Elisapie will never forget the day, a few years ago, when an ABBA song made her cry — not just a few token tears, but a deluge. As she listened to one of the Swedish pop supergroup’s hits, something stirred. Long-buried subconscious memories knocked. And, as they got louder, the tears followed. These sobbing sessions happened again and again with other songs, often accompanied by the sweats.
“It’s funny,” says the JUNO Award-winning artist, reflecting on that day. “I mean, ‘who cries to an ABBA song?’”
The singer-songwriter wondered what the hell was happening. Eventually, she figured out what this psychological and spiritual journey meant. ABBA, for example, made her remember her cousins and the good times they shared listening to these sing-a-long songs. With this also came memories of the abuse these family members suffered at the hands of their parents. What all these songs, which triggered intense emotional responses, had in common was they were part of the soundtrack of her childhood.
“These were songs I had grown up listening to on our community radio station in Nunavik with my cousins,” she explains. “I had buried many traumatic experiences from that time in my life … I could not listen to Blondie’s ‘Heart of Glass’ or Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish You Were Here’ without crying.”
While Elisapie, now in her mid 40s, has called Montreal home for more than 20 years, she was born and raised by an adoptive family, which she describes as “caring, but slightly dysfunctional” in Salluit, the second northernmost Inuit village in Quebec, accessible only by plane. The artist’s formative years were marked by trauma (witnessing first-hand the effects of colonialism), tragedy (the loss of cousins who ended their lives), and joy (dances at the village’s community center).
THE ROAD TO INUKTITUT
Elisapie always wanted to release a covers album, but never had time between penning originals. Like many musicians, the pandemic gave her an opportunity to think deeper, pausing and reflecting upon where her art would take her next.
As she started to write, she also started to listen to more music, especially melodies from her past, which she describes as “good-old songs.” Through this mental archaeological process, Elisapie discovered many of these songs were tied to emotional experiences and people from her past. Initially, the idea was to make some demos on acoustic guitar to process these repressed feelings. As the exercise evolved, she realized something bigger was at work, and the concept for Inuktitut — her latest record released this fall — was born.
From ABBA to Metallica and Blondie to Led Zeppelin, the only criteria, as she curated the cover songs that made the album, was they had to resonate. Through this artistic act, Elisapie tells her untold stories. She also offers these covers as a gift to the broader Inuit community.
“How I eliminated and found the fine line that I was following was whether I had huge tears or not when I heard these songs,” Elisapie explains. “I could not just do a song because it was cool … it had to be emotional for me.
“There was a specific world that I wanted to introduce through my memories and my voice,” she continues. “There is melancholy, but I also wanted people to dance. These are not just my stories. They are my family stories, my community stories, and stories from the North.”
Once the 10 songs were finalized, she sought permission from the artists for her to translate and adapt these songs to her Inuit language (Inuktitut). From the Rolling Stones to Pink Floyd, she is grateful everyone eventually said yes.
“Uummati Attanarsimat (Heart of Glass),” the first single from Inuktitut released late last spring, not only resonated with listeners, but also with Debbie Harry, Blondie’s lead singer, who was moved by the Inuk singer-songwriter’s rendition of their 1979 chart-topping hit and sent her a personal message.
Part of Elisapie’s joy in releasing Inuktitut is knowing that elders will finally understand what bands like Fleetwood Mac or Led Zeppelin are all about.
“They’ve heard their kids sing these songs in English for years,” she says.
One must buy a physical copy of the record to fully understand — and to appreciate — the meanings behind each cover. The liner notes include write-ups about every song that explains the emotional resonance and story behind their inclusion. To illustrate, Metallica’s “The Unforgiven” has a dual meaning. First, as a 15-year-old working for the community radio station, Elisapie interviewed the heavy metal band’s lead guitarist Kirk Hammett. The deeper meaning involves her cousins and the resilience they taught her during her formative years.
“When I listen to this song, I am back in my cousin’s room, in the depth of the wonder of their extraordinary teenage minds preparing for a deep spiritual battle,” she explains in the liner notes. “And I realize they taught me to survive and persevere. And even though I thought I had to protect them all, they were also protecting me in their own ways.”
“Qaisimalaurittuq (Wish You Were Here)” was one of the hardest songs on Inuktitut to record.
“That is a big one for me because it really liberated the mourning that I had to go through over my cousins that committed suicide,” Elisapie says. “That opened something, but the way The Westerlies [a brass quartet from New York] gave me a huge gift and uplifted everything and set free this song and they freed the pain. It’s beautiful, but also so fragile.”
Now that these beautiful and sad songs are in the world, Elisapie realizes this project — through hearing these songs sung in their language for the first time — can help her community heal. And, in reliving her trauma and digging up the repressed memories each cover represents, she hopes to keep the conversations about truth and reconciliation ongoing.
“We, as a people, have strong survival skills, but our people had so much damage done to them,” Elisapie concludes. “It’s time to reopen some wounds … we all have to grieve and heal. It’s a good time to be Indigenous. People want to hear us … when they say ‘let’s hear your story’ that gives us power and strength.”
Track List
- Isumagijunnaitaungituq (The Unforgiven)
- Sinnatuumait (Dreams)
- Taimangalimaaq (Time After Time)
- Qimatsilunga (I Want to Break Free)
- Qaisimalaurittuq (Wish You Were Here) feat. the Westerlies
- Californiamut (Going to California)
- Uummati Attanarsimat (Heart of Glass)
- Inuuniaravit (Born to Be Alive)
- Taimaa Qimatsiniungimat (Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye)
- Qimmijuat (Wild Horses)
Elisapie is featured in the National Music Centre’s Speak Up! exhibition at Studio Bell which showcases Indigenous artists that have made a social impact on music in Canada.
