PEI Bound

Home, I'm comin' home!  Found out today I'll be starting work on Prince Edward Island in July... and I could not be happier!!

This song was originally written by my sister.  I hope she won't mind that I channelled my enthusiasm about moving to PEI into writing a few new lines.  

P-r-i-n-c-e
E-d-w-a-r-d
I-s-l-a-n-d
P.E.I get ready for me!

The water's blue and the soil is red
There's lots of places to lay your head
We are famous for a girl named Anne
And we (used to) have a pop-can ban

We've got Lennie Gallant and Stompin' Tom

Two Hours Traffic and Tim Chaisson

You'll tap your toes at the ceilidh hall

At Baba's Lounge you'll be having a ball

There are oysters laying in their oyster bed
And big crowds swimming at Basin Head
There's lots of lobster and lots of tuna
Lots of Keith's and lots of Schooner

P-r-i-n-c-e

E-d-w-a-r-d

I-s-l-a-n-d

P.E.I get ready for me!

[sung to the tune of This Old Man]

The turntable

Our home has lately been filled with the warm snap crackle pop of records on the turntable.  What a great Christmas gift.  I've always wanted a record player.  Well, one that was new enough that it wasn't a fire hazard (I owned a little portable player briefly in the late 1990s but its 1960s wiring just scared me).

I raided my parents' album stash years ago.  When the new turntable arrived, we also raided my in-laws' collection.  Add some more vinyl from Fred's, and here is the best-of-the-best of our collection:

[mosaic maker via Big Huge Labs, for those interested]

Holiday playlist

I've been collecting a list of favorite not-necessarily-traditional holiday tunes over the past several years.  I was first inspired by a former lab-mate who made an amazing mix CD (that was before everyone had an iPod and an iPod dock) that I "borrowed".

So, in no particular order, allow me to provide you with my current Christmas/holiday playlist.  YouTube or other links are provided.  Some songs are traditional Christmas carols, some are less-than-traditional, some are just wintery songs that I like to listen to at this time of year.

Song For A Winter's Night - Gordon Lightfoot
Gordon Lightfoot's songs take me back to my earliest memories of childhood.  This Christmas, I received Gord's Gold on vinyl... along with a photo of a new turntable set up in my living room back in St. John's!  Guess I'll be listening to this song all winter long.

Fairytale of New York - The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl
Oh how I love this song.  Maybe my favorite of the season.  See my previous blog post regarding the Jenn Grant and In Flight Safety version of the same.

At Last, I'm Ready For Christmas - Stan Rogers (link to a cover version)
Oh Stan.  He sings the truth.  This song captures the reality of Christmas for young families.  Another Stan favorite of mine is First Christmas... but it always jerks tears so I have left it off my official playlist.  Especially since this WAS my first Christmas away from home.

I Believe In Santa Claus - Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers
Dolly and Kenny are a staple at my house over the holidays.

Christmas Must Be Tonight - The Band
Shockingly, I just discovered this song this year.  Very catchy. 

O Holy Night - Weezer
I'm surprised that Weezer's whole Christmas album is religious, with the exception of We Wish You a Merry Christmas.  Anyway, I think it's a fun update from the usual version I hear at church every year.

White Winter Hymnal - Fleet Foxes
This is one of the non-Christmas songs... but I love it.  Just love these guys.  When My Morning Jacket zigged with Evil Urges, these guys zagged in.

Christmas In Killarney - The Irish Rovers
I think I sang this in my grade four Christmas concert.

Merry Christmas Everyone - Séan McCann (song download link)
This is a new release out this year from a Great Big Sea member going out on his own.  I downloaded it because it was free, and it grew on me.

Christmastime - The Smashing Pumpkins
This is one of the songs from my lab-mate I mentioned earlier.  Definitely a new classic.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - John Lennon & Yoko Ono
Self-explanatory.

Seven Joys Of Mary - Great Big Sea
Wow.  Traditional, but not classic Christmas.  This song really gets my foot tapping.

I Saw Three Ships - Sting
Short and sweet.  Sting's sound really goes well with this traditional song.

Snoopy's Christmas - The Royal Guardsmen
I have always loved this one.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Barenaked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan
BNL is one of the few bands whose Christmas albums/specials I just adore.

Wintertime Love - The Doors
SO not a Christmas song.  This is maybe my favorite Doors album (Waiting for the Sun).  If you like the Doors at all, I would check it out.

Come And I Will Sing You (The Twelve Apostles) - Great Big Sea
Another traditional song from GBS.  I know it's not a Christmas song, but it somehow feels right at this time of year.  Maybe it's because I first heard this album over a Christmas break; maybe because it's church-y and this time of year church-y songs are kosher.

Little Drummer Boy - Bob Dylan
Most new Bob Dylan songs freak me out a little.  His holiday album is no exception.  This video is quite entertaining though... nothing like the Must Be Santa video.

Happy listening!

6th Avenue Heartache

To add to my list of favorite songs to hear and sing... remember this one, from the Wallflowers?  Jakob Dylan (Bob's progeny) is the singer, with help from Adam Duritz of Counting Crows.

While released as a pop/rock song (and played on top 40 radio), this is actually a folk song.  According to my definition anyway.  I consider a good folk song to be one that first of all tells a story, and second of all makes some kind of comment on society, be it political or sociological or whatever.

To me, this song not only tells a story but paints a vivid mental picture of the urban homeless.  I turned to Flickr to help me share the internal images that this song gives me.  Thanks to the Flickr members who agreed to share their work.

