Juste entre toi et moi - Louise Forestier

Episode Date: July 21, 2025

Non seulement Louise Forestier accepte le mot vieille, elle l’embrasse avec joie. À 82 ans, la légendaire chanteuse offre ses réflexions sur le vieillissement et sur les bénéfices de la psychothérapie, en plus de revenir sur certains moments marquants de sa carrière, dont ses rencontres avec Tom Waits et Nina Simone.

Music Salut, ici Dominique Tardif. Rebienvenue à Juste entre toi et moi. Je vous l'avais dit, je vous l'avais promis qu'on aurait des épisodes ici et là pour vous tout au long de l'été. You and I, I told you, I promised you that we would have episodes here and there for you all summer long. And I didn't lie to you. It wouldn't be my kind of lying to you anyway. So yes, Just Between You and Me is back. Is back with another episode, putting in the spotlight a major character of the music, of the Quebecois culture. a major character in the music of the Quebecois culture. Because after Gilles Vigneault, my guest is Louise Forestier. Louise launched a new album in April last year called

Vieilles Corneilles. She created it with composer Louis Dufort. It's a kind of spoken word album, even if there are also moments that are more sung. It's Louise's first album since 2008, she is now 82 years old, but this album is the work of a creator who is turned towards the future. Louise is clearly not living in the past, you will see it in a few moments. All I have to do is remind you that you can read the article I pulled from this meeting on all the platforms of the press. It will allow you to see the magnificent, the great smile, the radiant smile of my guest. Here is my meeting with the great Louise Forestier. Sometimes it stays between you and me. Now you're going to take excerpts from the nonsense I've already said.

Oh no, no, not at all. Just the smart things you said. We're going to invent new lies. Everything is just a lie. Everything is just lies. Everything is just lies? Oh, my God. Speaking of lies, I don't have a memory, I only have imagination. That's it. What does that mean?

It means I don't have a memory. I have a kind of phobia of nostalgia, probably. And been there, done that. Next. Ça veut dire que lorsque vous avez accordé des entrevues pour les milliers de documentaires qui ont été produits autour de l'Ostitio, par exemple, vous avez tout inventé, vous avez tout reconstitué

avec votre imagination. Oui, puis des fois j'appelais Mo, faut dire, écoute, là, ça va, ben, elle dit, ben, c'était à peu près ça, puis là, j'appelais Yvon, puis lui, il disait d', but she said, well, that's about it. And then I called Yvon and he said something else. So I understood that each has its own truth. That's one of the great lessons we make as we age. I'm not that old yet, but I'm 40 years old.

We realize that there are two people who have experienced the same event in different ways. Absolutely. Completely different. Completely different. That's what's beautiful. But the historians, they're grotesque.

Not... ...pink, but grotesque. They dig, they dig. They're anthropologists of memory. They dig. They have to go into the archives, the old documents. It's beautiful.

But I wouldn't have been good at it at all. I have no patience. The word old, the word old, because your most recent album is entitled Old Cornel. Yes, I insist. Do you like that word? Oh, I love that word. I can only make you love it because it's my situation right now in life. I'm an old woman. And, well, that's it. I've done that all along my life.

I was unopposed at one point. I was abandoned at one point. At each point in I was abandoned. At one point, every time in my life, there were very important meanings, and I never wanted to call them otherwise than what they were to me. Well, it's for sure that not living 82 years

is no longer youth, and that in the old word, there is the word life, I say it all the time. And old too, don't worry, gentlemen, we haven't forgotten you. There are life-e and there are life-ell. So there you go. And there are old Chris. And old Chris. It's the title of an album, it's not an insult that I throw at you.

François Agui, with François Castel. My God, yes. Which man who made songs. He left us recently. Yes, extremely modern songs for his time. I always heard him as Charles Trenet, Quebecois. It's not nothing, as a compliment. It's not nothing. He was a delicious artist, a talent. He came too early.

It's true that the group he sang for, the group he wrote the songs for, was a group that was ahead of its time. Absolutely. And François was ahead of his time all the time. It makes beings sometimes who have a constant frustration because... There are several artists who have that, I had that feeling for a while, and if I let myself go, I would still have it. But then I thought to myself,

there is so little time left to live that we try to do the cleaning and then really enjoy the I don't know, the push of a leaf on a tree becomes a capital event in my life. What did you do today? I watched my green jobs. Wow! It's a nice day. That's a tiring day in Brazzan. We'll go to bed early in that time.

Well, I go to bed at 9.30, but I read until 11.30. It's magnificent moments. I read everything about philosophy. I read my first science fiction book. I never liked science fiction because there were all these names that I could never remember. Oh yeah, and then there were times, and then there were names of wars, and then battles, and then...

and then it was battles, anyway. And then I read Tomorrow, the Dogs. You don't know that? Clifford D. Simak. S-I-M-A-K. Okay. I have to write it down. It was written in 1954. It's fabulous. Really fabulous. Read it. I'll read it.

Okay. So, it's never too late to try new things. No, indeed. It's never too late to try new things. No, indeed, it's never too late. As long as your mind is still vague, you have a mind a little bit... a little bit delinquent, a little bit... a little bit of Jean Leclerc and of Marigos Thériault mixed with forestry.

It's wonderful. No choker, no necklace, which is the title of one of your beautiful songs. And it's the title of your autobiography too. Yes. It's a song that was inspired by a moment you spent with Jean Leloup. With Jean, yes. Moments with Jean are always moments that happen randomly. You pick it up when he's there.

It's an animal that you can't go looking for. It's really a wild cat, a wild wolf. And when he's there, the best way to talk to him, I think, is by walking. He's a great walker. And we were at the café, and at one point, we left the café and walked to my place. And then he continued, and he stayed right next to my place. And it was an extraordinary moment. But, we sat on a bench at one point,

I say it in the song, and there was a cyclist who got pulled by a pitou. But, we sat on a bench at one point, I say it in the song, and a cyclist got pulled by a pitou. And he got hot, and the dog went down to the ground. And then, the dog, there's not even a corset, a thing, now all dogs have that. There's really a dog on the neck, I said, but he's going to kill him. And I saw that guy, and I was sorry about the situation of the beast. And I turned my head once to see the dog.

And when I came back to talk to Jean, he wasn't there anymore. He was gone. I was so... He said, what a great poet. But I was so happy that I was able to see him.

I was so happy that I was able to see him. I was so disappointed. He was so... He was like, what a great poet! But these beings force us to connect with the present moment. Which is a hard job. Animals are good at that too. They are beings close to animals.

