Pierre Foglia 1940-2025 | There are mornings, there were music in A5

“A Rock and Roll pen,” said Patrick Lagacé this week to describe the style of Pierre Foglia. It even happened that the late chronic journalist squarely on rock’n’roll, or, at least, on music. Medley of his best moments of record criticism.

“A soul, it tastes the strawberry popsicle”

“I will always remember his calls to have the right word on a song, or something that was” young “,” wrote this week on Facebook our colleague Émilie side about Pierre Foglia. On November 9, 1996, the columnist recounts an interaction of the genre with the journalist Alain Brunet: “I put the headphones of his laser thing and I say sent:” Alain, make me listen to something “. This idiot, sometimes, on purpose, turns the last Martine Saint-Clair at the bottom of the box… ”

But that day, it is a young songwriter of Lac-Saint-Jean, a little drove, but above all poet, that Brunet sends him to the bottom: Fred Fortin, whose first album had been launched a few months earlier.

“This is the first time that I have tripped Quebec since Richard Desjardins,” writes Foglia. But don’t say things, it’s not Desjardins there. It’s not thought of the same. It’s a bit of a guéling-guélang, a little banjo on the gallery, a little pan, but with a soul. A soul, crissed, do not make the difficult. »»

His favorite song by young Fred? Charlie & Merciements. “A soul I tell you. A soul is not complicated. It’s not Fellinian at all. A soul tastes the strawberry popsicle. »»

The fact of the

In February 2008, The press Dresses a list of the 50 best Quebec albums of all time. A few days later, Pierre Foglia praised the exercise (“an invitation to reshuffle them according to his own inclination, an invitation to persist”), before, obviously, to challenge the result. Jaune de Jean-Pierre Ferland had risen to the front row.

“God knows that I listened and listened to Jaune […] That we played late at night when we came back accompanied by the Prince-Arthur, he says. It is however a patent fact and which does not leave the smallest space for discussion: Jaune is not at all in the same category as You love me of Desjardins (and as long as it Songs of Cohen, but we leave Cohen). .

“By his inspiration, by his writing finds, You love me From Richard Desjardins is by far, very very far, the best Quebec disc in history, and perhaps even the best disc of French songs to have ever been written, estimates the columnist. But no, it’s not my opinion. I kill myself to tell you that it is a fact. »»

Desjardins will remain his last measurement stallion. On December 2, 2010, it came out to boast Atomsthe new Martin Léon, of which he was one of the most enthusiastic admirers. For Foglia, at Léon, “everything is music, the lyrics too”.

“I find that all like The Phalen et Exile are songs of love almost as beautiful as You love mewhich is the most beautiful love song forever. »»

Leaf, presfavorer

It also happened that Foglia inspires creators. This is the case of Marjo, whose song There are mornings (1990) borrows some passages from a text from the chronicler, published on August 6, 1980. An archi-impressionist text, even according to his standards, in which he walks the cemeteries of Saint-Armand and reflects on death-very Foglia all that.

“There are mornings where the air is so lukewarm that we can still sleep while walking, smoking a first cigarette before the first coffee …”, a sentence partly transplanted by the rocker.

“I called him to ask him if I could use the title,” she told us in December 2023, “And he replied:” Marjo, you can take the whole text, if you want. ” I love him, this gentleman. He always put his finger on something. »»

When Foglia was musical critic

When I was musical critic : this is the title of a Pierre Foglia paper of January 18, 2005. “No one ever talked about music in my newspaper,” he explains about his first years to The press“Except the matante assigned” to varieties “, and I was ashamed, but shame! So, from time to time, to show that we were not so settlers, I was making a more or less alternative rock chronicle. […] A musician from Michel Rivard, I forget which, had written to me: So talk about sport, what do you know about music? »»

Which hadn’t stopped him. After having mocked with an implausible (and hilarious) hardness the drening cowboys, which he compares to Patrick Zabé, here, still on January 18, 2005, which is no longer for a new group of Drummondville.

“If they have not invented progressive music, the three agreements are reinventing the dadaism, the love of machines less, the enchantment in addition. They are resuscitating Boby Lapointe, Paul and Paul and maybe even a little zappa. »Just that.

A chance that there was patti

Foglia sometimes made an inventory of new additions to his collection of cassettes (he has long resisted the CD) the space of a quarter or a third of chronicle.

Amateur of girls’ rock (Nico, Marianne Faithfull, Stevie Nicks, Rickie Lee Jones, lene Lovich, Chrissie Hynde), he sometimes described the tastes of his fiancée as “Middle of the Road” which “listens to him all the torieuses of Amos (Tori Amos) of the Earth”.

“I wonder if I can trust you for music. Sometimes, there, it is disgusting as I am not … “, he notes on September 10, 1996 by addressing his readers, an irresistible opportunity to flay Daniel Bélanger, because the consensus was not his favorite sport. “A chance, Patti Smith came out of the moth balls. »»