Updated at 5:00 yesterday.
Gisèle and Nicole had left Drummondville that morning and made a promise to each other. “If we meet Richard Séguin, we’ll pray a rosary on the way back,” they confide with amusement to the main prospect. Rosary, they must have said. Story of an afternoon with the singer.
The most famous citizen of Saint-Venant-de-Paquette saw the two ladies first and immediately went to meet them, not at all with the attitude of the artist picking his flowers, but more like the proud man of his village. Gisèle and Nicole just can’t believe it. A few words exchanged in front of the church and now her day is over.
We – photographer Dominick, sound engineer Bastien and I – felt like we were going to record in Saint-Venant-de-Paquette, the small Estrie village that Richard Séguin has made his quiet abode (and landmark) since 1973 has an interview. Little did we know we would be spending the whole afternoon with him.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Richard Séguin in the Saint-Venant-de-Paquette church
“There’s a pagan holiness in me,” he answers a question about his spiritual life—an appropriate question since our interview took place in the sacristy of the Saint-Venant church, now an art gallery. And this “pagan sanctity” will be expressed this afternoon not only in exceptional attention to others, but also in a certain sense of ritual.
Far from the city
Going into the interview without getting to know each other at least a little is out of the question. Richard greets us with an outstretched hand as soon as we get out of the car and immediately invites us over for coffee at the Tree House, where he introduces us all. This is where we will return to after the interview to warm up with tea as it is chilly in the church.
In the tree house, without a microphone or tape recorder, we talk about Jack Kerouac, the band The War on Drugs (which I introduce to him) and Dylan, more specifically about his song Murder Most Foul, a 17-minute-ready set through the history of the United States, which he hears on a continuous loop in his engraving studio. “His voice becomes like a mantra for me. »
Richard Séguin, a kid from east Montreal, sang a lot of urbanity in the 1980s and 1990s, but paradoxically always wrote it from the temples of these vast Appalachian lands.
Not a single song from his repertoire – “except five or six,” he admits – has been written anywhere but Saint-Venant since Deux cents nuits l’heure, Fiori-Séguin’s album, which has almost not just featured Serge and Richard brought together, but also Michel Rivard. This is one of the big “what if?” problems. in the history of Quebec music.
“When you’re far away from the city, and sometimes closer, you get a better view of what’s to do in the city,” explains our host. When I get here I’m standing in front of my sheet and I see a lot of the people I met during the walking tour. »
“They live in us”
Like Bruce Springsteen (whom he has already lent a guitar to), Richard Séguin has often witnessed the everyday life of the proletarian, but apart from a short job as a janitor he has never had “real jobs”. “I feel like I gave a voice to a generation that didn’t have it,” he says, referring to The Refinery (1988), inspired by the factory life that ruined his father.
Richard Séguin had written about his father on a number of occasions but had never done this exercise for his mother before releasing the magnificent ‘Very close to the trebles’ from his recent album The Links Places. As if to set a beacon in the middle of our exchange, the songwriter quotes a writer dear to him to describe his relationship with his late parents.
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
Richard Seguin
“The poet Mélanie Noël said: ‘They live in us.’ And it’s a fact: our parents live in us. They may be gone but they are still there. And I find that the older you get, the more you notice it. I also feel closer to them over time. »
“I have voluntary hope,” is how Richard Séguin sums up his refusal to give up, despite all the reasons to allow himself to be swallowed up by cynicism. Like his mother, a devout Catholic, Richard Séguin is a man of faith who does not, however, believe in the communion of saints, but in the sincerity of a look and in that gentle resistance that one can offer to anything against acceleration.
At the end of the Appalaches, Richard Séguin continues to feel a desire to believe, just to believe, as he proclaimed in 1995’s D’instinct. We didn’t pray the rosary on the way back to Montreal, but we did have his hymns with us.
Richard Séguin will be at the Théâtre Maisonneuve on Saturday at 8pm for the Francos.
Three quotes from our interview
About his friendship with the Innu people
Richard Séguin and Florent Vollant became friends more than 30 years ago when the ex-Kashtin became his neighbor in Outremont. It was Richard who introduced his friend to Montreal – he’s telling our mic about a particularly memorable show Neil Young and Crazy Horse attended at the Forum. Florent then invited him to Mani-Utenam for a walk in the forest. This summer they are the presenters of the 40th Festival en chanson de Petite-Vallée. “We believe, Florent and I, that music has the power to bring communities together. If we have anything to say, it’s that through music we can create deep bonds, great bonds of brotherhood. »
About what he says no to
“Go on TV if you’re asked to do anything other than sing. It’s strange, but there is hardly any space for the song in the media, on TV and even on the radio. It’s like it doesn’t matter, it’s been trivialized, it’s getting smaller and smaller. Even our songs on TV, they’ll think they’re too long. Three minutes is a long time, just give me your chorus, everything will be fine! »
About Helene Dalair
Several women have played important roles in Richard Séguin’s career: his sister Marie-Claire, the writer Louky Bersianik, the poet Hélène Dorion and Hélène Dalair, his conductor for almost a decade. “To see all the drive she could have, it appealed to a whole generation of women who felt they could take on the role of a leader. »