They haven't forgotten that they are. Somewhere. And they haven't forgotten that they are, somewhere. And they have an infinite sense of meaning, because these are things that we were taught and we didn't really refer to reptilians. But I must say that I must admit that my last project was completely dictated by my reptilian. So maybe the rest of my brain is burnt, I don't know, but...

Why are we afraid of the word old? Because if it surprises us, if it surprises us that you use it in the title of your album, it's because we don't dare to pronounce it too often. Seeing someone old makes us immediately transpose into old. And it's very unpleasant. I was like that at one point in my life. But there are people who age well, and that's good. They have reassuring smiles. There are others who have terribly difficult smiles to have because they are bitter, they are violent.

But in the people who have suffered a lot a lot, but who made a kind of... who made a contract with old age, saying, look, I don't like it too much physically, it's fine, but I'm going to take care of my body too, because it's getting old. And the thyroid, you know, it's... Before I went to see the doctor, And the tri-rhoi tuyau, you know, it's... Before I went to see the psychologist, it was plumbiers.

That is to say, it's the wonderful lady who's been training me for 10 years. It's my great Luc, she comes to my house twice a week. Is she your plumbier? She's my plumbier! And what do you do with her? If it's not too hard to ask. Ah, well, I do three things. Cardio, stretching, and weight training.

In an hour, an hour and a half, that's about it. How long have you been considering yourself an old woman? It depends on what you inherit. If you have good good genetics, a good discipline, I think that from the 80s it starts to go down fast. Not before that. In any case, I didn't feel old before the age of 80. But with the influenza that I did,

instead of a COVID, I did an influenza, it was quite horrible and quite long to cure. It all happened around the age of 80. I said, well, the joke. Ha ha ha. The bad joke, yeah. Yes, but then I said, well, listen, tell yourself, because it's gone.

Ha ha ha. And did it stop? Is it better now? There are periods when it's going very well, and other periods when we have more misery. Everything gets old at the same time. You know, the liver gets old, the heart gets old, the brain gets old, everything gets old. The eye, the eye. You know, we're not just old, it's not the riddles of old age. It's that we lack collagen. The older we get, the less collagen we collagen. Plus on vieillit, moins on a de collagen. On devient comme un vieux Bruno séché. Parce qu'on a plus de collagen que c'est ce que je te dis.

Alors c'est ça? Et moi je veux pas me faire pomper les joues, avoir deux belles joues en plastique, pour enlever tout ça. Là vous montez les joues avec les majeurs présencement, avec les indexes. C' cheeks together with your major face, with your index finger. That's it. And then the upper lip. I agree that it would be a little strange, actually. Well, 80 is ridiculous, you know. Because...

Have you seen the new face of Louise Forestier? Ha ha ha! Horrible! Yes, I've seen it. It's horrible! You were talking about the meaning of contemplation that you're trying to feed in yourself. But before that, did you experience a bit of bitterness

compared to a recognition that you wouldn't have gotten? Younger, younger, younger. For a while, it's not there at all. I had the exit of the stage show and the return of my solo career, it was extremely difficult. Because, well, quite simply, Robert had the, in the spirit of some critics, the right to sing in Quebecois or in Joal,

we said we'll call it whatever we want. And I, who continued, who started writing during the Stichot, a song called When You're Not There, so in Quebecois, well, when I started doing my first shows, solos, after the Stichot, because I was doing it before the Stichot, after the Stichot, well, it didn't work anymore, I was vulgar, I was cis, I was doing it before the Stitch Show, but then it didn't work anymore. I was vulgar, I was cis, I was that, it was rough and tough. That was very difficult.

But I went through it. I learned how to write. I started writing more and more. I wrote about three songs, yes. About 300 songs. And several texts for the radio, small news, things like that. I love it. Yes, and you did all kinds of things. You played a lot in the theater, also in the cinema.

Yes, well, not a lot, but I played good roles. I made a few films, maybe five or six films, including The Orders, which then X, XIII. Are you in Pierre Harrel's Bulldozer? No, it's Mouffe. It's Mouffe, yes, sorry. Yes, yes, no, it's not Mouffe. But you collaborated with Pierre Harrel.

Yes, well, I sang Gisèle, among other things. Guess what, guess what my name is. Oh my God. That's on your album On est bien... C'est-tu, On est bien mieux chez vous? Oui, c'est ça. C'est la première chanson de cet album là. Ah, ok. C'est une bonne chanson ça.

Ah c'est fou. C'est votre album rock ça. Oui, ben j'ai tout essayé. C'est ça, les gens des compagnies disques étaient très déprimés quand ils travaillaient avec moi parce qu'ils disaient T'es dur à vendre, you never do the same thing. Well, I said, thank you, it's the most beautiful compliment you can give me. But it warned me in advance that I would never be rich. Well, one, our copyrights are not respected.

Two, the industry was starting. We all signed our first contract, and we got it completely because we didn't know what it was. You're never the same, or you're never alike. You're unpredictable, that's true. Unpredictability often, in people, maybe a little bit of a hit on the ball, or hit on a great talent, maybe a little bit crazy, or crazy about a great talent, we can call it whatever we want.

Is that you, crazy? I've always considered myself a little crazy, yes. I even have an album called, of course, that I'm crazy. And François Dompierre, the music on that song, it's completely crazy. And in the series, you sing... Don't touch my madness. That's all I have, that's my California. Oh, yes, that's true.

Don't touch my madness. I touched it, for example. Just to calm her down. Because she took you to poor territories. Depression in the family. Well, you have families, you have models, one, two, me too, it was depression. It's your mother.

Well, I suppose it's the fault of the poor, my mother didn't want to defend herself. I didn't point at anyone, but that's what we understand by reading your autobiography. She cried a lot. She cried a lot, and. She cried a lot. And you know, we don't understand when our parents cry.

It's extremely insecure. I wanted a lot of it, curieux, vivants, athées à une époque où c'était vraiment pas le temps, mais complètement dévorés par leur mal de vie, que j'ai plus ou moins attrapé. Mais par contre, de l'autre côté, mon father was like a hyperactive, with a terrible taste for life and a rage too. I look more like him.

So you had to calm down your madness a little. Yes, I had to know her. I had to... Abridged her a little bit. Yes, I had to abridged her. Exactly. My God, that's beautiful. Yes, yes. And then, uh... You're a little bit like a I wouldn't call it an ocean, an asteroid. There won't be anything like that. As I said, I read only one science fiction book.

We'll wait for you to read a second one. Yes, it will sound great. But no, it's madness. It's the anchor in which I found my feather. Two old corns, you see the bag here. Yes, a beautiful bag. It's a pen. Pen.

