Since the announcement of the death of Karl Tremblay, the legendary singer of the Cowboys Fringants, Quebec has been flooded with a flood of love, emotional memories and pain – very great pain.
• Also read: Karl Tremblay 1976-2023: The warrior gives up his weapons
When they saw him die too young of prostate cancer at the age of 47, Quebecers’ hearts beat at half mast. The pain of his departure echoes across Europe.
We have the intense feeling of losing a brother, a son, a friend. The one who knew us to our limits better than anyone.
Karl Tremblay was born in the fall of ’76 and died slowly on November 15, the day of the Parti Québécois’ first victory that same year. For the uncompromising separatist that he was, the date stands out.
If so many people mourn him, sometimes even without knowing why, it is because Karl Tremblay has been with us for more than 20 years.
An impressive stage animal, his voice, his smile, his enthusiasm, his irrepressible love of life and the captivating songs of the cowboys have never ceased to penetrate our hearts and penetrate our souls.
All generations together, including mine – actually that of Dédé Fortin, who also left too young in the spring of 2000 – all have parts of life whose meaning was revealed to us through a song by the cowboys.
Karl sang for us about our lives and our Quebec
Karl sang to us about our lives. Our stories. Our beloved ones. Our breakups. Our families. Our hopes. Our discouragements. Our loneliness. Our alienating jobs.
He sang to us of our fears of this exhausted earth. He sang for us about Quebec. Land of our dreams, but sometimes also of our disappointments. Karl and the Cowboys tore everything apart. With a scalpel, without compromise. They did it because they wanted it better. For them and all of us.
In 2002 the release of the album Break syndical hit us like a blow. Autumnal melody. The demonstration. Go to Papineau. Happy ordeal. The wedding.
It was full of love, compassion, but also anger. That’s when I discovered Karl and Les Cowboys Fringants.
Like so many others, their melodies came to seek me out, to grab me, to speak to me, to explain to me the inexplicable.
Karl sang reality
Then in this other life I was a special adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office. I became more and more lost in a universe that I had imagined was more inspiring than it was.
Then I heard “At half mast.” For the first time I understood how I really felt. And I was able to stop being ashamed of it.
Karl sang there about reality. Quite easy. Hard, but never free. He wanted to shake up our cage, which had become far too quiet.
Born in the 70s, full of hope and change, he sang: “When I look at it today, I’m not proud of my homeland.” “The government doesn’t care,” he threw in our faces.
“If this is modern Quebec, then I fly my flag at half-mast.” “If you dream of having a country, then I’m telling you, you’re off to a bad start, you have a better chance of winning the lottery. “
“The environment, poverty, these are not priority issues, you don’t hear much about them behind the doors of the ministries.” Karl Tremblay, both Cassandra and brilliant troublemaker.
We miss him terribly. His voice. His generosity. His lyrical kicks into our collective, too-sleepy hive. And what can we say about his great courage in the face of illness?
All our condolences go out to his soul mate Marie-Annick, his family, Jean-François Pauzé and Jérôme Dupras, his friends and his legion of fans who, as heaven writes, have not yet finished mourning him.
Thank you also to the Prime Minister for offering Karl Tremblay a nationwide funeral if the family agrees.
