Interview With Paul Piché
Entrevue Avec Paul Piché

This interview was conducted with Mr. Piché in the late Summer of 1990, by John Snoddy, the former editor of Version Français newsletter.

L'entrevue été faire en anglais avec Paul Piché d'été 1990 par John Snoddy, rédacteur de Version Français.

High above the city a gigantic flag of Québec unfurled behind a small plane. It was the opening night of the 23rd Festival International d'été de Québec. And far below that flag, 35,000 people were jammed into the Place d'Youville just outside the city walls. They were there, as I was, to see and hear Paul Piché, who just two weeks earlier has headlined an historic concert on Montréal's Ile St. Hélène. I caught up with him the day after his concert in Quèbec.

John Snoddy: The song you started with last night, «Le temps d'aimer». It's a song a father would sing. Was that you?

Paul Piché: Yeah...I have a son. It's a song about kids and separation and not letting the children endure our adult problems.

JS: After the socio-political songs and the love songs it seems like something different for you.

PP: Well, I've always sung these songs...today the political songs are very important, but I've always sung songs about love and life in general.

JS: There are two songs on the last album that begin with the same line: "Je légue à la mer un château de sable." Which one did you write first?

PP: I wrote «Je lègue à la mer» first. It's a song about l'éphémère. I don't know how to say it in English. L'éphémère is something that doesn't last too long, it's something that's transitory. Then I took the first line of that song with its image of a sand castle -- a sand castle is very l'éphémère -- so I took the same image and I did a song about French and culture. That's basically Le Château de Sable. It's not just about French, but language and culture in general.

JS: Is that why you have the part in Spanish?

PP: Exactly. I wanted people to understand that I'm not only defending French. And I want people to understand that if the situation in Canada would be in reverse, let's say the English were in the minority, I think the French would have the same attitude toward them as they have toward us today. It's not a question of whose culture is better, it's just that I think you need to befriend differences. You need to let them épanouir, let them bloom.

The song «Château de sable» was not just a big radio hit. A much praised music video has been in heavy rotation on Québec's answer to MTV, Musique Plus. The video begins with a quote from Gilles Vigneault's «Mon pays». The images that follow illuminate some of the more subtle elements in the song. These images shift from Piché and an accompaniest in colonial garb to a young schoolboy completeing a list of countries on the chalkboard. First is L'Angleterre, then la Suisse, finally le Quèbec. His teacher, a benevolent priest, smiles approvingly. The video makes clear the true context without being trite or bald. Whether it's a fleeting glimpse of René Levesque, or the allegory of the priest building a ship in a bottle who fails in his attempt to fasten the flag of Quèbec to the topmost mast, the visual element doesn't so much tell the story, but clarifies and illuminates levels of meaning that were always present in this song.

JS: Were you involved in the planning of the video?

PP: I was involved in the sense that I explained what I felt about the song to the people who produced the video. It was their video -- I gave them my feelings and my "direction," but it was their video.

JS: At the end I got the feeling it was a bit pessimistic....putting the flag on top of the ship and it falls.

PP: Yes, but at the very, very, very end it's back on top. [Smiles] If you don't watch closely, you won't see it. You're right, though, it's not a very optimistic song, but very inquiete, a very concerned song.

JS: But you're optimistic now.

PP: About sovereignty, yes. But that's not going to solve all our problems. It's no panacea. We'll continue to have poverty, to have problems with the environment.

JS: I read in Le Soleil today that you think it really might happen this time.

PP: Oh, yeah. We have never had as many people for sovereignty as we do now. Sovereignty has been growing every year for 25 years now. From the moment that you have the idea of being a country -- about wanting a country -- it never stops. You don't go back on that.

JS: The failure of the referendum in 1980 was certainly a setback. It didn't stop the momentum?

PP: Not at all. It was a defeat for sovereignty at that point, but not completely. People discussed it a lot at that time, and I think sovereignty progressed a lot, all around the referendum.

JS: The media in the States is heavily influenced by Anglophone Canada. The only program that was the least bit even handed on the Meech Lake situation was on our Public Broadcasting Service.