[by Gnownad]

[by ONEant]

[by Jacobite Boy]

6th Avenue Heartache - The Wallflowers

Sirens ring, shots ring out

A stranger cries, screams out loud

I had my world strapped against my back

I held my hands, never knew how to act

And the same black line that was drawn on you

Was drawn on me

And now it's drawn me in

6th Avenue heartache

Below me was a homeless man

Singin' songs I knew completely

On the steps alone, his guitar in hand

For fifty years, he stood where he stands

Now walkin' home on those streets

The river winds move my feet

Subway steam, like silhouettes in dreams

They stood by me, just like moonbeams

Look out the window, down upon that street

And gone like a midnight was that man

But I see his six strings laid against that wall

And all his things, they all look so small

I got my fingers crossed on a shooting star

Just like me, just moved on

Mountains of the West

In late September
I drove across the Prairies
The mountains behind me
And the ocean beyond

This country's a coal mine
And I'm a canary
Turn out the headlights
And the radio on

All the lyrical details of Joel Plaskett's Light of the Moon don't match up with those of our summer roadtrip:  it was actually early August, we were driving in the other direction, and we did keep the headlights turned on at all times, Mom.  But the song has always evoked a feeling in me, a longing for that quintessential Canadian Road Trip, and it plays in my head when I think of our drive from Calgary to Revelstoke, to Kamloops, to Vancouver, to Sechelt, to Secret Cove and back again.  Me and my man and endless sing-a-long songs on the radio.

[quintessential Canadiana]

Wagon Wheel

This is a great tune.  It's been around for years, but I just recently bought the mp3 and learned to play it.

I first heard the song, I think, at the Junos in Halifax (also could have been the ECMAs), way back in ought-six.  The singer was Matt Anderson.  Listen to him sing.  It will change your life.  His url may be "stubbyfingers" but those stubby fingers fly like the wind.  The song certainly made that night.  It was a duet between Matt and Charlie A'Court, a Maritime country singer.  We were at the Palace.  Yes, the Palace.  Probably the only time I was there after I turned nineteen.  Suffice it to say, Matt and Charlie toned the place down a bit and a rockin' good time was had by all.  There are several versions of Matt playing the song on YouTube - this is a good one.

So later on, I learned a bit more about the song - that the nidus for the song was from an old Bob Dylan bootleg tape.  Bobby D (my close personal friend) had started to write this song for the soundtrack to a Western film but it somehow was never completed.  Wikipedia has all the details of that little saga here.

From the fragment of the Dylan bootleg, the Old Crow Medicine Show went on to fill in the blanks, writing what is now a modern classic folk tune.  You can see their video here, although I recommend listening just to the song itself first, to have your own video playing in your head.  Don't get me wrong, though, their video is creative and worth a watch!

Finally, here are the lovely lyrics:

Headed down south to the land of the pines
And I'm thumbin' my way into North Caroline
Starin' up the road
Pray to God I see headlights

I made it down the coast in seventeen hours
Pickin' me a bouquet of dogwood flowers
And I'm a-hopin' for Raleigh
I can see my baby tonight

So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel
Rock me, mama, any way you feel
Hey, mama rock me
Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain
Rock me, mama, like a south-bound train
Hey, mama rock me

Runnin' from the cold up in New England
I was born to be a fiddler in an old-time string band
My baby plays the guitar
I pick a banjo now

Oh, the North country winters keep a-gettin' me now
Lost my money playin' poker so I had to up and leave
But I ain't a-turnin' back
To livin' that old life no more

So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel
Rock me, mama, any way you feel
Hey, mama rock me
Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain
Rock me, mama, like a south-bound train
Hey, mama rock me

Walkin' due south out of Roanoke
I caught a trucker out of Philly
Had a nice long toke
But he's a-headed west from the Cumberland Gap
To Johnson City, Tennessee

And I got to get a move on before the sun
I hear my baby callin' my name
And I know that she's the only one
And if I die in Raleigh
At least I will die free

So rock me, mama, like a wagon wheel
Rock me, mama, any way you feel
Hey, mama rock me
Rock me, mama, like the wind and the rain
Rock me, mama, like a south-bound train
Hey, mama rock me

Your rocky spine

I don't know whether you'd call this a landscape or a seascape.  Regardless, this is one of my favorite photos from my trip around the bay:

It calls to mind the beautiful lyrics of a Great Lake Swimmers song:

[Your Rocky Spine]

I was lost in the lakes
And the shapes that your body makes
That your body makes

And the mountains said I could find you here
They whispered the snow and the leaves in my ear
I traced my finger along your trails
Your body was the map
I was lost in it

Floating over your rocky spine
The glaciers made you and now you're mine

I was moving across your frozen veneer
The sky was dark
But you were clear
Could you feel my footsteps?
And would you shatter, would you shatter?
Would you?

With your soft fingers between my claws
Like purity against resolve
I could tell then and there we were formed from the clay
And came from the rocks for earth to display

They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind blows a venomous rage through your hair
They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind rages through your hair

A great track for you

Well, how stoked was I when I saw this link, sent out by Mighty Pop (the best music booking duo in Newfoundland, maybe the world!).  One of my favorite songstresses, Jenn Grant, teamed up with the Maritime rock staple In-Flight Safety to cover a Christmas classic.

Fairytale of New York has long been a favorite Christmas tune of mine.  Originally recorded by the Pogues with Kirsty MacColl, it's become a classic. 

I know this post is link-heavy but there is just so much goodness here, I had to share!