In the Top Secrets series, music creators whose songs have reached the peak of the BDS and corresponding ADISQ charts, and who’ve received SOCAN No. 1 Song Awards  for their accomplishments, describe how their chart-topping hits were created.

After writing and performing iconic songs for more than two decades, one might have thought that the Cowboys Fringants’ best years were behind them. Not so with “L’Amérique pleure” (“America is Crying”), a small gem of a song from last year’s album Les Antipodes.  With dark subject matter, and at five minutes long, it was unlikely to become a radio hit. Yet, after slowly maturing over the years and finally making it into the Cowboys’ impressive repertoire, the song reached No. 1 on the ADISQ and BDS charts in Québec, and maintained that position for 26 weeks! It’s an historic record that beats the 25 weeks the 2Frères song “Comme avant” held onto that spot on the same charts

From his home in L’Assomption, in the suburbs of Montréal, Cowboys Fringants songwriter and guitarist JF Pauzé recalls the birth of the song, and summarizes the impact that this unprecedented hit has had on the band, whose other members include Karl Tremblay, Marie-Annick Lépine and Jérôme Dupras.