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I wrote a poem a year before Gordon Downie passed away from brain cancer, and then began writing a song that summer in Nova Scotia.
The idea was to meld current affairs and interweave fragments of Gord's lyrics spanning the length of his career leading up to his
last solo project dedicated to First Nations survivors of the Residential School System.
This song is of hope and humour which takes you the listener, on a journey across our great nation, Canada. I can identify with this as a
musician, having travelled and toured many times between coasts. The song has literally been written and composed on the road, then recorded during the Covid-19 pandemic, while in isolation in BC.
The references are largely Canadian except for an improvisation or "rap" about a hero's journey.
Tom Thomson of the Group of Seven makes a cameo in the "Fantasy" section where two Canadian legends' lives intersect with the not-so-great company of a current American President and 'elephant on the lake,' so to speak - who is taking a much needed respite and on some kind of self-proclaimed cure all - not unlike a Snake Oil Salesman from the 1900's. At any rate, I have left many details vague and fluid for the hell of it! Enjoy the spirit of legend and icon.
lyrics
Rain falls on sugar skulls
droplets form like tears
Fleur-de-lis and sweet relief
for our home and native Queen
Kingston is where my Grandparents
are buried
Boots or Hearts still rings in my ear
At 18, driving around
Dreaming of New Orleans...
From Halifax to the Prairie flats,
Mountains to Sea to Sky
Now the rain falls like an older man in Newfoundland
Don't it make ya' cry?
Downie gives us dark mid-winter light
At 18, driving around
with these big dreams...
From a pub that cracks the first sunrise of a St. John's frigid
New Year's Eve
Lift your canoe aloft with great pride
And paint on it a Maple Leaf!
All hail Canada's "Feverish Dream"
O' Yeah
All hail Canada's "Feverish Dream"
Woah, yeah!
In Thomson's den there's a work of art
I'm imagining it was the spark
In Thomson's den lives a work of art
I'm imagining it was the spark!
To a trip that might never have happened...
Gord 'n' Tom
On the Great Lakes
With the spirit bear
Now Tom and Gord
were on a Secret Path
Across Algonquin
when they saw a man portaging far away...
He had flame-top, mysterious head crop
Tom said, "What is that, man?"
Gord said, "Ah, don't worry about it.
It's another nationalist, come to spoil our fun."
Turns out it was Trump
He just wanted an autograph of the Montreal Canadians
or something...
Mr. Trump, Dump Trump! Is that you?.
He was up there hoarding toilet paper, handing out advice
Eventually he worked up the courage to confront them
Well, that didn't go so well
He wished, he wouldn't have
Started talking about Lysol and Hydroxychloroquine...
Ideas he had but you know that's Trump
All the while wearing a 3M mask, said "Succour?"
Hey, Oh, my, my! Yeah.
At 18, driving around
building these big dreams...
On this "Feverish Dream
credits
released June 20, 2020
Music, Lyric and Arrangement - Stephen King
Acoustic & electric guitars, keyboard, percussion and bass performed, programmed and mixed
by John Sidney Stephen King
Mastered at LANDR, Montreal, Quebec
Socan/Ascap
Produced and Recorded in Isolation by J.S. Stephen King
Made in Canada. (MAPL)
Photography - S. King(c)2019
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