Original Song #22: "Untermenschen"

And it all started somewhere in the bowels of the White House
Back in May two-thousand-and-one
Dick Cheney and the boys in the energy industry
Carving up a map of Iraq
Scheming war and oil and Halliburton contracts

And the voices they came shouting out
From the underground
As Billmon said:

Untermenschen, Untermenschen!
If you read between the lies
They’re always fighting for the big guy
Untermenschen, Untermenschen!
You can see it in their eyes
Either shut up or take their side

Then it got heavy on eleven September
We don’t know if they let it happen or not
But they used it as a scapegoat
Just as the neo-cons had always hoped
For another Pearl Harbor
Enter Patriot Act and the War President

And the voices they came shouting out
From the underground
As Juan Cole said:

Untermenschen, Untermenschen!
You can see it in their eyes
Either shut up or take their side
Untermenschen, Untermenschen!
If you read between the lies
A new group of brownshirts is on the rise

And it all unraveled rather spectacularly
At Abu Ghraib and Fallujah
And Ramadi and New Orleans
All the anger they unbridled
All the bloodshed they provided
All the pandering to xenophobes
To the Fundies and the faithful
Who declared to the whole world
They’re just rag-heads
They’re not people
They’re our enemies
They’ve got no souls

And the voices they keep shouting out
From the underground
And they nail it

Untermenschen, Untermenschen!
Better not speak your mind
They’re listening in on your phone line
Untermenschen, Untermenschen!
Yeah you heard him right
The president said our enemies have no souls
The president said they ain’t got no soul
The president thinks you ain’t got no soul

- 30 -

Original Song #21: "Emerson & Fortier (Democracy on the Shelf)"

They voted for
The man who said
He'd be Harper's
Worst nightmare
And when he won
I thought we had
One more MP
Who'd keep those guys in check

So Gilles, give 'em hell
Don't you let them throw our liberties out as well
Give 'em hell
Stand up in the House and scream and shout and yell
Give 'em hell
Let the boys wed the boys and the girls the girls as well
Give 'em hell
Don't you let them put our freedoms on the shelf

Some volunteered
And gave their time
Worked the phones
At Christmastime
They took their ballots
They marked an X
Next to the one
Who was not a Conservative

So Jack, give 'em hell
Shine a light on their hypocrisy and quell
Any bill
Meant to eat away what Tommy Douglas built
Give 'em hell
The far-right Christian Fundies have to be repelled
Give 'em hell
They've already put our democracy on the shelf

I take my lessons
From those who earned my respect
"If you don't vote, don't bitch"
As Steve Earle said
I did my bit
At the polytheque
Now they've betrayed all that
To sit in Cabinet
With the perks and the limos and all the rest

So Bill, give 'em hell
Don't you let them take our rights away pell-mell
Give 'em hell
Stand up in the House and scream and shout and yell
Give 'em hell
Or they'll ban abortions, starve the arts and sell
Us all out
They've already put our democracy on the shelf

- 30 -

Canadian Women's Hockey Team Rocks

You gotta' love it. After the high-priced over-hyped men's team couldn't even get on the scoreboard for two whole games, the women picked up the torch (again) to show us what real dedication looks like. This team has talent, class and embodies everything good about team sport.

Big time congratulations to the Canadian Women's Hockey Team. And a shout out to the Swedes too, for proving they can play with the big girls. In fact, kudos to all women out there showing the men how it's done. Call me a dreamer, but I think sometime within the next 20 years, women will be commonplace on dozens of NHL teams.

I don't even care what the Canadian men's team does anymore. Even if they win the gold, it won't compare with this team's achievement. That's hockey.

- 30 -

Stoke the Fire (mp3)

For some time now, people have been expressing an interest in actually hearing some of these songs I keep posting. Now seeing as I have only very rarely had a chance to record anything properly, these are in rather short supply.

Furthermore, I have not been able to figure out how to post an mp3 to this site (anyone out there who knows the secret, I'd be much obliged if you dropped me a line).

