Jean-Pierre Ferland (1934-2024) | Ferland in 10 immortals

He sang about love, often with humor, but also with fragility. Jean-Pierre Ferland leaves a vast and diverse songwriting legacy, between theatrical rock and intimate songs. Without forgetting his great anthem which leads us to see the world from a little higher, a little further.

Listen to ten songs by Jean-Pierre Ferland

The immortals (1961)

Ferland, firstly, owed a lot to the fairly classic French song. Particularly here, where he plays with his deep voice, distilling a very wise romanticism. Your face, apparently inspired by Renée Claude, who will also sing it, is cut from the same wood. The seducer has not yet transformed the performer.

I’m coming back home (1968)

In 1968, in Paris, Jean-Pierre Ferland was bored… He then wrote this song whose refrain (“Make a fire in the fireplace…”) resonated throughout a large part of the French-speaking world. It appears on his homonymous album published the same year and on which he recorded another of his best-known tunes: If I knew how to talk to women.

Marie Claire (1968)

There have been Simone, Isabelle, Jenniferbut, of all the women sung by Jean-Pierre Ferland, the most famous remains Marie Claire. On a simple guitar score, he gives the romantic-humorous chronicle of a first romantic encounter. It’s fine and full of smiles.

When we love we are always 20 years old (1970)

Jean-Pierre Ferland operates an almost total artistic mutation on YELLOW, recorded at André Perry’s studio. His language has lost none of its elegance, but here it is lifted by daring music and modern orchestrations. We remember several songs from this record, including this one, with a perky chorus, while the verses are serious.

You are my love, you are my mistress (1974)

It’s hard to imagine it these days, but hearing the word “butt” in this song shocked some chaste ears in 1974, when You are my love, you are my mistress. What do we remember today? That this is the first beautiful Ferland/Reno duo and that this duo has no equal.

A little further (1969)

Ginette Reno wasn’t sure she wanted to sing You are my love, you are my mistress. In 1975, on Mount Royal, she absolutely wanted to do A little further (often presented under the title A little higher, a little further), song already associated with Renée Claude. She triumphed with this grandiose piece, which she subsequently sang in a duet with its author. This song remains the symbol of a fruitful collaboration between a great author and a great performer. And a long friendship.

No two songs are the same (nineteen eighty one)

Nice piece in homage to the song and the balm it brings to lives. Sometimes we only remember the chorus, easy to sing in chorus, but the verses are imbued with a warm melancholy.

don’t listen to that (1995)

Ferland’s third artistic reinvention involves guitars, mainly acoustic, but extremely warm. don’t listen to that was recorded at home, in his sugar shack, and you can hear it. Jean-Pierre Ferland shows, on the title track of this album, that he still knows how to think outside the box.

A chance we have (1995)

We know a song is great when it fits naturally into important moments in everyone’s lives. A chance we have, perhaps the most powerful declaration of love in Ferland’s entire repertoire, has played at many a wedding. A hymn to capsizing love.

The music (1995)

He played and he overplayed, Ferland. Jean-Pierre has perhaps never shown himself as vulnerable as on this song, both dense and very simple. Finfinaude and perfectly authentic. Hearing a singer then aged 61, who had just experienced setbacks, sing “Music, my love of music, do you still love me? Music, my treasure, do you still love me? “, it gives you chills.