Ten years after Songs, the singer from Port Credit, Ontario, offers a second album in French from France in the text, a bouquet of very nicely jazzified immortelles. The outbreak takes place just in time to justify participation in the Francos. Timely flowering. But above all, above all, this Again ! arises a very short year later Homemaker. In this way, it could have been titled both Already ! And Finally ! “That’s exactly it,” comments Jill Barber, from her Vancouver hotel room. “But we would have lost the double meaning of the word again…”, she emphasizes. Certainly. In French, speaking of “again” evokes continuity, repetition, and is defined in duration. In English, an “encore” refers more precisely to the portion of the encore at the end of the show. “I like this possibility of understanding the title differently in the two languages. After all, in this album, I am an English-speaking singer who rewards herself by singing in French. »
Homemaker was the terribly down to earth and absolutely necessary album of a difficult state of affairs for an exhausted Jill Barber. Let us quote the review that we wrote about it in February 2023. “The observation: the jazzy singer leading a career, the lover wishing for the success of her marriage, the mother welcoming her two children into the happiness of all moments, well it is too much. » On the job description, singer-songwriter-mother-homemakerit exceeds the space allotted: it was necessary to express it, in the mode protest song folk, in the form of a quasi-sung documentary.
The reward
“It gave me a breather, this album. » Homemaker allowed a breathless Jill to catch her breath. Again ! is the good air inhaled and exhaled. “I needed a break from myself, to get away from the housewife life for a while slash singer-songwriter. From my personal story. And just be a performer who rocks on a cloud of wonderful songs from the French-speaking repertoire. I needed an escape into beauty. And as for Songs ten years ago, nothing transports me elsewhere as much as these ageless tunes, nothing does me as much good as the strings of words so extraordinarily arranged in this French language of the greatest lyricists, from Charles Trenet to Barbara…”
And up to Claudine Monfette, our Mouffe, from whom she takes Ordinary, a local song popularized throughout the French-speaking world by Robert Charlebois (with the help of Gros Pierre for the melody). Delicately and expertly arranged by ace orchestrator Drew Jurecka, the song so immutable in its first incarnation finds here an astonishing lightness, a picking of acoustic guitar sufficient for him until a large orchestra of strings, winds and brass breathes into it the magnitude which befits the subject. A marvel, this rereading.
Beyond the two solitudes
“People in Quebec do not have the same connection with Ordinary whether we in Ontario or the European public. I knew it a decade ago, at most, even though the song has been around since 1971. I didn’t grow up with it. Ordinary. And among the English-speaking public, the vast majority, the song is not familiar at all. My director and arranger Drew Jurecka had never heard it. That says a lot about the famous two cultural solitudes in Canada. When I interpret it in the context of this album, Ordinary is received as a great French song in the broad sense, between the Padam padam of Piaf and the Clouds by Django Reinhardt. I feel like I’m introducing it to the English Canadians who follow me. I must specify his Quebec origin in the presentation. Obviously, this will not be necessary at Studio TD this Sunday as part of the Francos. »
For Songsshe had inserted When men live on love, the anthem of Raymond Lévesque, in his Francophile deal of cards. One Quebecois song per ten years is obviously not much, seen from here. We would like a Jill Barber to fill an album, entire albums with our choruses. “I would have nothing against it. I should know them better. They didn’t play on the shores of Lake Ontario when I was growing up. The gap between Quebec and Ontario is so big. But I would very much like to bring the great Quebec songs to the rest of Canada and everywhere else. I really like the idea of breaking down barriers. »
Escape to find yourself better
Hear Ordinary just before Blues, Mouffe and Barbara thus linked by the interpretation of Jill Barber, demonstrates a rare sensitivity. The fact is that these songs speak, in their very different ways, of the same subject. The difficulty of being. There weaves the thread of a garment with which Jill dressed everything Homemaker. Was she in fashion jazzy, on vacation from HER ordinary multitasker, the woman does not escape as much as it seems. It’s her destiny that she continues to sing through Ordinary And Blues. ” It is totally true. I didn’t think about it when placing them one after the other on the album, but I think the very choice of these songs speaks for me. We never escape, after all. »