it would take me. I found out along the way, if not afterwards. »
To each his own universe
In truth, she knew the album would end up being called queens and that she would talk about the women in her life, but without knowing it. It was inside, the words came before, the same for the melodies. “I don’t want to exaggerate. For some songs, I had ideas. It’s been a long time since I wanted to write about the loneliness of older women, it gave Only one plate. Indeed, from the title, we understand: “A single plate / On the table for centuries / Perhaps less, time stops / Time crumbles. » Clarity.
A few premeditations do not prevent the observation: each song first existed as a distinct universe, the links only became obvious to the embroiderer at the very end of the process. “They came in a trickle. Each in turn. » Separate births. Allow the image: it was less a litter of fourteen children than fourteen births in rapid succession. ” It’s exactly that. The songs came so out of nowhere, in this sort of urgency that I felt, that I brought them to the studio to Philippe Brault naked, without any idea of an arrangement. Nothing. »
It’s more direct, but I refuse to change the level of language. I love the French language too much to debase it. Even to say the horror, I value the beauty of the expression, in the light of the words.
The Revelation of Queens
And queens showed up in extremis, elected title song by acclamation. “She arrived the morning of the mix. The album was finished, the graphic designer had started her work. I phoned my manager, I told her: we are in the schnut, I just wrote THE song that should be there, that gives meaning to everything. She suggested I release it later, on an EP… No no no! This is the key! I joined Philippe in the studio, who had already arrived to prepare his mixing. He said OK, come on. I played it twice, then we recorded it for real, one take, piano-voice. And there, all the songs that we thought were independent, released bareheaded in a way, were overseen by this song in the plural, us. queens.
A “frontal” song, that’s Ingrid’s word. A sovereign song, which speaks for all women, those of the #MeToo movement, those of the right to abortion attacked in the Supreme Court of the United States, and the others. Excerpts: “If our tongues are untied / It’s not to make your desires shine […] It plays at kings of the mountain / At the top of the Mounts of Venus / It legislates in our entrails / In single file the minuses […] We the Queens of Light / Will raise our finger, honor and spine / Let’s raise our voices, without fear / My sisters / Nothing damages us anymore. »
The light of words
The thirteen other songs on the album, whether they speak of love, friendship, old age, illness, bereavement, resonate differently because they are part of queens. We hear Ingrid’s voice, the choirs, the piano, the guitars, the strings, the winds in their common mission: to do good and give strength. And the concern for the right and beautiful words becomes even more imperative. No way, even in queens, to betray the joy of writing and to write well to yell at men in a dirty language. “It’s more direct, but I refuse to change the level of language. I love the French language too much to debase it. Even to say the horror, I value the beauty of the expression, in the light of the words. »
At a tryout show, she sang queensa cappella. “It was very intensely received. It’s not by screaming that I’m going to make myself heard. It’s not me. I do not respond to violence with violence. On the contrary, I will get closer to people. » Abolish distance. The most implacable truth can be sung softly, in the hollow of the ear, from heart to heart. Faith by Ingrid St-Pierre. “It’s my way. Intimate, with my rhymes. No less pretty rhymes to dot the i’s.