But finally, my bandmate Jean-Marc Barsalou has been able to upload an mp3 of Stoke the Fire, which can be heard by clicking here. It's a short four-on-the-floor rocker of a demo recorded in 2004 with Jean-Marc on bass and Chuck Duque on drums in an outfit we liked to call Big Red Canoe at the time.

More to come, and thanks for asking.

- 30 -

Update: Okay, that link doesn't seem to be working anymore. Sorry about that. So I decided to take Zeke's advice and upload the audio file to archive.org. So it's now available here instead. Please comment if you have any troubles.

Original Song #20

The sweet & cheesey one for Valentine's Day

Apple of My Pie

You're the apple of my pie
I'm the sugar and the spice
We could make a flakey crust
Bake it up real nice

You're my star, you're in my stripe
I'd like to fly you high
See you flutter in my breeze
Be a part of my
Star-spangled banner day
Would that be okay?

And I'd like to make you my...
I'd like you to be my
American girlfriend

And I'm standing here at home plate
Swinging wildly
I'm gonna lace one to deep left field
Cause I know that's where you play
That's my position too

And I'm making contact
Why don't you make a good catch

You're the apple of my pie
I'm the sugar and the spice
We could make a flakey crust
Bake it up real nice

- 30 -

Original Song #19

Valentine's Day songs - today I'm posting one about the darker side. The music for this one was inspired by Husker Du's Flip Your Wig. Tomorrow, I promise a cheesy romantic ditty for those who need an antidote. Cheers

February Rain

Valentine's Day in this frigid town
Some realizations shake me down
I'm in tune with Mother Nature
I'm out of synch with your good nature

February rain
And my contrary timing again
Why don't I feel the same
I've weened myself off you too well

Cheesey commercial romance glyphs
And bubblegum piano riffs
Everyone else coos and cries
I sit and sneer as the world goes by

February rain...

And the web I spun so long ago
Has finally got you in its tow
I want to meet you in the middle
But I can't remember what lines are safe to walk on

Now you breeze in like the wind
Saying I'm the keenest thing again
This shower of affection's teasing
February rain is freezing

February rain

- 30 -

The 4 x 4 Meme

I have been tagged with a meme sort of thing by Dazzlin' Dino of The Blogging Party of Canada. It appears to go like this:

list four places you've lived
1. Sherbrooke, Quebec (my birthplace), where Conrad Black first got into the media ownership thing.
...the rest are all communities on the island of Montreal:
2. Beaconsfield - suburb without that stripmall look.
3. Notre-Dame de Grace - great place for a Concordia student.
4. Mile End - part of the Plateau, which is where Mordecai Richler and Leonard Cohen grew up. Some of their haunts haven't changed in half a century, and Big Fast Food is nowhere to be found in Mile End, so you know it's a real treasure.


list four vehicles you've owned
(only one motorized, none the least bit hip)
1. My sister's hand-me-down, banana-seated purple one-speed bicycle. But I had no kilt.
2. Canadian Tire ten-speed bike. Not the lightest of bicycles, nor the flashiest.
3. When #2 got stolen, my dad's hand-me-down Canadian Tire ten-speed bike, which also was eventually stolen.
4. A "Pre-owned" 2003 Ford Focus SE station wagon.

list four jobs you've had
1. Montreal Gazette paperboy (3 years and two ice-storms, 1983-85)
2. Beaconsfield Golf Club golf caddy (lasted one day, but inspired the song Back Nine).
3. McDonald's crew, Crew Trainer, Crew Chief, Swing Manager, and Assistant Manager. (It lasted way too long, and never paid better than subsistence wages. That inspired more than a few songs, to be sure.)
4. Production Manager, Swensen's ice cream in downtown Montreal. It was pretty cool making ice cream one summer, until I realized it was wrecking my back - for little better than minimum wage. You had a lot of heavy tubs of ice cream to rotate every day. Like 150 vanilla, 75 chocolate, 23 strawberry, and between 4 and 16 of some 30 others.

