Les mémoires en chansons de Daniel Lavoie (Pénélope, 6 mai 2021)

"Après Jim Corcoran, Pierre Flynn et Francine Raymond, on a convié Daniel Lavoie à se prêter à l'exercice de raconter ses mémoires en chansons. « Je me suis rendu compte que j'ai quand même certaines lignes directrices qui m'ont suivi de ma première chanson à mon dernier album et c'est assez fascinant », observe l'auteur-compositeur-interprète. Il présente la trame de son œuvre au fil des cinq titres de son répertoire qu'il a choisis pour retracer sa vie. Daniel Lavoie parle notamment de la chanson qu'il a eu le plus de mal à écrire et d'une autre dont l'écriture l'a profondément transformé."
Link: ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/pre...

[@user-oq9wf2ys6r]

Thank you very much for the translation

[@lemniskata1574]

C'est magnifique!!!😍 Merci beaucoup♡

[@lissanic821]

Thank you from all of my hear to translate it... i want to go to Taiwan now😭 i want to see him on stage

[@lajoiedelavoie1319]

Translation part 1. Memoirs in song - Pénélope McQuade Pénélope says it’s a pleasure to welcome him, especially since he’s in Taipei currently. Dan says he’s not in Taipei but in Taiwan, in [??] in the south of Taiwan and they’ll finish the tour in Taipei. Pénélope asks what the relationship of the Taiwanese is like with NDP - it’s not their first time there. Dan says it’s incredible, they sing Le temps des cathédrales at the end of the show as loudly as in Montreal. They know NDP really well. He’s always been astonished at the extent to which people are in love, truly in love, with NDP in Asia. Being part of the first troupe that provided all the videos that everyone knows, he’s well received - a star, says Pénélope. Does he feel affected by COVID, compared to other tours he’s done in Asia - fans like approaching the stars, they want photos and autographs, etc? Dan laughs, saying the only COVID he’s been affected by since his arrival was the 2 weeks of quarantine locked up in a hotel without leaving the room. 1 week of probation, where he’s not allowed to go into restaurants or mingle with people. This week they are allowed to go into the street, walk around, wearing masks, and next week they’re free, having exceeded the 21-day incubation period of the virus. There’s no COVID in Taiwan. Pénélope says he’s getting a taste of what Canadians will eventually aspire to, and tells him to make the most of it. He says he’s already had a taste, since he’s been walking a lot in the city this week, and he sees all the shops are open, everyone’s in the streets, and there’s no fear because you can feel there’s no COVID. The greatest threat is us to them, he says. Pénélope asks how he found this exercise [of selecting memoir songs]. He found it a little psychoanalytic. He found he had some obsessions, some common denominators that recurred often. He’d never done this exercise before and he realised he repeats himself, across the years, in different ways. He realised there were certain through-lines that have followed him from his first song to his last album, it’s quite fascinating. Pénélope asks if he’d like to explain the through-lines or whether they’ll discover them via the songs. He opts for the latter. His first choice is J’ai quitté mon île, on the album A court terme. Why, she asks? It’s his first song, the first song he wrote when he arrived in Quebec. It’s the first song he composed with a friend who was called Claude Boux - who’s still called Claude Boux. One morning they were playing, trying to make music together, when he heard this bit on the guitar and he said - yeah, that could become a song. The next day he wrote the lyrics of J’ai quitté mon île and he realised that they had a song that held up. It’s a song he’s sung his whole life, he hasn’t done any shows without singing it, throughout the years. It’s a song that’s followed him for 50 years. Pénélope asks if it’s still easy for him to write a song that way? He says it was easier when he was younger. He’s become more and more conscious of what he’s doing, and it becomes more and more difficult. At the time it was easy to write a song - that’s to say, it came out much more quickly than it does now. [extract of J’ai quitté mon île, original version]

[@lajoiedelavoie1319]

