To write a good song, you have to know how to listen to others. And you also have to know how to throw away. On the occasion of the reissue of Beau Dommage’s second album, Where did the wedding go?Robert Léger looks back on one of the richest careers in the history of Quebec music: his own.
Published at 7:00 a.m.
“Often, an artist is in a hurry to make a second album,” notes Robert Léger, one of the main songwriters of Beau Dommage, to whom we owe in particular All the palm trees, Every time et Evening harmony in Châteauguay. “And since he has less time to create it, the songs are maybe a little less good. »
Which is not at all the caseWhere did the wedding go? second disc of Beau Dommage, a remixed edition of which was released at the end of 2024.
Possible explanations: when entering the studio for the second time in 1975, the group already had several munitions in its pocket, including The blues of the metropolis and the epic An incident in Bois-des-Filion, already ready when recording the first one. “If we had been rich and big,” the keyboardist and bassist joked when we met in the Montreal offices of Universal, “it’s a double album that we could have made in 1974.”
PHOTO YVES BEAUCHAMP, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
With Beau Dommage, in September 1975
But Robert Léger did not yet have the songs in his bag Don’t bring your gang et I forgot the day, which he hand-sewn for Marie Michèle Desrosiers. How did a man know how to capture with such acuity the point of view of a woman who passionately asserts her desire?
The musician takes us back to the Théâtre des Cuisines, the first feminist theater company in Quebec, which his lover at the time, Pierrette Savard, helped found. “I spent my big days with them! I listened to them talk and I was sensitive to what they were saying, to what they liked less about their relationships with guys. To come up with a good song, you often have to listen carefully to the people around you. »
His “greatest sorrow” remains never having had a voice to break through, confides Robert Léger at 76 years old, although without feeling sorry for himself, which would be very ungrateful given his numerous successes.
“That’s why,” he explains, “I’ve never written very personal songs. I knew I wouldn’t sing them. And since I knew in this case that it was going to be Marie, I wondered: what words in my daughter’s boyfriend’s mouth will ring true and will touch her, so that she will want to sing them? Because she didn’t have to, han! »
The end of the road
Where did the wedding go? is the second and last Beau Dommage album on which Robert Léger collaborated as a musician (if we exclude the 1994 comeback album). While remaining within the cooperative as a songwriter, he took an early retirement from the road and the stage, which never delighted him. “I was too aware of my limits when I played. »
By announcing his departure, he experienced “a little wound of self-esteem”, he remembers with a laugh, because none of his comrades begged him to stay. “Michel Hinton [son successeur] was in any case much more clever, more inventive! »
PHOTO DAVID BOILY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
With Michel Rivard and Michel Hinton at the 2005 Francofolies
But Robert Léger had not said goodbye to music and collaborated closely with Pierre Bertrand’s solo adventure, worked on the creation of two albums by the actress Pauline Lapointe (then his girlfriend) and also co-directed the first two Paul Piché.
It is even he, it is said, who convinced the creator of Rejean Pesant to try his luck with his songs, to make a career for real. “Convinced, that’s a big word,” corrects the main person concerned. Had I not existed he would have done the same. He had a talent, a drive, but he had a lot of doubts. »
“Paul was in left-wing movements and he was wary of showbiz. Just when I suggested that he add bass to his songs: he was afraid that people would no longer hear him sing, that the essence of his message, of his soul, would be diluted. »
Patience and humility
After Houndstooth (1982), the musical comedy for which he composed the music, taking inspiration from the hit Yes Yes Yes of the German group Trio, Robert Léger has devoted himself greatly to passing on his knowledge.
PHOTO JEAN-CHARLES HUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
With Serge Denoncourt and Marc Drouin during a creation of Houndstooth in 2003
In his 2001 book, Write a song (Québec America), the author insists (gently) that the song is a craft in its own right, an authentic work of zigzagging and assiduity, more than the result of a divine epiphany.
Writing a song means having the patience and humility to throw away. If we had to give a definition of talent, it would perhaps be this: having discernment regarding what you keep and what you throw away.
Robert Leger
For several years, however, Robert Léger has stopped writing at all, or barely, essentially because no one gives him orders, which has always been his driving force. Two years ago, a phone call from his friend Michel Rivard led to the creation of a new work entitled All things consideredwhich the sacripant will perhaps one day interpret.
But Robert Léger does not make it an illness and displays the discreet pride of someone who has accomplished what he had to accomplish.
“I listened to the album again this morning,” he says ofWhere did the wedding go?the remixed edition of which is by Ghyslain-Luc Lavigne. “And what struck me the most was the enthusiasm we had. When you think about it, our paths could have never crossed. My God, I was lucky to meet these people! »
Folk rock
Where did the wedding go?
Great shame
Universal
