I rarely wake up crying and listening to a song on repeat the day after national mourning. Thus the prophets die, taking with them a little of our valor and their tricks of love. Charisma has a price. We remember exactly the moment, the place, like John Lennon or René Lévesque. A part of us also dies, and the pain is tattooed in our memory. A crack in the heart with a musical score.
You choose America cries, Autumn song, Shooting Stars, Down here Or The demonstration, As you want. Revolutions are made by singing, it is well known.
Against a backdrop of global despair, local strikes, fed up of the troops, even the overpriced broccoli which traveled five thousand kilometers before landing a little limp from the neck to the Maxi looks gloomy. Against the backdrop of November and “Not Christmas yet?!” I haven’t used up my summer vacation balance yet…, no need for experts to hand out the tissues. “Y’a pu de Kleenex” would make a good song title (the brand no longer exists here).
And yet, in 2023, sociologists and psychologists are summoned to the bedside of the tearful nation. There is even the oncologist who, in a text (touching, by the way), told us post-mortem that his patient reacted better to the love of 90,000 people than to chemo. You have to read the book The anti-cancer power of emotions written by his radiation oncologist colleague Christian Boukaram. That’s all explained.
Despite the shit, the setbacks, the things that escape us The little ones, the big torments, the mistakes along the way And everything that catches up with us, in the detour Despite the boredom, the traffic, the unfinished dreams The routine, cynicism, winter that never ends, I’m hanging on to my feet
A sociologist can try to analyze the crowd for you, but each of us knows that we cry for truth, for meaning, in what often no longer has any. Because the only thing that is true is to make us hold on with spit. Karl Tremblay will have allowed us to rise higher, the voice of our disillusionment (thanks to the wonderful lyricist and guitarist Jean-François Pauzé), to feel less alone in the face of the abysmal stupidity of the world.
We hurt Karl and the country, which has become a people of heat pumps in summer and pickup trucks in town, of Franglais and asphalt, of tank ads that look like personal growth leaflets, of holy water that tastes of Diet Coke flatters. If revolutions are made by singing, we will have to learn a few refrains from the Cowboys repertoire and take out our caped boots.
Like a lantern
It was PSPP, the new hope of the PQ, who said on TV: “In a crazy world, Les Cowboys Fringants was like a candle lit in a dark room, a message of hope, a bright message that Quebec can choose to watch over each other, to love each other. » Paul’s favorite tune is As long as there is love.
I wanted to chat with Dominique Lebeau, the former Cowboys drummer. I wrote to him that famous Thursday to go have a coffee at Pistachio, he had COVID, we did it again.
I decided to go bawl in a church instead. I barely know the temples of Montreal, apart from the Saint-Joseph oratory, my neighbor for 15 years, the Notre-Dame basilica, where I went to take refuge at midday when The duty crept on rue Saint-Sacrement (more Judeo-Christian, you get crucified), and the Saint-Jean-Baptiste church, when I lived on rue Drolet. Amen.
I discovered last Thursday thanks to François Guillet, a guy who loves our places of worship and has spent many weekends there, the sublime and very Irish Saint-Patrick’s Basilica, in the city center. Nothing to do with its neighbor, the Marie-Reine-du-Monde cathedral, colder, austere, a reproduction of Saint-Pierre in Rome.
How did he manage to sing so true? As if, in addition to his vocal cords, his heart, his soul, his conscience, his guts formed a unique choir.
Saint-Patrick, a little set back from René-Lévesque Boulevard, is the ideal place to go mourn your life under the unwavering gaze of the immense white pine columns covered in pink marble. It’s free and deserted during the week, too.
The lanterns are electric, less romantic than playing with fire, but I slipped a $20 into the slot of a big copper box: “ For the poor “. If you pronounce it with an Irish accent, it’s almost pretty. There is a lot of Ireland, reels and violin in the tunes of Cowboys Fringants. It stirs my blood, that of my ancestors.
It is here, in grave silence, that we can still reflect on what makes us loving humans, beyond clerical crimes and our faults. The church offers us another sky, like an ideal towards which we can still strive, just be silent and cry over the excess.
But at the end of the road, tell me what will remain
From inside, we no longer hear the noise of the city center. I forget the stupidity of our elected officials who think they are greasing the paws of millionaires too quickly on their skates, offering a national funeral to a singer who denounced them on every note. Mr. Legault, perhaps we should listen to the words of 8 seconds or Nothingwritten by Pauzé (in 2004!) after attending a conference by the late astrophysicist Hubert Reeves.
“Basically the intelligence that was given to us
It will have been nothing but a beautiful poisoned gift”
Here, in the silence of this soundproof basilica, I do not hear the rumors of the next COP28 which is approaching, the UN which predicts 3 degrees Celsius more on the planetary thermometer. It’s flying to the four corners of the world on my Facebook feed, it’s going to take advantage of Black Friday to get into debt again and dig its hole. Holy Flannel, pray for us.
“But after a hundred years people stood up
And warned them that everything had to be stopped
But they did not understand this wise prophecy.”
Faque, look for me pu, I November kek leaves in a church, on the dunces’ bench, at the back. My own prayer is called Homesick and it is from a poet/politician swept away by cancer, also too young. His name was Gérald Godin. His poem blasphemes en masse; It’s sinful, I know, but I don’t mutter it loudly.
By these cursed tabscams
Of cinciboriums of cincrèmes
Of jeribories of toasted hosts
Of sacraments of stoles
Of crucifixes of Calvary
Assholes
I hurt my country
Until the end of time