And so it's the ink in which I dipped my... Because I always wrote in the pen, in the hand, in the pen, the first few lines of the text, and then I copy them. And I think they're better when they're printed. I'm careful avoid that. So I write as long as possible by hand, until I don't understand the writing anymore. And then I write on the computer and often completely different things. I write two sentences and then, poof!

You were talking about your father. What made you leave Shawinigan, your hometown, to come to Montreal? Is it because it's a too free spirit? Yes. Shawinigan had a very flourishing period. The paper mills, the aluminum. There were all kinds of nationalities in this city. We have't know, in the 1940s, it was New York, you know. Everyone was there. And my father, we lived in Montreal, and at one point he saw an opportunity. He realized that in women who were often nurses, secretaries, or secretaries, nurses, or religious.

The girls didn't speak English. So there were always little secretaries of the last level, because they weren't bilingual. So he said, I'm going to form a generation of young women, secretary, steno, dactyl, completely bilingual. He then opened with a comrade, the Schoenagend Business College. And he refused to teach religion because, well, he refused. He didn't even think about it. There was no question.

Yeah, but you know, I think he didn't even think about it. There was no question. I think he didn't even think about it. He said, we're going to read a little bit of philosophy. There will be a little bit of philosophy in the course. Because philosophy is used a lot to know human beings. It's something quite... But philosophy is dangerous. Why? It's dangerous in the eyes of the Church.

Oh yes, well, when I went to Mass on Sunday, the priest at the top of the chair said, don't send your daughters to the Schoenaghan Business College, because it's a naturopathic school, and you'll be excommunicated if you send your children there. In any case, it's crazy. And I came back and I said, my father, the priest said, such and such, such and such. A point such that his school was

gradually deserted and that he had to come back. In the meantime, the house that he had completely renovated, he had bought an old abandoned house in Saint-Flaure, which no longer exists. At that time, it was called Saint-Gérald. Saint-Flaure is much more poetic.

It's a very poetic name. It's a very poetic name. He built the house in St. Claude's house, which is now abandoned, in St. Claude's house, which no longer exists. At this time, it's called St. Gérald. St. Claude's house is much more poetic. St. Claude's house is so beautiful. He rebuilt the house from its white path. He made us bed in castrated. And there were two bedrooms,

one in brick and one in stone. He did it all over again. And it burned. And there was no insurance. And... all lost. And then a thali remained at the top of the 15th street, at Winnegan's, at 5th street. In front of the wheel, there was a french fries.

So I came from there. No, but my love of nature comes from St. Florent. There were cows in the field next door. I said, come on, we'll put salt in your hand and the cows will come. It was extraordinary. I never came back. I've never seen that, getting my hand licked by a cow. I've always dreamed of having a cow in my living room. In Montreal, it's maybe a bit complicated.

I've had a few, but they weren't real cows. They were worse than cows. And you're not going to give us names? No, sir. That's when your father's house burned down and you met Félix Leclerc. Yes. His brother stayed in front at our place, so he escaped. We had nothing left. And while I was there, one day a man came with a guitar

and said, this is my brother Felix. And he sat on a chair, and at one point I couldn't believe it. And I sat down. His guitar was there. And I put my head right under the guitar, pressing on his thigh. I was five there, his guitar was there, and I put my head right under the guitar, pressing on his thigh. I was five years old. And I listened to the sound of the guitar and the sound of his voice.

It was... I didn't know that Felix was there. I didn't know anything. And he himself wasn't known at the time. He had to go to France and tell people what was good, so that people could see that he was good here. It was a bit like that again, unfortunately. But, or we dress in French and we'll make a living there. I don't have everyone's face, but some people's. I have faces in my head, yes.

Well, yes, but they do it like that, it's their choice. But Félix didn't do that. He was unique. Charles Lebois himself never sang. There was a small period of playing golf. But it's not because it wasn't French, it was something else. And he came back with the real thing. How did you find or invent the way you sing on Charlebois's songs?

What did you do when you met him and went on stage with him? On January 19, 1968, we were patriots. For a lady who doesn't have a lot of memory, I think it's possible. Yes, but it's because I was really... When I wrote my autobiography, completely wrong, I had to... How completely wrong? No, I don't like that. Too fast.

It's now that I should write it, but I don't write it, in fact. But what can you do? I'm saving my life. So I liked doing that better than going to fill bags at the subway station. Although, sometimes I tell myself, it would be fun, a little day a week at the subway station, I would have fun able to fill bags in the store. But sometimes I think, it would be fun, a little day a week in the store, I would have fun in my own way. There are several women of your age who serve the tasting in the supermarkets.

And they seem to have fun sometimes. Sometimes it's a little sad because it's a shame that we still have to earn our lives at that age. Oh no, it's perfect that we still have to earn a living at that age. Oh no, it's perfect that we still have to make a living at that age. I must admit that if I had been rich, I would have been very lazy. Which is not the case with Robert, who constantly writes, who always has his hands on his guitar or on his piano. He still does shows. Yes, but I know that being a contemplator,

I don't think I'd take the plane five times a year. I don't think I'd have private jets. But I'm able to sit on the balcony and go out for an hour or two, just to look around and listen to the news. Check it out. Four times a day, there's something wrong. But when you wrote your autobiography, it's been about 10 or 15 years,

were you really in a moment in your life where you needed a little money? Yes, I've always had to make a living. Because I put half of my fortune in the hands of the psychos. Ha ha! Because it's a good way to invest your money. I didn't have a summer cottage, I had a psych. Ha ha!

So... Do you regret it today? Never. No? I have a doctorate in know-it-your- Never. I have a doctorate. It's useful for you. Know yourself. It's my doctorate. And I worked nine years.

It's not bad. Not with the same person. I'm exhausted from two. But at the first moment you have your first psychotherapy, you had to make a gesture to save yourself from where you were psychologically. Yes, absolutely. I was 32, 33 years old. It didn't really work. It was difficult. For me, the job started easily.

I was a worker at Place des Arts for two years after high school, but at the time there were no answerers. But back then, there were no answerers. Listen to this. Back then, there were no answerers. What do you do to get a job? Two things. Either you stay at home, sitting next to the phone, waiting for it to ring. It's long.

You go crazy. Or you go to the corridors of Radio-Canada. And that's what we did. Young actresses, young... We walked around one day a week. The directors left their doors open. And we walked in the corridor quietly. Hello, sir.

And sometimes it was like, oh, miss! We backed off. Yes, sir. Come in. Then they closed the door. And I don't know what was going on. Sometimes you had a job, sometimes you didn't. But it wasn't the same for everyone.