list four vacations you've had
1. Tootled around New Brunswick (very pretty) and the Gaspe one summer. La Belle Province is at its most belle in the mountains between Rimouski and NB, IMHO.
2. I was once good friends with an ex-Canadian Navy Newfoundlander. I still haven't visited the Rock, but he and I went to Halifax visiting a career Navy buddy of his. Gorgeous city, Halifax. I'd live there.
3. An old girlfriend and I rented a car and drove around New England for a week one summer. We hit Boston, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The ship-building museum/town of Mystic Seaport blew me away.
4. When I was a kid, our family would go to the Birch Knoll Cabins for two weeks every summer in Ogunquit, Maine. (Looks like they've put in a pool and finished some of the interiors - it's probably ruined for me now). That's where I learned how to body-surf, which is perhaps the funnest sporting activity that requires absolutely no equipment. We used to coordinate our vacation with a few Connecticut families we met there. It provided some of my most vivid childhood memories, and inspiration for the song below.

Tags to:
JohnnyC at (Not So) Idle Thoughts.
Montreal Simon
Cheryl at The Galloping Beaver
Rossk at The Gazetteer
Ivan of Ivan Prokopchuk - Creative Writing (because I suspect he secretly loves these meme things)

Apologies if you have already been so tagged.

- 30 -

Original Song #18

The Beach

Gonna lie down in the pine needles
Ocean breeze in the starry sky
Gonna get bit by mosquitos
Gonna get sick eating fried clams

And I'm gonna ride the waves
Body-surfing all day long
Moon power pulling me
Let the salt water meet my tongue

I'm going down to the beach
I'm going down to the Birch Knoll
Got friends calling out to me
Called trees and shells and stones

Go running down the beach
And get sand in my shoes
Sit around and do nothing
Like a big shit-eating fool

And I'll go in the early morning
See the sand-pipers skitter and peck
Go back in the afternoon
Like a big shit-eating fool again

I'm going down to the beach
I'm going down to the Birch Knoll
Got friends calling out to me
Called trees and shells and stones
I'm going down to the beach
I'm going down to the east coast
Ocean's calling out to me
It's gonna cleanse my soul

I was born in Sherbrooke
Now I live in Montreal
River valleys I like fine
But give me the ocean
I wanna be at the ocean
Just let me live by the ocean all year long

I'm going down to the beach
I'm going down to the Birch Knoll
I'm going down to the beach
I'm going down to the east coast

Oh yeah
All right
I'll drive
All night

- 30 -

Original Song #17

Bail You Out

You say you'll hate yourself in the morning
But you'll love yourself by afternoon
Wondering what they put in the water
That keeps the girls from going swoon

Didn't I bail you out
Bail you out another time
Bailed you out again I said
I bailed you out another time

And you're wondering why
You're not the toast of the town
But here you're only toast
You're all stance with no sub-style
Hog the plate and starve the host

Didn't I bail you out
Bail you out another time
Bailed you out again I said
I bailed you out another time

Sticks and stones may break my bones
Words will never hurt me

- 30 -

Uncle?

First Manley, then McKenna, now Brian Tobin all have quickly decided not to run for leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Three big names, none of whom are particularly wanting in the area of political smarts.

Does this mean they all smell the same scent of right-wing on the air? If any of them thought they had a decent shot of unseating Harper within two or three years, they'd most certainly have put their hats in the ring, rather than run screaming away from it.

That leaves Martin Cauchon, Stephan Dion, Michael Ignatieff, Anne McClelland, Belinda Stronach, Sheila Copps; perhaps Bob Rae, Roy Romanow, Pierre Pettigrew and Ken Dryden? Clearly the three who have bowed out perceive the next Liberal leader to be a fall guy for a CPC majority mandate.

I don't take much comfort from that.

- 30 -