Maude Audet's first two albums—2015’s Nous sommes le feu and 2017’s Comme une odeur de déclin—suggested that the Montreal singer-songwriter had a studied reverence for vintage folk-pop. While the influence of artists such as Françoise Hardy, Serge Gainsbourg, and The Mamas & The Papas is only more pronounced on her third LP, Tu ne mourras pas (“You Will Not Die”), she’s still determined to allow her true self to shine through. “I try to listen to my heart, to let things out,” Audet tells Apple Music. “And sometimes I’m surprised! I love music from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, and the more songs I compose, the clearer that direction has become. But we still sought out more contemporary sounds, because for me it was really important that it didn’t turn into a mishmash of that era.” The result—made alongside collaborators and musicians including producer Mathieu Charbonneau, string arranger Marianne Houle, and lyricist Erika Soucy—is a delicate, melancholic record that addresses love, the passage of time, and death in all the various forms it can take. Audet tells us the stories that shaped each of the album's tracks. Tu trembleras encore “I was inspired by the history of another generation of women. Very few of them were in the job market—like our grandmothers, for example—and they were destined to stay at home and look after the kids, meals, and household chores. I’m not saying it was better or worse than today, but when everything you have in life revolves around that, there’s a sort of inevitable grieving process when confronted by loneliness and the passage of time.” Demande-moi “This one is a more fraternal, family story, but I think it could apply to couples too, because even though it may appear to be a different kind of love, it remains a very profound one. It’s a song about finding a balance, admitting our mistakes, acknowledging we’re vulnerable, and trying to change, then saying we’ve changed and picking up the pieces. And that’s so much easier said than done! In a relationship, as a family, you can’t hide anything, because they know you all too well.” Laura “This is another love song, a kind of conversation between two people who find each other later in life but decide to take the plunge, to make each other happy and grow old together.” Nos bras lâches “This track is about the dreams we relinquish too quickly. We sometimes resign ourselves when it comes to certain things, and we shouldn’t. When I say ‘nos bras lâches’ ('our arms give way’), it’s a poetic metaphor; it doesn’t mean giving in out of cowardice, but rather that we often become complacent, living in a sort of denial. We like to convince ourselves that everything’s fine. At times, it’s true, everything is fine, but there are other times when things could be better.” Tu ne mourras pas “It’s about death, about the people who leave us. When it happens, it’s up to us to keep them alive within us. Yes, their absence will always be felt and we have to cope with the grief, but afterwards it’s nice to look back on the moments spent with the ones we loved.” Couteau de poche (feat. Philippe B) “It’s a song that talks of teenage love, of two people who meet but for them it’s still a bit too early in their lives; they’ve not yet reached that stage. As with all young relationships, they happen and they blow over, like a tiny flash of light in an entire lifetime. The track was composed with Philippe B for a special concert in Montreal in 2018. I’d written the verses but still didn’t have a refrain. He sent me this a few weeks later and we decided to sing it together.” Fille canon “This one talks about people who know us through and through and to whom it’s not always easy to admit we were in the wrong. Sometimes we say too much, we talk before we think, and we can hurt these people much more than we could hurt a stranger. It’s like a discussion with someone we’ve upset, or to whom we’d like to say certain things. It’s got a little psychedelic side to it; Mathieu and I both really love it. We like them all, but we were super happy with the production on this one. We had an idea in mind, and that was to recreate a sort of vintage energy using an old Solina synthesizer we’d picked up in the trash. There are no strings; it’s the synthesizer that plays the strings. We had a gong too, and timpani; we wanted to give it a slightly more orchestral feel.” Femme flamme “Someone gave me my family tree, and that’s what fired my inspiration for the song. Looking at it and realizing it was based only on the male line of descent, I thought to myself: ‘It’s crazy, there are chapters in my life story I didn’t even know about because of the way one of the lines is always left by the wayside.’ I even gave my kids my partner’s name without thinking twice about it, and I’m really proud of it and I love my family. But this has been the common practice for hundreds of years, and there are lots of women whose names have fallen into obscurity. I delved into the poetical side of it all, but that’s what triggered this story, one about the ‘forgotten’ side of some women, but also about their impact on our lives.” Juste un peu de temps “This is another track about people who will one day leave us, close to the theme in ‘Tu ne mourras pas’ but addressed differently. ‘Tu ne mourras pas’ talks about the memories we have of people and the ways they touched our lives, while this one is about the time we have left to enjoy being with the people we love, and just how important and precious it is. I genuinely wrote it thinking about those who will leave us.” Les gelées de novembre “This is one I wrote for my kids. It’s not so much about them, but about my fear that they’ll no longer need me. I tell myself a large chunk of the journey is already behind me, and time goes by so fast, so I need to make the most of every moment during the time I get to see them every day. It flies by. You wish it never had to end!” Tant de ciels “It’s a very short recording of my kids’ voices when they were younger. The song features on digital platforms, but on the physical album, it’s like a hidden track. The title is a tiny nod at the song ‘Juste un peu de temps.’ When I say, 'Et les murs/De cette maison/Qui a vu changer tant de ciels' (‘And the walls/Of this house/That have seen so many changing skies’), what I mean is that we still have loads of sunsets, loads of sunrises, and loads of evenings to spend together, but this day-to-day life will obviously eventually come to an end.”