North Country Fair - Day 3 of 4

North Country Fair continues with the third of a 4 part on-line fantasy festival featuring some of our favourite artists in an all-Canadian line-up, and well, we are north of the 49th and we love living in this Country. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

You're listening to Acoustic Avenue. This is Ted Crouch, your host and festival MC with co-producer Joe Little. Today we're broadcasting from the Inspire stage in our third of four episodes of North Country Fair. On Acoustic Avenue, we respectfully acknowledge that we live, work, and make our music on the traditional lands of Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island since time immemorial and continue to do so today. North Country Fair is our online fantasy fair featuring some of our favorite artists who we would love to see and hear in an all-Canadian festival lineup. In this third episode, we open the door and invite you to explore some of the ways artists draw inspiration from a variety of sources, including nature, media, people, other artists' artwork, and personal experiences. In this first set, you'll hear Leonard Cohen and Tower of Song, a statement on the craft of songwriting. Originally penned as Raise My Voice in Song, Cohen composed the song at a time when he was stuck in a place as a writer. For better or worse, he was a songwriter, saying he had to come so far down the line he was not going to turn around and become a forest ranger or a neurosurgeon. He abandoned the original song for several years. Then, one night in Montreal, he and Inspiration found each other. The lyrics were completed, and the song was recorded in one take using a toy synthesizer. To open this episode of North Country Fair, I'm pleased that Linda Kidder is having such a good time at this festival. She decided to stay on the stage and join me with Jen Dick on piano, Jerry Schellenberg on bass, and Larry Keats on drums for this song. We'll play You Never Really Lost It, a song about losing the feud between my head and my heart, inspired by Kim Dunn, a multi-award-winning Nova Scotia musician. From the Inspire Stage at North Country Fair, here is You Never Really Lost It. And the Tower of Song.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

Your glass nowadays Forever empty. Your eyes fill with the blue like they used to dig deep. Find a dollar in your pocket. Keep in time.

unknown 3:36

Keep in peace.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

You never really lost it.

SPEAKER_03 3:57

Black bird is singing. Bringing back an old partner to your mind. You begin to explain the reasons for your leaving. She smiles, nods her head, you never really said. Goodbye. You down. I pick you up again. Stand beside you. Speak of pride. Love you and my friend. I have tended to the flame inside your heart, my dinner. So many things I can do. Make a living in the fast plane. The face that you see in the button. You want it. If you want it, you want to put the button in the never really.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

I ache in the places where I used to play, and I'm crazy for love, but I'm not coming on. I'm just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song. I said to Hank Williams, how lonely does it get? Hank Williams hasn't answered yet, but I hear him coughing all that long. I was born like this. I had no choice. I was born with the gift of a golden voice. In twenty seven angels from the great beyond. They tied me to this table right here in the Tower of Song. So you can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll. I'm very sorry, baby doesn't look like me at all. I'm standing by the window where the light is strong. How they don't let a woman kill you not in the Tower of Song. The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor, and there's a mighty judgment coming. But I may be wrong. You see, you hear these funny voices in the Tower of Song. I don't know how the river got so wide. I love you, baby. But I feel so close to everything that we lost, we'll never we'll never have to lose it again. They're moving us tomorrow to that tower down the track, but you'll be hearing from me, baby. Long after I'm gone. I'll be speaking to you sweetly from a window in the Tower of Song. And my hair is grey. Ike in the places where I used to play, and I'm crazed for love, but I'm not coming on. I'm just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Festivals promote diversity. They bring neighbors into dialogue. Increase creativity. Offer opportunities for community pride. They improve our general psychological well-being and ensure where we all called every year and every city in the world that can hold a multi-day festival. More people meeting each other and finding new types of music, new food, new ideas. Over the years numerous raining in Georgia. But the audience was only in the mood for rock and roll. He also performed in 2022 at the seminar root and blue festival. He was inspired to write this song after becoming concerned about a resurgence of anti-Semitism in the nineteen seventies.

SPEAKER_07 20:07

I hold your picture to my chest, and I feel fine. It's raining all over the world.

SPEAKER_12 21:32

The hall had been erated and I was presented as a kind of a singer that all could enjoy. As I climbed up the stair to the stage that was there, it was obvious, something was a mist. I could tell by the vibes, they wouldn't be right, they were too. I don't think the closest dawn. But don't pay my gold stone at all. It's about peace and contentment. Things that I've come to believe in. When I was through two of chords, boom, stop the tracks are yellow for Gody B. Now stop the rock, rock and the rolls of stalls. I've added two ears with the flowers. Don't play with no song. Rock and roll song. Cause my head is glare. So one of the easy rock and roll song. So making my way back to the country.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Don't you hold your meeting? I can hear you coming. Why sit to you this time? Let's kill the laughter. Lunatic fringe In the twilight's less we need this is open season. But you won't get too far. Cause you gotta play zone for your own confusion. Against you a valuable solution. We can hear the footsteps Wey I don't know the walkway I don't know the walkway I feel take a free We all know you out there.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

As I mentioned in an earlier episode, being a performer at any of these festivals is a very special occasion for fans and music lovers. There's really nothing quite like the musical breathing experience at a festival. Moving from stage to stage and catch the stars. Reflecting the ethos of the folk genre. Here is Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Buffy Saint Marie.

