Song #4: Chainsaw Boots!

I wrote this song in the summer of 2014, while I was splitting up my firewood in my steel-toed, orange Chainsaw boots.

I don't have a scan of the journal page for the song, because I never wrote it down, just made the words up and learned it by repeating them over and over again (with occasional tweaks) while I chopped up my wood. The first time I wrote out the lyrics was in the comments on the YouTube page, so you can see them there.

This song is a great favourite in my home community of West Dublin. If I don't wear my boots to the firehall breakfast, I'll almost always get asked where they are. And when I do wear them anywhere, I'm sure to encounter at least one person who'll say "Nice Boots!"

I hope you get an orange, steel-toed kick out of this song.

Song #3: Rockabilly

I wrote this song during the first Creative Marathon I ever did, which was back in the summer of 2006. I can't remember the exact date of that CM, but I think it's safe to assume that it was shortly after I attended the Hillside Festival in Guelph, which is always the last weekend in July. This song is based on my experience of seeing Luke Doucet perform Bruce Springteen's I'm On Fire at Hillside that year. I hadn't heard that song in years, and in that way that certain songs have to lock into our memories, it took me right back to high school.

My mother taught at the same high school I attended for Grade 11 and 12 (living in a rural area, there was only one consolidated high school, so there wasn't any way out of that happening). I decided to handle this situation by being a really good student, studying hard and not making any waves. I didn't drink, do drugs, skip school or date. I just put my head down and got through it.

I don't regret it; I got an awesome scholarship to U. of T. out of those diligent years and came through university debt-free. But, it meant that I didn't work through any wild rebelliousness when I was in my teens. And that has come back to haunt me once or twice.

I've never recorded this song because I couldn't get the performance right for my record in 2008 and there's also the issue of arranging the rights for the cover of I'm On Fire that this song segues into. Hopefully, I won't get sued for posting it on YouTube.

Song #2: Shadow of Your Shadow (2015 52-Song Project)

The first song in this project was one of my newest; this second song is over 20 years old.

I wrote it in October 1994 in the wake of a bad break-up. I was 23 years old. I was just in the process of defining my identity and that is essentially what this song is about.

The first verse of this song is inspired by Jacques Brel's song Ne Me Quitte Pas, which ends with the lyrics: "Laisse moi devenir / l'ombre de ton ombre / l'ombre de ta main / l'ombre de ton chien" – which translates in English to: "Let me become / the shadow of your shadow / the shadow of your hand / the shadow of your dog".

 

The relationship that ended in 1994 had consisted of a great deal of Jacques Brel and also many shadows. 

Song #1: Weather Hold (2015 52-song project)

Welcome to my 2015 52-song project! 

I'm going to post a previously-unrecorded song to YouTube every Sunday for a year and some of the songs will have corresponding blog posts telling a little something about the origin of the song.

I invite you to subscribe to my YouTube channel and request that you please comment or give thumbs up to the songs you particularly like. I'm going to use feedback I receive to decide what to record on my next album, which I'll hopefully record toward the end of 2015 or in 2016.

I will be including some new songs and some songs from my archives. It seems only right to kick off with one of my most-recently written songs, so here goes.

Song #1: Weather Hold

I wrote this song in November 2014 while I was in Happy Valley-Goose Bay for the Labrador Creative Arts Festival. On the first day of the festival, I was scheduled to fly up to Nain to do some workshops with the kids there. But everything in Labrador is weather dependent and the wind did not co-operate. So, I sat in the airport, along with a number of other LCAF visiting artists, for about seven-eight hours, each hour bringing another update saying that we were on weather hold and there would be another update in an hour or an hour and a half or an hour and 15 minutes.

While having fun getting to know the other artists, my mind was also thinking about waiting, and ceasing to wait (taking the bull by the horns, as we say in my family). The next morning I had nothing scheduled (because I was supposed to still be in Nain) so I sat down at wrote this song. It was a wonderful way to transform my disappointment about not being able to travel up the coast into something positive.

I hope you enjoy it.

(If you'd like to read the lyrics, they are posted on You Tube with the song.)