Hello Nanette,
I was wondering, if it is not too personal, if you could tell me why you waited until your forties to have a baby? Also, I read in your previous article that you were pregnant during the time you recorded with Serge Fiori. Did the pregnancy have an effect on the music you were doing at the time?
Thank you,
Sylvie M.
Hi Sylvie,
The main reason that I waited so long to have a child, is that my life up until my forties was a pretty crazy rock ‘n’ roll life, and not an ideal environment for a child. I was on the road for many years and often out of the country, so a stable home life was impossible at the time. I didn’t want to have a child that someone else would have to take care of while I was off working. Also, I didn’t feel like I had met the right man to be the father of my child.
I was working on the Jazz Festival musical comedy Chicago 1926 with Breen Leboeuf in Montreal when I met André Gagnon, who was the director of photography and was filming a segment for the show. We hit it off right away. He was very intelligent, cultured, and very talented.
My pregnancy was not planned, but since I felt that my biological clock was ticking, I thought that if I didn’t have a child then, I would probably not have another chance to be a parent. I knew right away that André would be a good father. He was very different from me, which was a really good thing at that time. The pregnancy was a turning point in my life. I can honestly say that it straightened me out pretty good!
So, at the time that Changement d’Adresse was conceived, so was my son, Jesse Alexandre. Yet to be born, he became my sweetest inspiration and motivation.
As for the effect it had on the recording, you can be sure that a first-time pregnancy comes with emotional hormonal highs and lows, and things can get very intense. Serge and André were both witness to that!
I had waited for so long to be able to express my feelings through music on subjects that mattered to me, and to find someone that would write “with” me instead of “for” me. I sang on that album with a feeling that I had never experienced on any other recording in the past. I believe that the little life inside me was the reason for that.
When Jesse came into the world, I realized that to create is the most precious gift that we possess.
This is a quote from a very wise and wondrous entity, which I have shared before: “Creation is the act of bringing love from within your being into a unique, free-moving form which will live on into forever.”
So be it.