Singer-songwriter Pierre Létourneau says he lost “his brother in sound and blood” on Friday, with the death of lyricist Stéphane Venne.
• Also read: Author of the songs “Et c’est pas fini” and “Le temps est bon”, Stéphane Venne dies at 83
• Also read: Death of Stéphane Venne: “He had great talent, I am very sad,” confides the pianist-composer and conductor, François Cousineau
“I felt the blow coming for three weeks, a month, from his wife, Marie. But it’s difficult when it happens, it’s like a bus hitting you in the face,” explains the 86-year-old artist.
Lifelong accomplices, friends since childhood, the two men began writing songs together when they were in middle school. They remained friends and had many special moments over the years.
“He was my master of thought, of singing. We talked to each other all the time, it was important. We also sent each other long emails. We will have done everything together,” he breathes with a tight throat.
-He describes his accomplice Stéphane Venne as a poet, a strolling vagabond and a little Rimbaud.
Pierre-Paul Poulin / Le Journal de Montréal
Singing through her tears excerpts from Time is good, One day, one day, And it’s not over et Tomorrow belongs to us, Pierre Létourneau underlines the scope of Stéphane Venne’s songs.
He even goes so far as to modify the lyrics of the famous Plouffe song, Once upon a time there were happy people (“At the table there were empty chairs, wrinkles came to the eyes, nothing true remained”) for “At the table, this evening, there is an empty chair, in all the kitchens and houses of Quebec », in honor of its author-composer, Stéphane Venne.
Finally, Pierre Létourneau whispers the words of his missing accomplice in his song You will find peace: “You will find peace in your heart, and not elsewhere, and not elsewhere, the only true tranquility, the great rest, the stillness.”
