I have a wide variety of musical tastes in both our official languages including Canadian, celtic, folk, maritime, Acadian, Cajun, 1950s-70s rock 'n roll, blues, and on and on. I'm constantly looking for new tunes to learn. Among the songs I sing, my favourites are the ones that have stories to tell:
Un acadien errant basé sur l'oeuvre d'Antoine Gérin-Lajoie (Un canadien errant, 1842.) Beaucoup de mes cousin acadiens sont en exile depuis plus de 250 ans. Mon interpretation de cette chanson empruntre un quatrième couplet qu'on trouve sur le disque compacte « Pris dans le passé » , par Entourage, un groupe folklorique de Chéticamp. Les paroles additionnelles : « Nos maisons expirants, o ma chère Acadie; Mon regard languissant, vers toi se portera. »
La Ballade de DL-8-153 écrite par mon cousin 'Cadien lointain, Zachary Richard. C'est l'histoire triste du sort des baleines beluga dans le Fleuve saint-laurent.
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda a graphic Australian song about the maimed and forgotten soldiers who give so much of themselves on the field of battle. It was written at a time when their sacrifice was, at best, ignored or, at worst, callously devalued. Following the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, the pride in our Canadian troops grew to its highest level since WWII when my father served in the Canadian Army. Part of this increase is real but some of it is based on some form of jingoistic zeal where the point is simply to "kick butt." That zeal will evaporate once our men and women begin to come home following our planned withdrawal beginning in 2011. From my perspective as a pacifist, our fighting men and women deserve our thanks, our respect and our admiration. Regardless of the politics behind our involvement in that sad war, the heroic efforts of our fighting men and women should never be cast aside.
The Banks of Newfoundland, two variations of which were published in 1932 by Helen Creighton in Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia. A variation of the first version (#103) is sung by the Newfoundland group, Great Big Sea. My version is closer to Creigton's lyrics. I am also partial to her second version (#104) because Nelson, the young captain of the brig Eveline meets his untimely end in Arichat, where I was born.
The Black Fly Song, by Wade Hemsworth. I found a print copy of this song in a songbook I borrowed from the St-Albert library 25 years ago or so. I finally got a recording of it on the CD, "Classic Canadian Songs" published in 2006 by folkwaysAlive! a partnership of the University of Alberta and Smithsonian Folkaways Recordings. It's fast, it's intricate, and it's a challenge for this amateur musician. I continue to work at mastering it.
Bound For the Rio Grande, a traditional sea shanty I found on a CD by Evans & Doherty. It was sung as sailors raised a ship's anchor before leaving port. The line that strikes home for me: "We'll sell our salt cod for molasses and rum." Salt cod was the main industry in Petit-de-grat from its very beginnings to the mid-20th century. My grandparents and their forebears salted tons of cod going back to at least 1724. I salted my share in the summers when I was out of school. In the photos page, you can see a faded picture of my great-grandfather standing among flakes used to dry salt cod. When my father built his first house, he lined his hand-dug well by stacking three old puncheon barrels that arrived on one of those trading trips to the West Indies.
Canadian Whiskey, American Guns by Steve Pineo, a Calgary singer/songwriter. Since moving to Alberta, I've become interested in the history of the Canadian west. One constant thread seems to be the whiskey trade, beginning with unscrupulous traders who headed north across the Medicine Line to the rum-runners who supplied liquor to the US in the Prohibition era. Steve situates his song in 1925, but it has clear echoes of earlier runs into the Northwest Territory by whiskey traders looking to relieve the Blackfoot and other first nations hunters of their buffalo hides by giving them watered-down liquor in trade.
Fisherman's Wharf by Stan Rogers. I lived through a pivot point in history. Electricity arrived in Petit-de-grat only eight years before I was born. Some of the techniques, processes and technologies used by my uncles in the inshore fishery are rooted in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yet here I am, tapping away on a laptop and committing my thoughts to the world-wide-web while my iPpod charges and my wife reads a book on her new e-Reader. In this song, Stan captures the juxtaposition between the old and the new as he saw it from Citadel Hill in Halifax. From his vantage point, he could also see George's Island, where some of my ancestors were imprisoned between 1761 and 1763. But that's not his history. It's mine.
