Montreal-born French-Canadian songwriter, poet and novelist. Plume is unfortunately mainly known as a drunkard rather than as an author. Plume is often cited has one of Quebec's most popular singers. He performs each year at the St. Jean-Baptiste (Quebec day) parties.
He began his career in the sixties in rock bands. He grew popular amongst working class fans for his politically incorrect lyrics (often about sex, alcohol, and using coarse language - joual) and heavy beer consumption on stage.
Excerpt from Jonquière :
Mou comme une crotte
Chaud(1) comme un spot dans mes culottes
Qui éclaire le stage(2) ou j'm'en vas jouer
J'ai une demi-heure pour dégriser.
---
Soft as shit
Warm(1) as a spot in my pants
Lighting the stage on which I'm gonna play
I've got half an hour to sober up
(1) "chaud" literally means "warm" or "hot" but is used as "drunk" in joual.
(2) Plume uses several english words in his sentences, which is quite typical in Quebec working class language.
Plume's fans can easily recognize themselves in his lyrics, which often mention Quebec
politicians, Montreal
bars or Montreal
streets, and of course alcoholism. His shows were quickly known as
alcohol orgies. Plume once said : "
there are lots of people who would like to come to our shows, but who are too scared of getting puked in the back". Plume himself has been banned from a couple bars for doing such things as urinating on people.
But despite the party atmosphere Plume took his writing quite seriously and in between two grotesque party songs often sung his poems, which were not as popular. His vocabulary was also much richer than that of his average fan. Since the nineties, Plume has been trying to lose that "bum" reputation and be known as a poet. He published an album, "chansons nouvelles" ("new songs"), excusively made of poems. It was not as popular and even though Plume does not drink anymore in his shows his fans are still as drunk and still yell his old song's names.
Truly a Quebec party symbol.