If the Cowboys Fringants rocked all of Quebec, it’s probably partly because they were talking about all of Quebec. There are many place names in their songs, and although some are international, most of them are local. We had fun putting them up An interactive map can be found here. Here are some observations.
• Also read: You can watch the National Honors Ceremony for Karl Tremblay here
1. It seems that they come from Repentigny
The group comes from Repentigny, a city of around 85,000 people near Montreal. And you can tell because several places in the city (or surrounding area) are mentioned in the songs.
Of course, several places are mentioned in Repentigny-by-the-Sea, such as the Place RepentignyTHE Saint Laurent Park or even that Marina. The songs Banlieue, Rue des Souvenirs, Shooters and Les Routes du Bonheur also bear witness to the band’s place of origin.
2. The Car rides are in the DNA of the songs
The Cowboys have many songs that are at least partially set “on the road”.
This means that we find several songs that list series of cities.
The recording appears to be of the song “Le Thumbeux,” in which the character sets off from an unknown location Gaspesie and goes to St Ulricmet a man Cap Chatis collected at Three pistolsAt the shoulder in Bas-Saint-Laurenthas Trois RivièresThen Trois-Rivieres-Ouestmet a girl Cap de la MadeleineLeaves on the Laviolette Bridge and can be found at Yamaska.
Several towns along the St. Lawrence River are mentioned in songs by the Cowboys Fringants about road trips.
In addition to celebratory road trips, some Cowboys songs also address the frustration and absurdity of being on the road for long periods of time and getting stuck in traffic. In these songs we therefore find names of transit roads. Winter is Coming, for example, is about that Mercier Bridge (where it “rolls from bumper to bumper”) and Metropolitan (“Pinched really stiff every day”).
Furthermore, the trucker’s journey begins in the cult song “America is Crying”. Florida Turnpike and only after it has been passed onInterstate 95 that he can join his family Montmagny.
3. Montreal is well represented − Also Quebec
Even though several songs take place “in the region”, Montreal and Quebec are by no means neglected in the Cowboys’ songs, quite the opposite!
In Montreal, certain songs take place mainly in the city center, on the Plateau and in Hochelaga. Just think of La Manifestation, whose participants come “mainly from”. Cégep du Vieux-Montréal“) Browse the Boulevard René-Lévesque. Or to the song The Shooting Stars, which takes us “into one”. Bar rue Saint Denis» and “not far away Carré Saint-Louis“. For Hochelagit’s the song Voyou that takes us there, but also the two that mention it Olympic Stadium (Hello my Ron and Heavy Metal).
Three subway stations are mentioned in the songs: Frontenac, Papineau and Du College. We’ll tell you which songs are included!
In Quebec, the name of the country’s capital is often thrown around and a number of places are mentioned, including of course the Plains of Abrahambut also the Cafes on Rue Saint-Jean.
4. What about outside North America?
If we exclude Canada and the United States, there are far fewer places mentioned in Cowboys songs. Let’s keep three special mentions:
- Parisworth seeing in Paris – Montreal
- The few Russian toponyms mentioned in Cass de pouëlle, even if they appear approximate (Leningrad [Saint-Pétersbourg] doesn’t seem “on the edge” to us the Urals»!)
- The Atlantic Ocean is mentioned three times in connection with sea crossings, once in Merchant Marine and twice in The Crossing (of the Atlantic 1774).
About the interactive map
By consulting our interactive map, you can click on each point to see what song it is, as well as the excerpt from the lyrics that contains the word “place”.
Some places are described in detail in the songs (for example, “Le boulevard René-Lévesque”), so they were easy to place on the map. For others it took imagination or guesswork, but we went with what seemed likely. We excluded certain locations that we know to be fictional based on comments made by the group in interviews (for example, Rue Chapdelaine from the song of the same name).
If you find missing locations (with a plausible theory as to where they could be) or an error, email us at [email protected]!
We have created a track for each of the most popular Cowboys Fringants albums (Break syndical, La Grand-Messe, Motel Capri, L’Expédition, Que du vent, Octobre, Les Antipodes and 12 grands songs). You can turn layers on and off to view the locations associated with each album. Sometimes the same location is linked to more than one album (e.g. Montreal and Quebec). You must therefore disable these to view the other instances. When songs were duplicated from one album to another, we only left them on one of the layers.
