Lynda Lemay has officially won the “craziest bet ever.” [sa] Career”. A few days before the deadline it starts Between dream and memory And The kiss of the horizonthe final volumes of his project to release 11 albums with 11 songs each in 1111 days.
The project was ambitious. Even a daredevil. Because if the average person is content to make a wish when their clock says 11:11, Lynda Lemay has decided to take this concept to the extreme.
In November 2020, she gave herself 1,111 days – just over three years – to write, compose, record and release 11 albums, each with 11 tracks. During this time she had to deliver a total of 121 songs. In other words, the equivalent of an entire repertoire.
“I knew it was a crazy project. I just didn’t know how much!” exclaims Lynda Lemay, laughing.
“I wrote lyrics, I composed melodies, I played the guitar and piano like never before in the last three years. But I was confident that I had everything I needed inside me and in my notebooks,” she continues.
Absolute freedom
To achieve this, Lynda Lemay quickly realized that she had to give herself absolute freedom. Freed from the constraints of formats or structures imposed by commercial radio, the singer followed only her heart, her pen and her guitar to shape each of the eleven works released since 2020. She could cast a net as far as she wanted. , both in the recommended music genres and in the topics covered.
There are the lighter songs, told in songs that made her fans smile – we think in particular of Moi les Noms or Pauvre Mme Potvin – by allowing Lynda Lemay to show the chilly side of her personality. But there are also the darker or more sensitive ones, in which Lynda Lemay deals directly with topics such as death, grief, illness and violence.
As she accompanied her father until his death in 2017, writing had a therapeutic effect and allowed the singer to express her own suffering.
“I write to understand life and feelings. And if I write so much, it’s because I would really like to understand everything, even though I know that there are questions that remain unanswered,” she explains.
“There is a big taboo around illness and death. That’s why I wanted to break the silence with my words so that the ugly becomes beautiful. My father’s death is a difficult ordeal; I will continue to grieve for the rest of my life. But love goes through death and I feel his presence much more strongly now that he is gone,” she admits.
For this reason, Lynda Lemay has decided to dedicate the final volume of this project to the love that bound her parents. This is reflected in the unreleased tracks, but also in those that the singer offered as a bonus: she revisits the successes Une Mère and Le plus fort c’est mon père, this time in a symphonic version, with the Metropolitan Orchestra.
On tour until 2025
After releasing so much new material in such a short period of time, Lynda Lemay wants to wait before returning to the studio, preferring to ramp up and renew her Life is a Fool’s Tale tour. She is also expected in France this weekend for a series of concerts that will take her to Reunion Island, Switzerland and Belgium.
Quebecers can applaud the singer at various locations across the province starting in February.
“I need a break from the studio: these songs are at the very beginning of their lives, I want to give them the chance to reach people, touch them, make them laugh or even think. I think they deserve it,” says Lynda Lemay.
- The albums Between the Dream and the Memory and The Kiss of the Horizon are available from November 10th.