2013/06/23

• 
  Diane Dufresne, circa 1973
  Dans une ruelle quelque part dans l’est de Montréal
  In a back alley somewhere in east end Montreal
  Scènes de Montréal – Montreal Scenes
  

  Above

  Front side of album À part de d’ça, j’me sens ben released in 1973, where Diane Dufresne appears with her breasts in the nude except for a body painted t-shirt reproducing the Québec flag. Dufresne in a May 20, 1978 interview to Le Devoir: «I wore a fleur de lys [lily flower] on my breasts because I wanted it to be the closest possible to my heart». The posing bystanders, of which many children, are residents of the area where the pic was taken. On our talk show “Tout le monde en parle”, she mentioned that the original photoshoot was set in the countryside in the midst of black flies, so they decided to move to more hospitable grounds.

  

  Eternals

  Some songs are called eternals because they are ageless. You can listen to them decades and decades later and they haven’t gathered a single wrinkle. Some of them also double as classics in the sense that they are so universally known that they have become akin to household words. Such a song is “Ordinaire” composed by Québec’s first true rocker, on lyrics by Mouffe, his female companion of the time. That time is 1970. Charlebois, like many others at the time, went to California for three months in 1968 and came back transformed. You can truly say he rocked Québec’s boat. This song however is more in the introspection rather than rock side of things. This recent performance, forty years later and sung by an aging Charlebois, seems like it could have been written yesterday, so much it was ahead of its time. Diane Dufresne, who was participating in the same show, made a cameo appearance, adding her own verse at some point. I did not understand the ending of the last sentence of that verse and it being an ad hoc performance, there is no trace of it anywhere on the net, hence the question mark.

  Note: the song starts at 2 min 32 sec. (lyrics below)

  ORDINAIRE
  Music Robert Charlebois Lyrics: Mouffe

  {Translation from http://lyricstranslate.com/en/ordinaire-ordinary.html, slightly modified by me}.

  I’m a very ordinary guy
  At times I feel like not doing anything anymore
  I’d smoke pot, I’d drink beer
  I’d make some music with big Pierre
  But I gotta think about my career
  I am a popular singer

  You want me to be a God
  If only you knew how old I feel
  I can’t sleep anymore, I’m too nervous
  When I sing, I feel a little better
  But this job, it’s dangerous
  The more you give, the more people want

  When I’ll be done for and living on the street
  My large public, I won’t have it anymore
  That’s when I’ll end up stark naked
  The day when I can’t do it anymore
  There will be others, younger, crazier
  To make dance the boogaloos

  I love my fellow men, I love my public
  All I want is for things to click
  I don’t give a damn about the critics
  They’re just sympathic losers
  I’m not a psychedelic clown
  My life, it’s all about music

  Diane Dufresne:
  When I’ll be tired of singing for singing
  When I’ll be fed up of laughing and laughing
  Then one evening, all alone in the dark
  I’ll sing to make me fall asleep
  To fall asleep once and for all
  Just for the kick to go up to the end
  Far from the spotlights, yeah, [?]

  If I sing it’s for me to be heard
  When I scream it’s too defend myself
  I’d like it if people could understand
  I’d like to travel all around the globe
  Before I’m dead and buried
  To see what the rest of the world looks like

  All around me there’s war
  Fear, hunger and misery
  I’d like for all of us to be brothers
  That’s why we’re on Earth
  I’m not a popular singer
  I’m nothing but an ordinary guy

  Ordinary…

  In 1970, Charlebois also went to Rome to sing, in duo with Italian pop star Patty Pravo (Nicoletta Strambelli), a well-known poem by Arthur Rimbaud, «Sensation», written by Rimbaud when he was 16, and for which Charlebois had composed the music. The poem itself was adapted to Italian by Sergio Bardotti and the song was called «La Solitudine». Videos of both are available on the net via the links below. But this is not my immediate motive to mention this. It’s because, by one of those surprises that leave you mouth wide open, I stumbled by pure accident on a version of «Ordinaire» sung in Italian, and by Charlebois himself. Needless to say a version I had no clue even existed. All I can figure is that it was probably recorded during that same trip to Rome.

  So for our friend in Wenduine, and other Italians out there, here is «NORMALE» :

  Links for “Sensation” and “La Solitudine”. I won’t even try to translate a Rimbaud poem. Maybe there’s one out there on the net.

  Sensation [FR] http://youtu.be/fjzlT_x0LaY
  La Solitudine [IT] http://youtu.be/CQRSfsgn7Js –

  

  Passages

  Nelson Mandela is dying. Sad news, although not unexpected, considering his age and especially the hard life he had.

  I remember having gone to see him, with thousands of other Montrealers, when he came here not long after having been released from jail. At the time he was persona non grata in the States, where he was considered a terrorist. The then Canadian government, although a Conservative one, was one of the world leaders in promoting the abolishment of apartheid in South Africa, against the will of some other powerful countries I won’t name. If it would happen today, with the current cromagnons and creationist federal government we have, he’d be left to rot in jail until the end of times. Is is worth mentioning that the then Prime-Minister, Brian Mulroney, was a Quebecer, while the current cromagnon is a proud tar-sands-lovin’ Albertan? Maybe not. Then again, maybe yes, for once. Ok, maybe twice.

  

  Duh [almost]

  Speaking of those cromagnons whose Canadian base is Calgary, Alberta, they must feel that God hates them these days. After all, since they took power in Ottawa in 2003, they have been steadily active in making sure that any federally funded outfit, research scientists included, would either be dismantled or fired or menaced to be if they dared to go against their dogmas that global warming is a fairy tale, that tar sands are a benefit for the planet and that human activity, especially economic activity, has nothing to do with climate change, if such change really exists. I gather of this that a logical conclusion would then be that if things go wrong, it can only be an ‘act of God’, as the jurists suavely put it.

  Well, these days, southern Alberta is under water up to its eyeballs, even including large sections of their sacred city, Calgary. Their Premier talks of an economic disaster. Me thinks that some of them must think that God’s ‘intelligent design’ may have a few flaws. Well, gosh, how can I put this… are we supposed to be sympathetic?

  

  • 23:06
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