You don't know what was going on because it never happened to you? No. Never. One day my father told me, you are the only one, my father, responsible for your body. Oh well, oh well. That was my lesson on feminism, number one. From your father? Coming from a man. But I'm closing this long parenthesis to return to the patriots

where we were earlier, where you were about to go on stage with Robert Charleboix. In what year? 1968. How did you find the way to sing that was so striking? We were doing the show the same night, and we didn't know who was supposed to do the first and second part. So one day I said, look, we're going to stop that, it's a mess. Besides, it's a bit of a pattern that I'm suggesting to men and women right now. We're going to stop knowing that the first and second part are going to be the same.

Let's do it together. It's so beautiful. Sing together and be above others. With others. For others. That's what we did. And we repeated it once. And repeating it over and over again. I were in the back of the stage,

instead of doing anything, I was taking the tambourine, or the little neneuf. I loved the neneuf. And then, my grandmother went, and I left. I was making little voices. I was trying to say, a little off-mic. And then, my grandmother said, oh, that's beautiful. We continued, pis elle m'a dit, ah ben c'est beau ça. On continue, ah c'est beau ça. Pis je dis rien, c'est bon, ok.

Le lendemain on fait le show. Ben à sa grande surprise, je me suis mis à chanter. Pis là, il me regardait au début pis t'sais, il était pas sûr. Faudrait que je sois sûr à moi parce que, t'sais genre, qu'est-ce que tu fais là? Vas-tu être capable? Vous l'avez été capable? J'ai été capable. J'ai été capable. I was sure of myself because, you know, people were like, what are you doing? Are you going to be able to do it? Ha ha ha! You were able to do it?

I was able to do it. I was able to do it. I had fun. And then I started to improvise a lot of things with him. And well, it was magic. I asked him to turn around and there, it was swinging. I was so tired, I don't know where. I had fun, I couldn't anymore. I had a know where I was. I was so excited.

I had a lot of love for what they were doing. And so did Yvonne and I, who were the designers of all of this. From the visuals to the content, she was collecting all of this. She packed it, to say it in good French. She made a big box called the Stitcho. And we had to remember some of us. I was too exuberant, Robert was too crazy. And she brought us on our lines, but always with a lot of humor and imagination.

And she refined everything. And I would laugh at Joe DeVon, I would laugh so much that sometimes he would look at me and say, calm down, I'm not capable anymore. There are some recordings of the Stichot, but nothing official. There was no official recording of this show that would allow us to see it from one end to the other. We didn't want to. Did that do anything to make it as good as we imagined? No, especially with the technical means of the time. The sound was terrible, It would be horrible. And we also improvised a lot.

It was never the same thing one night after the other. And no, no, it was... It was the time of happening. And the prop of a happening is to be present in the moment. That's it. It's in the word. Exactly. The concept of an happening is to be present in the moment. That's it. That's the word. Exactly.

And there's nothing more enjoyable for a singer, actor or someone who does the scene than to accept those moments and to be proud of them. Because that's where you have flashes for the future, and you can grow your career, you have ideas, you create creative links with great people. It's the opening. The Impro League has done that for sovel so many great actors and actresses. My God, my God. Incredible. How did music come into your life?

At church. With my last project, Vieilles Corneilles. I listened to it at one point with a detachment when it was all over. I said, my words come from the Church of St. Bernard. We often talk about young black singers who do gospel. The Quebec gospel was the Quantic. That was our gospel. I had a natural voice, so I sang the solos.

The Panis Angelicus, is that it? Panis Angelicus, tarirariraram, with a little voice like that, sitting, and then everyone was looking at me, and it bothered me. So I wanted to be part of a choir, and guess what? They threw me out because they said I was singing too loud! You keep that. Louise is pointing at me, threatening me, and she keeps that. I would be crazy to keep that.

I will keep that in my memory forever. Louise Forestier, who sings in front of me. Can we do the rest of the interview like that? It depends on the questions. But what is the... Why does your album make you think of the church? What is the connection between the two? Because it's from there that my love for singing comes,

from the echo, because the old cornet had to fly, Yes, c'est ici de là que vient mon amour du chant, de l'écho, parce que la vieille corneille fallait que ça fly, ça vole, pis j'étais prise avec des textes que j'ai décidé de pas écrire en forme de chansons classiques, refrains, ponts, couplets. J'ai décidé d'y aller librement, et ça m'a pris des mois avant de trouver qu'est-ce que je voulais musicalement là-dessus. Bon, j'étais contente, j'avais écrit. It took me months to find what I wanted musically. I was happy that I had written. I had written way too much, by the way. And then, I went to see Michel Rivard, who was extremely wonderful,

who offered me the first song. I said, the first song is going to be more songs, to bring the world to to the Cornelian trip. The old woman is a song in nine movements. The first movement presents itself. And Michel made the music on that. But I stayed there, because yes, I liked what he had done to me, a lot. But then, by chance, someone told me,

I was in a CA with Louis Dufort. I'm doing Louis Dufort, not to be mistaken. Because every time I went to see the shows of Marie Chouinard, I listened to the track. I was like, what is this? What is the baby? What is he? It's a well-known figure in the world of music, electroacoustic, right? Yes, absolutely. He was a professor at the conservatoire. He had this kind of infinite ear.

And then I called him and asked him if we could meet. Two days later he was at my place. I read the texts and I begged him not to put music on my words, to make me some kind of carpet. To read the text once or twice and then write a word or two I had nine texts, but I sent 15 tracks. And then I did the distribution of the texts, of the tracks, of the tracks. And then I did the distribution of the texts, of the tracks, of the tracks.

And then I did the distribution of the texts, of the tracks, of the tracks. And then I did the distribution of the texts, of the tracks, of the tracks. And then I did the distribution des... bon, tel text, tel piste. Puis ça là, il a tellement bien saisi ce que je voulais faire que ça a dû me prendre quoi, une heure pour faire ça. Check, check, check, check. Ah oui, tel piste, tel piste. Puis il m'a demandé, il dit, ah t'as pas pris tel piste. Moi je l'aime beaucoup.

Ouais, mais elle me dit rien encore. Puis t'accuse six mois plus tard. Ah mon dieu, they said, Oh, you didn't take that track. I love it a lot. Oh, but she didn't tell me anything yet. And then suddenly, six months later, Oh, my, that's beautiful. Well, in any case, we worked like that. And then I said, I'm going to make the melodies. But I'm going to talk too. But I don't know when. It's a Spoken Word album in a way.

