In Mens-me, her new album which will be released on Friday, Brigitte Boisjoli has for the first time in her career written all her songs. And she drew on her tormented past of love to offer a raw work, coated in soul and delivered with an open heart.
Since her debut album in 2011, Brigitte Boisjoli had composed “only one sentence here and there”, and she had never felt the need to do more. Until she had a kind of epiphany during a collective show, a little before the pandemic.
“I left there and I said to myself ‘hey, I’m tired of singing covers'”, says the one who made a tribute album to Patsy Cline in 2015, another dedicated to Plamondon in 2017, then resumed hits country in Women in 2019.
“After that night, I took out my Canada notebook to write some stuff,” she continues. And crime, I thought it was no worse! Then I showed it to others, and the world told me “it’s good Brigitte, continue”. I trusted myself in that. »
Ice storm obliges, it was by Zoom that we spoke with Brigitte Boisjoli last week. But the screen is no barrier to her lively and joyful energy, as she enthusiastically tells us how she transformed into a singer-songwriter, how melodies “popped” in her head and ‘she arrived in the studio with very specific ideas.
“I haven’t done so much trial and error. The tunes that I made, it was already almost a finished product that I heard. “From there to say that the process was easy, there is only one step … that she does not cross.
“I lived through days of torment,” says Brigitte Boisjoli, who wanted to write a hyper personal album from her life and her experiences. Which led her to “get back into a business couple” that didn’t do her any good. “Things that I thought were settled, but as I wrote, I was like, ‘Oh, look how unsettled this stuff is!’ »
Lie to me is a bit like the diary of a “lover of love” which frankly recounts toxic relationships, verbal abuse, infidelity, lies, painful breakups, and in which she exposes herself . She confirms. “It’s not in the sweetness!” It’s a relatively raw album. »
She is in this “tinted” by the journey, the honesty and the way of “saying those words” of singers like Adele and Amy Winehouse. She listened to them a lot, which was reflected in her writing.
Even though there were more difficult moments, Brigitte Boisjoli made peace with many things during the writing, as if she opened the door to therapy. “There are a lot of resilience songs. Are you in your forties doing this? It seems to me that we are more resilient with beautiful and less beautiful things. »
In any case, she talks about it now with a smile because “just saying it is already curing the sore”. And she knows well today the woman and the lover that she is… and was. It’s not for nothing that she sings “The path is long / To find my name / This time I’ll take the right one / To find my soul” in the poignant The path. A very soulful piece… like quite a few of the others on the album, which wanders between gospel and R
“I gave myself carte blanche as to how it would sound. How does Brigitte Boisjoli sound in 2023? I did not know. But that’s where it went and it became my guideline. »
She worked with experienced artisans, Jay Lefebvre on the composition and then Gauthier Marinof on the production. They wrapped her up “like a big, comfy woolen vest,” but more importantly, they were able to figure out what she wanted, and work fast and well. “I don’t like it when it’s long. It took someone who clicks. »
Brigitte Boisjoli turned 40 in September… and “bawled a lot.” “I think it’s going fast. I see myself getting old and it annoys me. But I accept these 40 years. “Especially since she is in a good professional period and that she feels better surrounded than ever. Lie to me may not be a new beginning, but it is definitely another step that begins.
“It’s not my first barbecue,” she explains. But I feel that it is a continuity that is more like me. »
Cover albums, there will still be some, just like shows in which she will be called upon to sing Celine Dion as well as AC/DC. Because Brigitte Boisjoli likes to sing “very short”, because interpreting other people’s songs in her own way is a profession that fascinates her.
But she will also continue to write her songs because it has “entered into her body”, and she welcomes the status of singer-songwriter with a beaming smile and a lot of pride, even if at the beginning she felt a bit like an impostor.
She hopes that the album will find its way into the hearts of the public… and that it will be successful! “I’m afraid, if the review isn’t good… It’s super personal!” I feel feverish and fragile. »
And she would like people to remember the message, which is that you can get out of toxic relationships. She is proof of that, even if there are wounds that we never really heal, even if the means she took to get there are not always the best.
“But I got through it. There is hope. »