PP: I think Americans who come here will see what is happening, will see that in Québec we're not against English, we're just pro French. Americans who come here really like the feeling in Québec. It's very nice. It's not aggressive. It's very tolerant. We're open minded and open to the world. You can see that in things like free trade -- in Quèbec, all the politicians and les hommes d'affaires were supporters of free trade. Quebec has to become a country and until it does, you will have problems. It's not a revolution--it's not anything like that. We're just trying to adapt the political structures to reality. The reality is that Québec is a country. It has its own language, its own culture, its own way of looking at the world, and it needs political structure to go with that.

JS: It's obvious when somebody sings about mon pays they're not singing about Canada.

PP: We don't have to say Québec, we just have to say mon pays and everybody knows what we're talking about.

You have to know that historically Canada was built on, was founded on the idea of assimilating the French -- language and culture. It was taught that way, planned that way It was openly planned that way. But we resisted that, and now everybody's stuck with us [laughs].

JS: The concert on Ile St-Hélène was truly impressive. Was that the largest crowd you've ever played before?

PP: No, I played for a larger crowd once before, here in Québec city. It was a St-Jean Baptiste that time too. It was a slightly larger crowd, but on Ile St-Hélène they stopped the Metro. There would have been 200,000 if they had let everyone in, and there just wasn't enough room. I was one of the nicest crowds I ever performed for. They were very tender in a way; there wasn't any aggressive feeling at all. Very nice.

JS: The first song you sang that night -- «Les gens de mon pays» -- do you think that might become the national anthem of Québec?

PP: I would hope so -- it's hard to have an anthem -- I don't know how it's done actually, but that song has the quality. For Canada, they had a contest to select the right song. Perhaps we will do the same thing if ever we get to be a country.

JS: You have a rather remarkable stage presence -- it's not like anything I've seen in the States. You sing not only with your voice but with your arms and your whole body. A friend sent me a video clip of Gilles Vigneault from 1962, and I saw him and I thought of you immediately.

PP: He moves around a lot! It's a different move -- he moves differently -- but he does move a lot. That's interesting.

JS: Do you think it's coincidental that he reminds me of you?

PP: No. I was very influenced by the words of Gilles Vigneault, but maybe I didn't notice it [laughing] and I was influenced in my footsteps too.

JS: Have you ever shared the stage with him before?

PP: No, that was the first time we were on stage like that together. Some time ago I organized a benefit concert for the woodcutters, who were on strike all over Québec, and I invited him to perform. But the concert in Montréal was the first time we really shared the stage.

JS: Do you feel more influenced by the music here, than the music in Europe and the States?

PP: I was very much influenced by Jacques Brel, Gilles Vigneault and all that. But I was as well influenced by the Beatles and James Taylor.

JS: I once asked Jean-Jacques Goldman about differences between music in France and music in the States. He gave me a great quote. He said, "Nous sommes un pays de mots, vous êtes un pays de musique." And he went on to explain the importance of the texts in French songs.

PP: You must have noticed that people sing all the words with us. A journalist from English TV told me that the different thing happening in our shows is that people sing all the words; they know all the words. And it's true that we put more emphasis on the words than I guess English or North American English people do. But I think in a way Quèbec is in between everything. There is the French and European influence, but were also very much influenced by the rest of North America. There is a lot of emotion in the words, but the music is very important too.

JS: You have a tradition of singers here, folksingers like Gilles Vigneault and Félix Leclerc, who mix poetry and politics into what they do. Do you see yourself and Michel Rivard as carrying on this tradition?

PP: I guess we're keeping the tradition. When you write a song -- when you go for a song that means something -- if you want the words to be important and the song to say something -- then it's hard not to get into social things.

JS: I get the feeling that music is important here. I'm constantly amazed by the variety of the music here. You have great music, and just like us, you have awful music. The complete spectrum is covered, and I think for such a relatively small population it's amazing just how much talent there is here.

PP: I think for a small population we're very much involved in music. We've got a musician on every corner.

JS: Do you think it might have something to do with the economics of songwriting, of finding a venue for establishing and maintaining a cultural identity? It costs very little compared to making a movie.

PP: Exactly. You can carry a song in your pocket. It doesn't cost anything and it's available for everybody. So for a cultural fight, you might say a song is a sort of cultural survival kit.