All inducted songs
Considered to be his "most important song", as it reveals what will be known as his own style: a mix of Quebecness, humour and self-deprecation with the presence of the electric guitar.
Demain l’hiver
  • Year Inducted: 2010
  • Written In: 1967
Songwriters
Robert Charlebois Songwriter
© Photo Credit Library & Archives Canada
Artists
Robert Charlebois
The song Demain l’hiver pays tribute to Quebec and Canada’s magnificent but harsh cold winters that have become such a crucial part of our identity.

In the song, Charlebois offers a humorous ode to the downsides of winter, all the while expressing the warmth and relief Canadian “snowbirds” experience upon heading south. As the song’s protagonist prepares to leave the coldness of Montreal for a warm sunshine and ocean sands, he enumerates all things relating to Quebec winters: hockey, spades, snow blowers, ice, mittens, snow and the cold.

In Demain l’hiver, Charlebois also humorously quotes Gilles Vigneault’s classic song Mon pays, and as such, gaps the bridge between his and Vigneault’s generation of “chansonniers”. When he wrote the song, Charlebois was already starting to influence his own generation of “chansonniers.”

Taken from the album of the same name, Demain l’hiver represents an innovative new leaf in not only Charlebois’ career, but for Quebec popular music as well. Up until that moment, the province’s popular language (called “joual”), heard in Demain l’hiver, was widely criticized and viewed as a negative thing and not yet used by Quebec artists. Demain l’hiver was recorded between his classic album “Lindberg” and Expo 67, an era in Quebec when artists and poets were still searching for a musical or artistic direction. Little did Charlebois know that with this song, he would soon be paving the way towards a new cultural awakening.

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