Cœur de Pirate Discusses Feminism, #MeToo, and How Both Have Shaped Her Latest Album

By Lauren Johnson

Last week 29-year-old French Canadian singer-songwriter Béatrice Martin, who goes by the stage name of “Cœur de pirate” (or “Pirate Heart” for the non-French-speaking out there) came to Boston and New York to play two shows for enthusiastic crowds, beginning her North American tour and promoting her latest album, “En cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé.” Ahead of her jam-packed concert at Irving Plaza last Friday night, I had a chance to speak with Cœur de pirate about her evolution as an artist, how the #MeToo movement inspired her latest album, and what it’s like to play south of the (Canadian) border.

Q: Your first album came out 10 years ago – how does it feel to be making music for over a decade, and how do you feel you’ve changed or grown as an artist?

Cœur de pirate: I’ve grown up a lot, it’s important to know that I started doing this when I was 19. What I wanted to talk about in my songs when I was 19 changes a lot when you’re almost 30, so the albums evolved and I’ve evolved as well, and I’m glad to see that the fans kinda followed with that, and have sorta grown up with me.

Q: While preparing for this interview, I read that many of the songs on this album were inspired by personal stories and the #MeToo movement – can you elaborate a bit on that?

Cœur de pirate: The album is very much ingrained in feminism and the way that it really made me realize from a lot of my situations that I was applying integrated misogyny…that is something that we all do. I think it’s something that stems from our society and the fact that we’ve grown up thinking that we have to act a certain way, say the proper things, etc. And so I’ve always been in situations where I let things happen because I thought that that was the way to do things, and I realized even in my songwriting in the past, a lot of my actions were very much ingrained in that like, you know, “you’re boyfriend cheats on you, you’re gonna be mad at the girl, you’re not gonna be mad at your boyfriend” [mindset]. That really is the patriarchy, telling us we have to act this way.

 

Q: How did this come into play with your latest album,”en cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé”?

Cœur de pirate: I looked at every situation I’ve been in in my life, and for this album specifically it tells a story. It begins with Somnambule, which is a song that talks about falling in love for the first time, but it’s really about forgetting yourself in the first throes of love, like you forget your needs and what you’re supposed to do, and it’s very much a song about co-dependency, which is not something that we realize when we listen to music sometimes. Obviously when you listen to the song you’re like ‘This is such a beautiful song!’ but at the same time [when you listen to it], it’s not healthy at all, it’s extremely problematic. So we start with this one and then we keep going, and I talk about a lot of weird subjects – well, not weird, I think it’s important to talk about them, like conjugal rape, etc. And there’s this whole story that I lived through where I dated somebody who did do a sexual assault on a girl, and I learned about it later, and that, like- feeling of guilt by proxy, and feeling used because the person knew of my abuse in the past, and [that started] this whole circle of wondering why am I always in these kinds of situations and how can I get out of it? So the album was very much about figuring that out.

Q: One thing I think that’s so inspiring in your career is that you’re very open with your fans about these issues and about mental health, which is finally becoming a mainstream subject in a way. What is something that you wish you could have shared with your younger self or your young fans out there?

Cœur de pirate: I think I was just like repressing a lot of things because I was scared what people would think in the past, which is normal you know, you’re just starting out and you’re very scared that people are going to think a certain way about you. And I had this, you not, not so clean an image…I had a lot to make up for. But now, getting older, I don’t give a shit any more, like the reason why I do this is to help people.

Q: Kind of switching gears a little bit, you came down to the US to play a couple of shows before heading back up to Canada – what do you like or find different playing in the US or for a US audience?

Cœur de pirate: It’s kinda cool here ’cause I get more of an indie crowd, I have like a lot of French-speaking fans, a lot of them come to the shows, but I have a lot of people who are my age that just come to the shows because they like music, and it doesn’t matter if they don’t understand it per se, they still really, really dig it…a lot of people are like “I’m into Wes Anderson films and I’ll go see a Cœur de pirate concert” [laughs]. I think it’s so cool! Because it’s so different in Quebec and in France, it’s a broader audience, I have a lot of kids, which is amazing too, but it’s good to have a little bit of both.

Q: What can fans expect to see from Cœur de pirate in the future?

Cœur de pirate: I’ve always wanted to write for other people, and sign other people, and just do things on my own and help other kids. ‘Cause like me, I’m good, I like performing, but I like helping people more, so if I can help out other artists and musicians, that’s cool.

Click here to read our review of Kate Nash’s performance at Irving Plaza.