Yes, we can call it that. Poetic prose, what's flying on a flying carpet, and suddenly it started singing. But I didn't even know when I was going to sing. I was reading the lyrics. I was reading them on the track. And then I was cutting little bits or adding little bits,

because... And I was cutting my lyrics. I was lagging, all that. I was putting that on the carpet, and then I talked. And then it started singing. So I was singing. The melody that came. My favorite on the album is Sonny Par Demain.

I said on the radio that this piece is like a rave in a CHSLD. I hear it as a compliment, Louise. You've got your eyes wide open. You could play it in a secondary school too. Yes, absolutely. It would maybe do you good. There's something dancing, but I'm joking with the CHSLD because it's a question of aging. Yes, it your pleasure. You can end up hanging on a frost clothe.

There's nothing more enjoyable than hearing you say, frost clothe. Ah, you have a little earring with me, go ahead. It's cute, I love it. I like that too when you take your voice from Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, yes, please. But there's a question of the consciousness of death in this play. A question of ageism too. It's one of the great words of our time, ageism. Yes.

For both young and old, whether they're too young or too old, it's always too somewhere. Yes. For both young and old. Whether they're too young or too old. It's always too much somewhere. It's terrible. We want to unify everything. We want women's relationships to be like that. That the intergenerational one should be like that. But as it's well written on the cover of my album,

it's almost like saying, it's true that we have to change the world, but we still have to not become monsters by changing it. And that's what we're trying to do, to stabilize the radar, as in the first song, the mid-vibes on it makes me cold in the back. It's not the time. la première chanson, la menu de su me fait froid dans le dos. C'est pas le temps. Acceptons que tout balance.

Soyons souples. Il y a trop de raideurs en ce moment. Et la raideur, c'est la peur. Et la peur nous rend, la peur de voir un vieux visage brings us back to our finitude. And that's what was scary. And people point that at us in the face, you know, by pushing us back. That's the fear of death, all of that. Ah, there you go.

That's it. But we're organizing love very well right now. We're really organizing it. It's beautiful. Climate change is horrible. It's horrible. And we don't make much effort to cover the paper. No, absolutely not. There's never been so many private jets in the sky.

Never. Since there are planes. There's never been so many private jets in the sky. Never. Since... There are planes, but it was a little harder in the 15th century. But... Oh, I'm getting... But... You're laughing, it's wonderful. Yes, I'm laughing.

Maybe not 5, you know. But listen... Oh no, it's... But it worries you? I don't have time to worry anymore. I don't have time. So it's true, Desespérée, mes gays. It's one of your songs? Yes, it's Mouffe who wrote that.

On Forestier chante Louise. Yes, exactly. Desespérée, mes gays, c'est tellement vrai. Et c'est un mystère, même à mes propres yeux. Tu sais, mon ami Michel Magny me disait, tu es ma cassandre. Et oui, j'ai un petit côté comme ça. Qui m'a fait très peur quand j'étais jeune. I said, yes, I have a little side like that. Which made me very scared when I was young. Because I had like, I won't say the word vision,

we don't fall into a mental illness. Although I'm not a person who... But she was flirting, she was close, she was close. You flirted. Oh, I flirted a lot. With my brain. Desperate but gay, I don't want to psychoanalyze you like that, in a wild and ungrateful way. I love that term. I love it.

I don't want to talk about a subject that's too intimate, but you know that I myself have experienced some problems with my body. Oh, really? You had an accident? Well, I'm amputated from the left leg. I'm missing half of the left leg. Does it hurt? It doesn't hurt anymore today, but when they cut it off, it hurts a little. No, but they still fell asleep. I reassure you. Okay, thank you.

I was under anesthesia. But the scoliosis with which you in, you had a... A school. A school. A school. A school. A school. A school.

A school. Made of a metal plate that was going from the bottom of the... I'm telling you, that was going from the reptilian, we always come back there. We don't feel it. I'm still here. We're not going to get there. Until I had a metal plate on my hips, about six inches wide, which was going down, following the curve more or less. I was trying to fix it with straps and a big piece of thread. You were living all that while you were telling me. It's amazing. And then you put your straps on in the morning.

It's like a strong shirt. Yes, exactly. What a beautiful image. And I had a false becky that was coming from the steel armor that was hanging on my hips and that was going under that shoulder. So I was like that. And I had in my sole a thing of a half inch to lift my heel. pis j'avais dans mon soulier un truc d'un demi-pouce pour relever mon talon. Et c'est là que je suis tombée en amour avec le ballon volant. Parce que pour jouer au ballon volant, j'avais le droit d'enlever mon mcorset.

Alors j'enlevais mon mcorset. Vous pouvez sacrer, ça dérange pas. Ça vous êtes pas trop de gens à vous retenir de sacrer, habituellement. When I was taking off my corset... You can do it in French, it doesn't bother me. Oh, that's okay. You're not too much of a person to keep it in French. No, because it wasn't in French, it was in English. And I like to do it in French. My corset crisis was not mandatory to do these sports. That's when I started to love sports.

And that's when my father saw me put the corset in the trash. He didn't know what was going on with me. He looked for someone who was doing corrective gymnastics in the 50s. And he found him. And then I started doing corrective gymnastics, but it was too late. Scoliosis was very advanced, very well-known. But I wasn't too late in the sense that if I went to see an orthopedist, and they studied my case in front of 500 orthopedists, they asked for my permission, they showed me the radios and said,

Are we going to operate on him or not? And they all said in one scream, We don't operate it! No! It's too much. She's going to be laughing like a pig all her life. She's going to suffer. So, she's going to have to move every day of her life.

So, since then, I've been doing all kinds of things. What does it teach us about life to receive a diagnosis like that when you're a teenager? My mother cried in the corridor. I remember when I heard what the doctor said to my mother. It was subtle. He was out of the room, he didn't close the door. He said, she'll never have children. And around 40, 45 years old, she lost her legs and arms. Losing her legs and arms?

Because of the compression, the nerves of everything that goes through the spine. And he... He didn't tell me I had to do anything with the gym or whatever the rest of my life. But you were going through a great paralysis. Yes. I remember in my head, I said no. I had to say no. And then I did... And one day, that's it, that summer, we received a letter at home asking me to go to a summer camp to sign a contract.

My mother took the letter and tore it up. And it's funny because I was shocked not having taken the decision myself. Maybe I should have gone OK. Well, it gives you a lot of discipline in life, to have mastered that. You hold on to that. Because I thought, I have to walk as long as possible, please. And now, for a year or two, I have more misery.