Fogarty's Cove by Stan Rogers. The all-too-common story of a man who works on the sea to the consternation of his wife ashore. The Cove itself is fictional but if it did exist, local lore situates it near Canso, Nova Scotia, about 16 kms across the gut from where I grew up. It took me a while to learn the tune because of it's intricate rhythms and the missing beat in the 2nd and 4th lines of the chorus.
Heartworn Highways ok, it's not a song, it's a whole CD. One of the artists on the CD hosted a group of musical friends including Guy Clark, Susannah Clark, David Allan Coe, Rodney Crowell, Richard Dobson, Steve Earle, John Hiatt, Gamble Rogers, Larry Joe Wilson, Steve Young and Townes Van Zandt. It could have been the Clarks - they hosted many of these guys for years. Each artist sang one or more of his songs and the rest joined in. As the beer, the liquor (and maybe other substances) were consumed, they sounded increasingly like my musical buddies and I sound when we get together for a jam: not very polished and increasingly ragged around the edges as the evening wears on. I can see myself tagging along with them. Love it!
Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier by Corb Lund. Corb looks into the pages of history to pay hommage to horse-borne cavalry on both sides of conflicts through the Middle Ages, Europe, the Asian steppes, Russia, the US, Canada and our First Nations. He notes the end of the horse soldier with the arrival of "modern machinations de la guerre" and points to a bit of a resurgence in Afghanistan. The lines that Corb sings as the song fades out are: "Saw Ross' mount shot down at Washingtown the night we burned the White House down and cursed the sack of York and sons of Yanks."
Pancho and Lefty by Townes van Zandt. What can I say. I'm a fan.
Partons, la mer est belle Une chanson traditionelle acadienne que j'ai appris quand j'étais un jeune enfant. C'est la chanson triste du fils d'un pêcheur qui fut noyé en gagnant sa vie sur la mer. Le fils se trouve responsable du soutien de sa mère, un devoir qu'il peut réaliser seulement s'il continue le metier de son père malgré les dangers d'une vie au large. On me dit qu'il existe un film tourné par l'ONF dans lequel mon grand-père (Pépé John) et mon oncle (Xyste - oui c'était vraiment son nom) chantent cette chanson sur le quai de mon grand-père. J'aimerais le trouver, ce film.
Rolling Down to Old Maui A traditional forebiter that I first heard from Stan Rogers. It's also on a CD "Sea Shanties: Rousing Songs from the Age of Sail." It's the story of men returning to Maui from a whaling expedition in the North Pacific. "Once more we sail with the northerly gale through the ice and wind and rain. Them coconut fronds, them tropical lands, we soon will see again." I have to sing it to my future step-daughter-in-law who has Hawaiian ancestry. It might be a better choice than John Prine's "Talk to Me Dirty in Hawaiian"
The Sky Above, the Mud Below by Tom Russell. Dark songs are not my usual fare but I like the poetry and imagery in this tale of two horse thieves who moonlighted as braiders of "horesehair bridles, ropes and quirts." They stole the favourite horse of a certain Deacon Black then tried to sell Deac a horsehair bridle made of hair from his butchered horse. Deacon, a fallen preacher, owned the bar, was the sheriff, the judge and owned the hearse. He recognized the hair in the bridle ...
We'll Carry On by Jimmie Rankin. A song about the demise of the east coast fishing industry that ends with a determined promise to "carry on." My home village of Petit-de-grat was a very poor place during its first 225 years. Then in the early 1950s, the Booth fish company of Boston came and built the most modern fresh fish processing plant of its day. My father worked there and played a role in the massive increase in the efforts from both sides of the ocean to harvest fish from the North Atlantic. During its first 20 years, the plant and the people of Isle Madame prospered. Then the bottom fell out of the industry as fish stocks dwindled, fuel costs rose and profits turned into losses. The plant changed hands several times and eventually was demolished. My Acadian cousins, relying on the historical Acadian belief that things will get better around the next corner, did what they had done so many times before: they carried on and found new ways to eke a living from the granite the village is perched on and from the waters that surround it.
