Published at 1:28 am. Updated at 7:30 a.m.
It was late in Paris when Laure Turcati learned of Karl Tremblay’s death on Facebook. She immediately went to her partner. “And I cried,” says the 39-year-old woman who once lived in Quebec.
Karl Tremblay was not one of his close friends; Laure only knew him through the songs and shows of the Cowboys Fringants. “It’s strange to be so sad and to be so busy,” admits the mother. “What a unique feeling to mourn someone you’ve never spoken to but whose voice is so familiar,” she wrote on Facebook. In addition, Laure Turcati found peace on social networks by reading the countless testimonies of admirers who shared her pain.
The mourning over the death of the Cowboys Fringants singer was reflected in spontaneous gatherings, tributes and testimonies. A national honors ceremony in his honor will be held at the Bell Center on Tuesday. But at home, away from the spotlight, many people are shedding tears as they re-listen to the songs that rocked the last two decades.
Anthropologist Luce Des Aulniers is interested in the mourning impact on the public sphere since the death of Princess Diana in 1997. She draws the parallel between the death of Karl Tremblay and that of Guy Lafleur in 2022 through the mythology of the characters. his determination, his simplicity. “And as a bonus, there is music that is both so precise and so impactful,” she says.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Jean-François Pauzé and Marie-Annick Lépine thanked the residents of L’Assomption during a gathering in memory of Karl Tremblay the day after his death.
According to Luce Des Aulniers, the death of Karl Tremblay reveals sensitivities among people that “mirror” those of the Cowboys Fringants. Composed by Jean-François Pauzé and performed by Karl Tremblay, the songs in the group’s repertoire reflect both the political universe and the intimate universe of the world we live in, she says. Few artists have achieved it with such consistency and zeal, believes the professor emeritus in the Department of Social and Public Communication at UQAM.
In such deaths, we will mourn what we will miss, especially because Les Cowboys Fringants has already made us feel more alive and connected.
Luce Des Aulniers, anthropologist
That’s what Laure Turcati feels. “What makes me sad is the energy of the concerts, the exchange with the audience. »
According to Luce Des Aulniers, the death of Karl Tremblay can also evoke a feeling of injustice and a form of anxiety in the face of this empty place.
Other worries
It is clear that manifestations of collective sadness are amplified by the media and social networks. But Luce Des Aulniers also sees this as a form of displacement towards other losses, other concerns that could not be expressed. “It gives grief a legitimacy that it doesn’t have in our society,” says Luce Des Aulniers. Try crying on the subway…”
Christine Grou, president of the Order of Psychologists of Quebec, has the same impression. “When there seems to be a mismatch between the emotions we experienced and the knowledge we had about the person, we cry about many other things too. It brings us back to the grief we have done and those yet to come. » Romain Pierron, who has been following Les Cowboys Fringants for 15 years, is aware that the death of Karl Tremblay brings him back to his own story. “I lost my father at the same age, 18 years ago,” he says.
Because Karl Tremblay was a 47-year-old father and because of the human values he conveyed, the public could easily identify with him, emphasizes psychologist Christine Grou. But his death, she says, is special: It also means the end of the Cowboys Fringants as we knew them. And for many, the group’s songs are closely linked to memories.
This is what happens when there is collective grief: it is as if we have lost an era.
Christine Grou, psychologist
“We should not underestimate the power of music to shape the events of our lives,” emphasizes sociologist Diane Pacom. “These are sounds that, in a certain arrangement, reflect the reality of an era and move the people of that era,” she says. In that sense it is extraordinary. »
PHOTO DOMINICK GRAVEL, THE PRESS
The Montreal Canadiens honored Karl Tremblay on November 16 at the Bell Centre.
Stéphanie Ruel, 32, has the impression that she grew up with Les Cowboys Fringants. The song En berne takes her back to the time when she was ten years old, when she understood what kind of world we live in. “The death of an artist has never made me so sad,” she admits.
Loss of storage
In contemporary popular culture, singers are a bit like church saints of yesteryear, says Diane Pacom, professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa’s faculty of social sciences. “We not only develop affinities with them, but almost family relationships,” she observes. These characters, she says, form networks, tribes: either because we love them or because we hate them.
“These are phenomena that consolidate society,” summarizes Diane Pacom. These people become landmarks. When they die, it is terrible for those who loved them. »
What to do with this sadness? Put it into action, believes Luce Des Aulniers. The Cowboys Fringants knew how to embody creative outrage, environmental consciousness, compassion and tenderness. “The power of this sadness can be translated into small and large concrete commitments. And that is the truest tribute to a legacy,” she concludes.