You see, it's been a while since I've been here on foot. It would have been perfect in half an hour. But now, no. So, what can I do? I keep going, I walk as I can. You talk about discipline, which fascinated me when I read your autobiography, which you didn't like, but I did. We can imagine that in the early years of your career,

and during the excitement of the Austin Show, of your albums with Robert Charleboix, you were partying a lot. But you seemed to me, at that time, rather straight. I wasn't straight. I was reasonable. Because I understood that the voice was sleep. And like my strength, it was not writing yet, since I started writing, it was my voice.

I had promised myself two things. One, that I would never lose my voice, and two, that I had to be able to sleep at night knowing that I might not have the money la voie et deux qu'il fallait que je sois capable de dormir le soir en sachant que j'avais peut-être pas l'argent pour payer mon loyer la semaine d'après. Ces deux choses-là ne devaient pas m'empêcher d'être bien. Il y avait plein d'affaires qui m'empêchaient d'être bien à côté. J'avais pas le goût de rajouter ces deux-là.

Alors, c'est pourquoi j'avais toujours un stop quelque part. I didn't want to add those two. So that's why I always had a break somewhere. But it's my back that told me that too. It's my back, you know, I mean, there are things that I did, I trained myself and I needed to be fit to do it, and it put me in shape, and I was... I loved that. I loved it. I loved taking care of my body. I knew, you often talked about the time you lived with Robert Charlebois

in the same apartment on Melrose Street with Mouffe, with Claude P. Locain, with... Sophie Clément. Sophie Clément, the Sophie of Lindbergh. But I didn't know Denise Boucher était là avec vous à ce moment-là. La grande dramaturge qui nous a quittés récemment. Oui, oui, elle était là. Quelle grande femme. Mon Dieu. Incroyable.

Mais quelle solitude. Tu sais, les femmes de... Denise était un petit peu plus âgée que nous, peut-être une dizaine d'années de plus. Tous les poètes, les peintres the painters of this gang, they followed them. A whole package. They were ostracized in society, they were considered crazy. And often, when a woman does something a little extravagant, excentrique, c'est-à-dire hors du centre, un gars va être un génie, mais une fille va être une folle.

Alors voilà, je suis une folle géniale. Mais Denise, she was rough. She was rough. She took a hit to endure that. They were alone. They were rough. She took a blow to endure that. They were lonely. They were truly lonely. Then... She wrote me a song, I lost my girlfriend since I knew you.

I lost my girlfriend since I knew you. I don't remember. It was already feminist. J'ai perdu mon amie de fille depuis que je te connais. M'en avais plus. C'était déjà féministe, c'était ta faute si j'ai plus mes amies de filles. Je sais pas si je la chanterais aujourd'hui, mais à l'époque, j'essayais de la chanter, je me souviens, non agréitivement. J'y donnais un côté plus tendre. Mais j'ai fait ça, moi. Moi, là, quand je suis tombée en amour une des fois dans ma vie, là, I would give it a more tender side. But I did that. When I fell in love, one time in my life,

I let some friends go. It's not my boyfriend who told me to do that. I was so in love that I didn't want to see him talk to him, but I had him in my body. I had him in my skin. The guy, I have him in my body. The guy, I have it in my body. When you have someone in your body, it's scary. You're not a master. I've done it all.

Do you regret having dedicated so much energy to love? Yes, that's right. It's funny, I was thinking about it two or three days ago. I was thinking, it started with how much time I lost. And then I said, no, it's a way, it's a lens,

it's a point of view that goes through everything that life brings us, this search. And we were raised among women, as if success, first and foremost, was to succeed his family, his couple, his children. And one day, I was confronted with a terrible question. I asked myself, what am I going to keep with me until the end of my days? My family or my job?

And I chose my job. And that was a lot of work on the sofa, because it was a significant responsibility. I had a lot of work on the sofa. Because it was a serious guilt. And it was my big struggle. Because when your son was born, you were at a point in your career where it was taking off. It was going up to 100,000 at the time. And at the time, the father...

He wasn't there, you know. Well, yes, I seem to be apologizing, because yes, times, times explain a lot of things, which we tend to refuse to understand things, but my God. And I wasn't more involved in a free woman's speech. My decision scared me. You know, I was in Quebec. So I had to make that up. So I could have a relationship with my son.

A good one. Open. And the fun. That's what I had. So this decision today, do you regret it? Never. Never? Never. No. Anyway, I couldn't live otherwise.

I am only a singer. No, I am only an artist. I paint, I sew, I save the kitchen. You talked a lot during the last weeks of the 50 years of Jean Dupuis, because you were on stage when the song was performed for the first time. And what I didn't know was that you could have written

a part of that song, and you didn't. No, we said to ourselves, Yvonne and I, look, what's it going to look like? We don't write in the same way. Gilles Vigneault himself said a few weeks ago when I visited him at his place, that what you told him, you are the poet, get it together. Get it together with that. That's it. No, no, but I didn't see myself writing in my own way. It would have been...

It would have been the hymn side, the side of the whole thing. It would have been complicated, the simplicity of this magnificent song. The following year, in 1976, there was a big show called Unx5, which brought together five greats I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do that. I'm not sure if one. No, I didn't take that.

I didn't take it. I absolutely didn't take it. Because, you see, if I liked Léveillé, if I liked Vigneault, even if I liked Ferland, it was because of his interpreters. When Monique Lirac released the album L'Éveillé, Vigneault, one of the great, great, great Quebec records of the second half of the 20th century, that's how I liked L'Éveillé through his voice, his interpretation. l'éveiller à travers sa voix, son interprétation. Même chose pour Vigneault et Pauline. Pauline Julien et l'Irak qui chantaient Vigneault aussi.

Ces deux interprètes-là m'ont fait découvrir des auteurs, compositeurs québécois extraordinaires. Il y en a que jamais plus que d'autres, c'est normal, of the great Quebec composers. There are some that I liked more than others, it's normal, that impressed me a lot. But when the five greats arrived, I said, but it's not possible that Iraq and Pauline Julien are not there. I didn't even think about it.

I swear, I didn't even think about myself. I swear, I didn't even think about myself. I was insulted that there was no girl in that. I was insulted. And Clémence, Colline. Yes. Clémence. Not the slightest of the other compositional actresses. But it's the shit of the women who write in Quebec.

And they often say that they're naked. Naked and they wouldn to have bad luck. They're going to have bad luck. So, that's it. But I couldn't do anything because I had commitments on my side. And my career was failing. You were talking about your son Alexis. It was with him that you made your most recent album, the previous one, which dates from 2008. So it was a little while ago that you hadn't released a new album.

