Of the ten songs on Offenbach’s Traversion album, six were composed to the music of John McGale. Lyricist Pierre Huet wrote the lyrics for these six tracks.
• Also read: Death of John McGale: Offenbach family in shock
Pierre Huet, who wrote lyrics for Beau Dommage, had heard through an intermediary that Gerry Boulet was looking for lyrics following the departure of lyricist Pierre Harel in 1974. Huet was an Offenbach fan.
Photo archive, Agency QMI
Lyricist Pierre Huet wrote several songs for Offenbach, including some by John McGale.
A collaboration that began with My Blues Pass has resulted in ‘porte.
“I wrote these words in a chalet to then propose them at a table in a bar in Offenbach. Gerry then ordered me lyrics for other songs,” he said yesterday after the death of guitarist John McGale.
John McGale and Breen Leboeuf had just switched to Offenbach after the departures of Michel Lamothe and Roger Belval.
“Gerry always brought me sample songs. The tapes came one after the other,” he noted.
J’ai l’Rock’n’Roll pis toé is the first song I edited with music composed by Offenbach. It was a composition by John McGale,” he said.
On the demos of songs by John McGale, supplied by Gerry, the lyrics were in English.
“It wasn’t a translation. I listened to the music and phonetics of John McGale’s lyrics and then wrote my own lyrics. The song Femme qui s’en va, for example, based on Funky Samba. It had good music and my challenge was to write lyrics to it,” he said.
Pierre Huet also wrote the lyrics for Two Other Beers, Les eaux qui dormants and Je l’sais ben to music by John McGale. He also wrote those of Je chante comme un coyote and Bye Bye! On this record, considered by many to be Offenbach’s finest.
Write on the fly
The lyrics of eight of the ten songs on Offenbach’s traversion were written by Pierre Huet. The lyrics for these songs were written in three weeks.
“I was in the studio with the guys to finish writing sentence by sentence. They were a little rushed with limited studio time. It was a big creative rush,” he said.
In 1979, busy with the beginnings of the humor magazine Croc, where he co-founded with Hélène Fleury, Pierre Huet, who also wrote for Paul Piché, continued his collaboration with Offenbach with the titles Mach dir eine Idee and La wild cat , present on the Tonnebrick opus (1983) and Taxi Rock & Roll on Rockorama (1985). Again three songs with music by John McGale.
“I also quit because the music Offenbach offered me was less interesting,” he said.
Pierre Huet states that he was not a close friend of the guitarist who died in a violent road trip in Lacolle in Montérégie on Saturday night.
“The Beau Dommage boys were my friends. With John it was a friendly relationship within a professional relationship. I wouldn’t have had the instinct to call John for a beer. We wrote to each other and we saw each other at events sometimes and were happy,” he said.
Pierre Huet and John McGale met last August during the vinyl reissue of the Traversion album.
“He asked me to write him a text inspired by his lifestyle. I had thrown him a sentence that said I feel loose in my tight jeans. He had started laughing. I went home and wrote a verse and chorus that I sent to him,” he said.