les chants de maldoror

The song title references Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror), a long surrealistic and macabre prose poem consisting of six cantos. It was written and published in the late 1860s by the Comte de Lautréamont, the pseudonym of the Uruguayan-born French writer Isidore-Lucien Ducasse (April 4, 1846 - November 24, 1870). The title character Maldoror is a figure of absolute evil who is opposed to God and humanity, and has shunned conventional morality. The work had a major influence on modern literature, particularly on the Surrealists and the Situationists.

This was the most challenging track on Innocence Reaches to complete. Of Montreal frontman Kevin explained to Billboard magazine: "We recorded 'Le Chants de Maldoror ' a couple times to experiment with different tempos and styles. That one made me crazy. There are so many ways to approach a song. Then you think, 'Now it's time to record: should we add drum programming? Live drums? What kind of groove? What are the reference points? Reggae style? Let's try this fast. Let's make it a pop song. Let's play it like the Violent Femmes or the Stooges.' We tried all that, but ended up using a song by the band War as inspiration. It had an energy and vibe that worked. It's putting all the pieces together, in a collage, and pulling all these different reference points and styles together."