Le Québec à l’aube du nouveau millénaire: Entre tradition et modernité

« Je me souviens de rien »

«Je me souviens de rien» Political Discourse in Québec’s Modern Chanson Engagée Kelle Lyn Keating University of Texas at Austin Abstract Québec’s chanson engagée has been a preferred medium of political commentary for over two hundred years. After the failed referendum for sovereignty in 1995, the music of Guérilla, Les Cowboys fringants, and Loco Locass, among others, shows that the chanson engagée has returned to Québec. This paper will examine how today’s chanson engagée portrays the political situation in Québec through «Guérilla: Manifeste» by Guérilla,«En berne» by Les Cowboys fringants, and «Libérez-nous des Libéraux» by Loco Locass. These songs assert that the political and economic changes effected during the 1960s and 1970s were insufficient to adequately change the situation of the Québécois people, suggesting that further changes are still in order. Each song implies that the people of Québec continue to concede their social and political rights, allowing government officials and corporations to make profit at their expense. Le Québec à l’aube du nouveau millénaire 369 Though the chanson engagée of Québec is most commonly associated with music from the Révolution tranquille performed by such artists as Gilles Vigneault and Félix Leclerc, Keating (2004) argues that this term does not solely refer to a musical tradition from the mid-twentieth century, but rather to a musical genre prevalent in Québécois culture from the British Conquest to the present. After the defeat of Québec’s referendum for sovereignty in 1980, the number of musicians performing the chanson engagée gradually diminished; however, just after the failed referendum in 1995, politicallyengaged music regained prominence in Québec through the music of Les Colocs, Guérilla, Les Cowboys fringants and Loco Locass, among others. Keating (2004) draws on Kress’s (1985) description of textual genres to propose that Québec’s chanson engagée constitutes a single genre of text, characterized by the recurrence of one or more of the following themes: References to events from Québec’s history; an emphasis on the gens du pays or those of Québécois descent; issues surrounding the Québécois variety of French; reflections on the current state of the Québécois society; and a call to action (Keating, 2004; Ramaiah, 1993). The present chapter will investigate themes found in the modern chanson engagée by means of a critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 1995; Van Dijk, 1985, 1993, 2001), specifically focusing on the textual genre’s portrayal of social inequalities as maintained or challenged within the songs’ lyrics. Especially pertinent to this discussion is the historicity of these songs as defined by Fairclough (1995), that is, their continuity with national discourse from Québec’s past, as well as their potential involvement in influencing future events. 1. Analysis The following analysis will investigate the portrayal of the recent political and economic situations in Québec as they are represented in «Guérilla: Manifeste» by Guérilla (Lavoie, 1998), «Libérez-nous des Libéraux» by Loco Locass (Loco Locass, 2004), and«En berne» by Les Cowboys fringants (Pauzé, 2000), comparing the songs’ content with separatist discourse propagated during the Révolution tranquille. In order to frame the analysis, it is of benefit to briefly discuss the movement for workers’ rights during the Révolution tranquille. Separatist groups of the Révolution tranquille, in particular the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), enlisted the participation of blue-collar workers in furthering their efforts. The foundations of the FLQ leaned heavily on the Marxist thinking of Pierre Vallières, as described in his book: Nègres blancs d’Amérique, stressing that the oppressed and colonized working class of Québec must defend its rights (Laurendeau, 2007; Lacombe, 2007). During the Révolution tranquille, the workers’ hopes were that actions taken by the FLQ, the Parti québécois, and other such organizations would better their working conditions and diminish the inequalities in the workplace resulting from language discrimination (Laurendeau, 2007). 370 Le Québec à l’aube du nouveau millénaire 2. Guérilla: Manifeste The song «Guérilla: Manifeste» (Lavoie, 1998) is one of the earliest in the reemergence of the chanson engagée. The controversy related to this song stems from the intertextual references found in the lyrics...