Translation part 2. Pénélope says that voice is very different from today’s. Dan says he’s 23, that young man. It always amuses him to hear that version, that’s why he asked them to play that one, because it’s quite funny to hear himself sing in 1973. It’s fascinating to see how much you can change through the years. Pénélope says the theme of exile already forms part of this thread they were talking about, that accompanied him throughout his life. He says you leave a country, you leave a family, you leave friends, and even if you become a part of the country you’re going to, you still keep - the Italians, the Poles, the Ukranians, even the French, who come to Quebec still remain what they were before. They still maintain strong ties with the past, and so does he. Pénélope says they’ll continue the psychoanalysis with the second piece of his memoirs in song. They’re in 1998 - he’s chosen La vérité sur la vérité, why? He says it’s not 1998, more like 1977. Pénélope says there are other versions on later albums. He said he reprised certain songs from his repertoire many, many years later. This one dates back to his second album, Berceuse pour un lion. It’s one of the first hits he had, if you could call it a hit - which it wasn’t really. It played a lot on the radio and it was one of the rare songs that people applauded during shows. It’s one he’s sung over many years, and it’s also a bit of psychoanalysis. It’s his obsession with truth, reality, what we are, where he’s from, where he’s going, etc. He thinks it continues in a straight line from J’ai quitté mon île. [extract of La vérité sur la vérité and Boule qui roule, J’écoute versions] Pénélope confesses the team teared up listening to the song. Why does it belong in his memoirs in song? Dan says it’s perhaps the most important of all his songs he’s done. It’s cathartic, it’s a song where understood life and the world and space, his relationship with the universe. With this song, he remembers the evening he wrote it, something happened that changed his life. He wasn’t the same after it. It’s an extremely important song to him, where he understood everything that had to be understood, that is possible to understand. Moreover it’s a song that’s been sung by a lot of people he likes a lot - Pierre Barouh, Maurane, Renaud, people who loved the song and made it even more precious for him. Pénélope says they even sang it in different languages. Dan says Pierre Barouh sang it throughout his life, it was his finale song, he finished all his shows with it, and when he went to Brazil he sang it in in Brazilian Portuguese. He also spent a lot of time in Japan, and did the song in Japanese. Each time he recorded it, and continued to sing it until his death. For him it was his favourite song. Maurane also sang it for many years, at the end of her shows. Even Renaud sang it. Pénélope says he did the song with Maurane at the festival Nuits de Champagne, when Maurane, Michel Fugain and Dan were the guests of honour. Maurane joined him singing the song. She says tomorrow it’ll be 3 years since Maurane passed away. Dan says his voice is going to break. Pénélope asks why this song has a before and after? He said that song, that night, when he realised his relationship with infinity - he says it’s pretty clear, listening to the song - he experienced it in a concrete and physical way, the relationship between the small nobody that he is and the infinity of the universe. All of a sudden, everything became sharp, clear, transparent - he felt good, free, and life never was the same afterwards. He never had existential problems after that song. Pénélope says she’s never heard any singer-songwriter say anything like that, and it’s a privilege to have him.

[@lajoiedelavoie1319]

Translation part 3. [extract of Jours de plaine, J’écoute version] Pénélope says Jorane is on the cello, in this song from 1990, although this version with Jorane is more recent. Why was it the hardest song he’d written? He says it was a song that was made for a film about Francophones in the west [of Canada]. He felt that there was a culture in peril - that was the reason he left Manitoba - and it still is. He had a strong feeling of the end of the world, thinking of Francophone culture outside of Quebec. When he was asked to do that song, he said no, he didn’t want to a song about Francophones in the west. The producer of the ONF, which was making this film, harassed him for a year to do the song. He remembers one day, he said I’ll do this bloody song. Once again he wrote it in an hour, but he had been thinking about it for a year. Pénélope calls it a difficult gestation. She talks about the Trille Or prize and asks what it means to him, in light of what he just said? He says he’s very touched. You hear people say prizes aren’t important, but receiving them, you’re always very happy, whatever they say. That it comes from his contribution to Francophones outside Quebec, who are his world and his country, he’s very proud. She asks if he returns often? He says he returns quite often, more frequently when his parents were still alive. Now they’ve passed, he returns less often but he returns when he can, he tries to go at least once a year. Pénélope says they’ll finish this exercise with a song from his last album, Mes longs voyages in 2016. She asks why no albums since then? He says the exercise of making an album is so enormous, so demanding, to get a team together, to put together a show that goes with it, to convince a record company to do it, to organise a promotion team, everything that goes with it… it’s a lot of work, it’s not just making an album. The state of the music market being what is, sometimes you feel like it’s a futile exercise. He felt like he didn’t want to do albums any more, and hasn’t made any since. But that doesn’t mean that he won’t make more, never said he was stopping. So it’s possible, that he’ll make another album eventually. Pénélope says he’s written the music for Le vieillard et l’enfant, Gabrielle Roy’s children’s story, which is being released. He says that’s true - see, he’s made another album! Without really realising it. One day Roland Stringer approached him about a project on Gabrielle Roy’s story - and Dan’s a big fan of Gabrielle Roy, adores her. Thinking of La détresse et l’enchantement, he gets tears in his eyes. He thinks they share something of the same destiny - he’d like to have her genius, but they experienced a lot of the same things. The chance was too good, he jumped at it. [extract of Ceci est moi] Pénélope notes that it has the voice of Guy St-Onge’s son. Dan wanted a little boy’s voice because it’s a little boy’s song. He thinks he’s come full circle with J’ai quitté mon île. Pénélope says they’re lucky to have him this morning, live from Taiwan and wishes him a good tour and slice of normal life there. She says they’ll follow the Trille Or Gala and Le vieillard et l’enfant. Dan says thanks for thinking of him.