“A song is a miracle!”

Nothing is as subjective as a song.

“A song is a miracle!”

Nothing is as subjective as a song. The one that makes me cry leaves my wife, Maryse, indifferent and the one that my granddaughter, Roxane listens to on repeat, seems insignificant to me. The performer is almost as important as the lyrics and melody. I can't hear Claude Dubois without having a lump in my throat. When we were friends, I couldn't listen to Pauline Julien without cringing. But my heart aches when I hear him sing Mommy.

• Read also: The songs that make me cry

• Read also: The 100 best songs in the history of Quebec

The years of dreaming of independence were the most inspiring. In the gloomy times we are going through, I do not see Stéphane Venne writing songs of conquest like It's our party today or The beginning of a new time. It is an authentic national anthem that Gilles Vigneault created with Gens du pays. How not to fly to the tune of Lindberg, performed by Louise Forestier and Robert Charlebois?

I like Louis-Jean Cormier, Céline Dion, Charlotte Cardin or Ginette Reno, but if I only have ten songs to take to a desert island, none of theirs will be in my luggage. Guilty pleasure of country, which Mum forbade us to listen to, I will surely take away Thousand after thousand. On cockroach days, the song by Gerry Joly, performed by Willie Lamothe, will become my earworm. I also like what the slender voice of Fred Pellerin gets out of it.

Back when he was dating my friend Mia Dumont, I befriended Eddy Marnay, the greatest lyricist of modern times with his 4,000 songs. One day, I asked him how long he took to compose a song. "Five minutes or...five years!" A song is a miracle! Fortunately, gifted composers can work miracles, because I couldn't live without songs. Especially on a desert island.

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