Would you tell me what Robert Lepage told you one day to talk to you about the time to wait that the time to come. You can't just pull a flower to make it grow. Because it was a time when, before I made this album with Alexis, I started to be tired of singing classical songs. You know, standard, with the form we know. But I didn't know what to do. I was lost. I was lost. They listened to me for seven hours. It's not easy. Robert Lepage?

Yeah. I went to see him. He said, come, come, come, come see me. So I went to see him. I talked a lot with his sister too, who is an extraordinary woman. And why did you turn to Robert Lepage? Well, because for me, it's an A, it's an electrolib, it's a... That's exactly it. It's that kind of freedom, of, that I've always been looking for.

And that I found that I was losing as I got older. So we talked, and one day he said to me, Louise, you shouldn't pull on a flower so it grows. So I continued. I said, what? Oh, a record with Alexis, it's going to be sent elsewhere. And we didn't have a scene. But it seems to me that it's the story of your life and your career. Yes, but it's not just my career.

It's the life of the artists. The life of the artists and the filmmakers. You know, it takes seven years for a film to be made. It has no good taste. We run after our scenes, each one of our bars. It's incredible when I meet people too. I say, my God, we're all caught up in the same thing. Except those who had the talent to write songs,

who stayed, who stayed, that became hits. And that was great for them. You can't be against that. Absolutely not. But for me, it wasn't my way of working. I was too crazy, too brilliant for them. I don't believe it when I say that in the parents' language. Ladies and gentlemen, it's not really true, but I believe it. So Robert Lepage listened to you during that time. He listened to me.

He gave you the status of a woman. Oh my God, and with a few brilliant questions here and there. And I always thought it was a moment of capital in my life afterwards. But it requires a lot of wisdom to accept that the flower cannot be shot down. Well, that's it. Well, it's because I had things to live on, probably, before they could come out of the ground. So I did a lot of things. I started reading philosophy.

And in my life, therapy started giving results. And that's what it did. With Alexis, we did that. I think about giving this solo Boucher from Tagang. There's a song called Solo, which I really like in the album I did with Alexi. It talks about politics. Politics, loneliness, funny, abscess. Freud would probably have something to say on that.

Sigmund, come in my little one. Oh yes, it's good, he's in Régis. He's in Régis. So that's it. That's what it is. Are you still today? I'm asking you a very intimate question. Are you still consulting today? Are you still in Térapi?

No, no. I've finished that. I even finished that on a note where my therapist and I were absolutely not in agreement. I finished it. I even finished it on a note where my therapist and I were absolutely not in agreement. And to my great surprise, I wasn't afraid that she would kill me.

I didn't... Do you understand? I said, I understand your position. You are on the front line. To save injured souls, dead bodies. I understand very well. But I, this thing, that thing. Okay, we're on that. But I never felt guilty that it ended that way. On the contrary, I said, this woman gave me back my freedom.

I don't know if you're listening right now, but thank you, my dear friend. I'm not naming you because I know you retired. But even if you hadn't retired, I couldn't do that. But thank you, my dear madam, because really, wow, that's something. Something. Well, Louise, I've been remembering you for a long time. There are a few moments in your career that I want to talk to you about. One of my favorite songs from your repertoire is Prince Arthur. Well, it's not me who writes it.

Well, you're talking about the me, Cléacritte. Well, pfft. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha The Prince Arthur was a bar? Yes. What did it look like? It was like the small bars on Prince Arthur Street. Everyone was there? We were doing our show when we weren't far from Montreal. We were pretty. We arrived before school. At 1 a.m. Everyone was there.

One of us was coming out of Saint-Hyacinthe, from Saint-Thérèse. Everyone was there. One was coming out of Saint-Thierry-Saint-Thérèse, and it was like everyone was there. We finished at 3 a.m. It was something. I was in quarantine. That's where you lived your partying. Yes, because when I was very young, I was very disciplined, as you saw. And it was at the press conference that you met Tom Waits one night? Oh, it was wonderful. I went to see his show in Saint-Denis. And that's it. I said, «Hey, we're going to go celebrate at the Prince. It's a great show like that. »

And who comes? Tom Waits. I said, «It's not true. » He went to the bar tonight. I took my Tom Wicks. I said, that's not true. He said, go sit down at the bar. I took my courage from them. I sat down next to him. I said, I was there that night. Thank you for the show. He said, what do you do in life? I said, I'm a singer.

I sing in French. I wrote my lyrics. I said, yes, I'll do it. We had a good half hour on the job. He was charming. He was perfect. The other moment I would have liked you to tell me about is the time you did Nina Simone's first part. In New York. We went down to New York by car.

On a head start. Yes. I said, guys, are you going to take care of this? They said, no. Okay, we're going to New York. So you're already a well-known forestry lawyer in Quebec. You have a career, you do shows. You decide, we're going to New York, try to do a show. That's it.

I said, well, everybody's going to take it. Everybody, you know, Paris, Paris, Paris. I want to, but I'm not good at Paris, first of all. It's not my city. New York is my city. So it was my city. New York is my city. So it was my city. So we went down like that, with two or three cymbals,

and some deodorant, and some bals. We got there at 8 a.m. in front of the closed coffee shop. It was the bitter end, right? The bitter end, where Bob Dylan was singing and the whole gang. And then we had lunch, and then at about 10 o'clock, I said, I'm going to go see. It was open, and then I arrived, and a man was walking me. I said, maybe it's the mayor.

I said, hello, is the owner there? He said, it's me, the owner. I said, oh It's so good. Listen, so, I said, we're coming from Montreal, crazy business, I told him. He looks at me, oh yeah. Why don't you come tonight

and sing for us for about twenty minutes? Okay. So he says, come at four or five o'clock, make a little sound balance. for about 20 minutes. Okay. Fait qu'ils ont venu vers 4h, 5h, faire une petite balance de son. Moi, je ne demande pas qui va chanter. On arrive, on fait la balance. Puis à un moment donné, je vois une madame qui est grande.

Puis je reconnais Nina Simon. Puis là, je fais tabac. C'est pas vrai que je vais faire sa première partie. Je voulais m'en aller chez nous. J'avais peur, mais pour mourir, I was scared to die because for me there was nothing more. Gigantic. I say gigantic. Parole, musician, vocal, militante, everything. Dans la même femme, j'étais époustouchelée. Fait que là, j'ai eu un trac terrible.

Puis j'ai fait mon petit vingt minutes. Puis j'étais choc, les gens com. They were all in New York, pure white. But it was nice. They applauded. The landlord gave us a presentation. He said, believe it or not, she was there in the morning. And you know, everything that had happened. So it did something.