SPEAKER_05 30:54

Oh man, look at my life, I'm a lot like you were. Oh man, look at my life, I'm a lot like you man, look at my life. Twenty-four, and there's so much more. Live alone in a paradise that makes me think of true. Love lost such a cost. Give me things that don't get lost. Like a coin that won't get tossed, rollin' home to you Oh man, take a look in my life.

SPEAKER_13 31:58

I'm a lot like you I need someone to love me the whole day through I want look in my eyes, and you can tell that's true.

SPEAKER_05 32:36

Doesn't mean that much to me, to mean that much to you. I've been first and last. Look at how the time goes past, but I'm all alone at last, rolling home to you.

SPEAKER_13 33:03

Oh man, take a look at my time from my life I do I need someone to love in the whole day through one look in my eyes, and you can tell that's true.

unknown 33:32

Oh man, look at my life.

SPEAKER_05 33:35

I'm a lot like you.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Caught a dragon fly inside a jar, fearful when the sky was full of thunder, and tearful at the falling of a star and the seasons they go round and round, and the pain always go up and round with the captive on the carousel. We can return, we can only look if I'm from where we came and go round and round and round in a circle. Then the child moved ten times round the seasons, skatered over ten clear frozen streams. Words like when you're older must appease and promises of some day makes dreams And seasons they go round and round and the page ponies go up and around. We're captive on the carousel. We can't return, we can only look behind from where we came and go round and round and round in a circle. Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now. Cartwheels turn to car wheels to the town, and they tell him take your time, it won't be long till you drag your feet too slow. The circles down and the seasons they go round and round, and the pain always go up and around. We're captive on the carousel. We can't return, we can only look behind from where we came and go round and round and round in a circle. So the years win by and now the boy is twenty Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams, and plenty before the last revolving year is through and the seasons they go round and round, and the pink ponies go up and down. We're captive on a carousel We can't return, we can only look behind from where we came, and go round and round and round in the circle gate, and go round and round and round in the circle gig.

SPEAKER_04 39:03

He fights with missiles and with spears. He's only thirty-one and he's only seventy. He's been a soldier for a thousand years. A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew. And he knows he shouldn't kill. And he knows he always will kill you for me, my friend, and me for you. And he's fighting for Canada, he's fighting for France, he's fighting for the USA, and he's fighting for the Russians, and he's fighting for Japan. And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way. And he's fighting for democracy, he's fighting for the rest. Who's to live and who's to die? And he never sees the writing on the walls. But without him, how would Hitler have condemned him? Without him see the still. And without him all his killing can't go on. He's the universal soldier, and he really is the plane. But his waters come from far away no more. They come from him and you and me. And brothers, can't you see? This is not the way we put an end to war.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

This brings us to the final set for today's North Country Fair on Acoustic Avenue. Ending this version of North Country Fair, we welcome to the inspired stage three more of Canada's iconic folk singers. Bill Bourne, Gordon Lightfoot, and Edward Hurdy are all notable songwriters who made profound and lasting contributions to music rooted in folk tradition, storytelling, and social indigenous foundation music.

SPEAKER_08 44:44

I'm not consumed by Hawkinsville. Please to mind her shining light. Yes, I can't call it no care. So not consumed by our concern. But I was watching man from far and wide. Kick all the people on a hell you had. I watching man both bug and white Learn about teach the bag on the queen of her gold. And how can stage playing all? Spark heart is crimson deep and dark. And the river flows both day. Fills me up with shiny light.

SPEAKER_06 48:17

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down at the big lake they call Kitchagumi. The lake it is said never gives up for dead when the skies of November turn gloomy. With the load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald wait empty. That good ship and true was a phone to be chewed when the gales of November came early. Coming back from Sunville in Wisconsin. As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most. With the ground of Captain Wells season, concluding some terms with a couple of steel foams when they left the leload for Cleveland. Then later that night when the ship's bell rang, could it be the north wind failing? The wind in the wires made the tattle-tail sown, and the wave broke over the railing. And every man knew as the captain did too. Twas the witch of November and stealing. The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait from the girls of November came splashing. One afternoon came it for spring rain. In the face of a hurricane west window. The captain wired in the head water coming in, and the coach kept and broke in peril. Later that night when it's light, without a spite, in the record they had one that's barrel. The searchers all say they the mid-white fish bave they've put fifteen more miles behind her. And all that remains is the faces and the nails of the wives and the sons of the daughters. In the rooms of a rice water mansion. Old Michigan steams like a young man's dream. The islands and visor for sportsmen. And farther below Lake Ontario, fixed in what Lake Erie can stand. The iron boats go as the mariners all with the gales of November. Remember. The legend lives on from the chip along down of the big lick the call gets you goony. Superior they said never gets up for dead when the gales of November come early.

SPEAKER_11 55:01

To put an end to war, I dreamed I saw a mind, and the room was filled with men, and a paper they were signing said they'd never played again. And when the paper was all sunset and a mere they all joined hands and bowed hands while great praise, and the people in the streets below were dancing round and round while swords and guns and uniforms were scattered on the ground. Last night I had the strange dream I'd ever dreamed for I dreamed for greed to put an end to all.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

Be sure to join us next week for the final day of North Country Fair. This is Ted Crouch signing off, and on behalf of Joe Little, from our hearts to yours, stay safe and love the ones you're with. Peace. Cook's job.