Nina was next to the bedroom door of the lodge while I was singing. I could see her. In the background. Then she came to see me. Before she went out, I was there. I was the one who went there. She said hello. I couldn't stand it anymore.

We hadn't slept at all. We had been driving all night. We didn't have a single cent to pay for the hotel. We had to turn around and sleep. On avait pas dormi de la nuit rien. On avait roulé jusqu'à nu, à la campagne de nuit. On avait pas une cent pour payer l'hôtel, puis on faisait sans retourner, sans dormir. Aïe, aïe! Alors, j'ai été la voir et j'ai dit, je vais rester pour deux ou trois chansons quand même, je ne pouvais pas. Pendant que les gars faisaient les bagages, puis tout ça. Puis, elle m'a dit, Ah, you are charming, young lady. Charming.

I said, thank you, thank you. That was my American career. The beginning and end of the American career of Louise Forestier. Yes, yes. I'm going to make you a confession, Louise. It's a bit embarrassing, but I've never seen you in a show. You're too young, maybe? Well, at the same time, in 2008, when you made your album with your son, you shot with him.

I could have gone to see you. Oh yes, we did 50 shows. I don't know why I can't go see you in a show. And it was a beautiful show. I find myself awkward. It's Fred, it's awkward. It's been an hour, I've been thinking, but he's really awkward. You're not cutting that, are you?

No, certainly not. You're not cutting that, are you? No, certainly not. You're funny. Do I have the chance to see you in a show? Oh, okay. Is that where I want to come back to? You're going to see something that you won't expect either. I'm working with a wonderful being called Martin Villeneuve, a filmmaker who has done, among other things, Imelda. I have just worked with a wonderful artist called Martin Villeneuve,

a filmmaker who has done, among other things, Imelda. Yes, yes. It was fun, that one. And weird too. And I have just shot Imelda's continuity, one of the characters, of Imelda's life with him, and we are working on a documentary to make the work travel. A documentary inspired by the old Cornelius? on un documentaire pour faire voyager l'oeuvre. Un documentaire inspiré de Vieilles-Cornées? Oui. Sur vieillir, créer et mourir peut-être. Est-ce que ça c'est pas certain?

Bien oui, mais... surtout, je pense qu'un moment donné, on a vraiment envie de mourir. Mais c'est pas encore votre cas? Oh non, pas là, pas tout de suite. C'est pas fini. I think that now we really want to die. But it's not your case yet? We don't have the other one. Not right away. It's not over. I have to make this documentary, we'll see later. But it's a way to do it. Because I can't do his show. It's done with a stopwatch.

There's no chorus, there's nothing that comes back. There's a drum break. You're like, oh, there we go. There's no door. There's no window in this music. But you could go on stage to sing your old hits like Botany Robert. No.

No, I really don't feel like it. I don't feel like it. I don't have the physical energy to... Listen, I live alone. I take out my empty boxes, I clean my windows, I clean my windows, I have my breakfast, I have a lady who serves me with a fabulous agenda,

but she doesn't follow me 24 hours a day. I have a accountant who saves my life every day. And then I have my physical trainer who follows me two days a week. But I do everything else myself. I cry alone, I'm anxious alone, I have pain alone, and it's very overwhelming. So from a boggy to a turn, I don't have that energy anymore. No. Because on the stage, I burn, I burn, I burn.

There's only fire. I have that fire energy. Why is it important for you to continue creating at your age? Well, it's not important. It's like breathing. It's like breathing. It's the same thing. It's my inspiration and my expelling. There you go.

You have the sense of the formula. Oh my God, I would have made a lot of money in a commercial agency. It's not too late. I will work hard. I'm calling you late. Ah! I'm going to work. My name is Louise. My walk is entitled Just Between You and Me. Louise, do you have one last thing to say that would stay

just between you and me? Oh my God, what time is it? Was that okay? You promised me at the beginning of the interview that you would tell me if I wasn't good. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! I'm not going to take it off. What will remain between you and me? An absolutely extraordinary complicity. That's it. A wonderful moment of exchange.

We were in the present moment, like when you look at your job. No, no, it was good. It was good. It was good. Okay, thank you. But it wasn't a compliment I was looking for. I know, but I live there. That's what I've just lived. And I can testify that at this time, at this time, in 2025, what has just become the most important for me is this moment we spent together. And it doesn't happen with all the journalists. You're nice. You'll be scratched by all your brothers and sisters.

I apologize. What are you going to do the rest of your day? What could I say? I think there's another thing that I have to talk about. I thought that... But I'm looking at my notes, and I didn't talk. No, I did the turn. You've already sung in Moscow and St Petersburg?

Yes, it's wonderful, but I didn't learn French. I didn't have time to learn Russian. But I'll tell you, it's an extraordinary people. They love music. It's not for nothing that we have the greatest writers, the Russians, the Poles, the Germans. In the 19th century, it was the Orgy of Talanide. So when you go there,

you see a little isle, like a chalet, a little isle in the countryside, with the little wooden bed, it looks like it's a gaspizy, you know, it's the same, the trees, the work. There's just the architecture, you know, some domes, religious, how do you say it? Orthodox, the little...

But no, it's... There are a lot of similar things. And it was in 86, when the Russians started to have the light after a long tunnel. Absolutely. So, it was wonderful. So, I have a little story about it. I said, how? Because they were waiting for us after the show, and we were five. We went to each one in a family.

So, we were five and we a family. We shared. It was part of the show for us. We went to bed at 7 a.m. but we all went through some extraordinary moments. One day, I was with one of these people who had been waiting outside for an hour and a half in the cold, and he told me, I lived through a difficult day.

I had to go get a door handle. And then something terrible happened, because there were five models, and I never was able to choose. Because he had never chosen anything in his life. Because in UHS there was only one model of a dough handle. That's right. And you stayed there. Or not there, that's where you stay. And it's a family home, you're going to have three families in my house.

Goodbye and thank you. It won't hurt you, but that's it. So he was on the ground. He didn't come back. He said, can you imagine, I wasn't able to choose. I said, you're hungry, you're hungry. And then he took out his pot of caviar eggs. He took out the whole pot of caviar

and we drank Russian champagne, a little bit of Chipette. We brought the bottle, we knew that every night someone would welcome us at his place. So we would bring champagne and spend hours with the family. I promise you, Louise, the next time we meet, I'll bring caviar and champagne. Good champagne. Thank you. It's a pleasure. You're a crystal in my life. And you, as Nina Simone said, a charming lady.

Thank you.