I’ve written about 15 songs over the years. Recently I’ve put a few of them up on Youtube. The others are all in mp3 format, so I’ll be a while in converting them over. Finding suitable photos is a challenge.
Jordan Lament: This was written in 1984 and lamented a phenomenon called Acid Rain. Not a good thing, but folks have since tried to do something about it and have had a modicum of success. N.B. This song has contributed absolutely nothing for awareness of, or progress on the issue, but it made me feel better at the time.
Leafs Song: Written in May 2002 for a CBC Radio contest. I won. The prize was a flight to Raleigh, two tickets to Game Five of the Leafs’ Eastern Conference series against the ‘Canes and two nights in the hotel in which the Leafs were staying. See this post for more details.
One Planet II: In 1983 I wrote One Planet. It was during the height of the Cold War and prophetically addressed the immediate and long term risks that the extremely profitable arms race was creating for Planet Earth and, by extention, Homo sapiens. The situation is even more dire in 2016.
Black Water is a haunting piece I was driven to write after reading an article by Tom O’Neill in National Geographic’s February, 2007 issue called Curse of the Black Gold. It is one I am particularly proud of, since it personalizes the struggle of the people of the Niger Delta to deal with the horrors of living among destruction and pollution on a horrific scale resulting from oil drilling in the sensitive Delta waterways and everglades.
Sixty-Eight is a smooth, sophisticated song that takes a look at the love-affair between the Canadian people and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and the eventual petering out of the relationship. It is a wistful piece. Trudeau appreciated that the economy should benefit the public good. It has become a God to be served by us. Our present corporate welfare bum approach, I humbly believe, has got it ass-backwards.
Sapphire is a song whose title is inspired by the iconic photo of Mother Earth taken from space. I added some photos I took in Australia and New Zealand. I invested a lot of my life in liturgical music. Though no longer a believer, there is, I believe, some value in the spiritual way in which this song respects where we live and the interdependence of all sentient beings.
The Plastic Bag Song is “inspired” by a real bag that stayed in a tall ash tree in our back yard for over a year. This was done with a video camera and my 1978 Larrivée acoustic guitar. Tried to be goofy and I think I succeeded – in being goofy, that is…
Thank You, Lord is a thanksgiving song I wrote and performed in church years ago. I’ve added my photos to the audio.
Radiatin’ A-Bomb Blues is a crazy upbeat sort of blues piece that expresses the potential result of a really scary cold-war period we went through in the late 1980’s when the nuclear Doomsday Clock got perilously close to midnight, due to a game of nuclear chicken being played out between the, then two, nuclear superpowers.
Open Our Hearts is a religious song I wrote years ago for our church’s Lenten liturgy. I’ve added photos from our recent Camino Santiago in April and May, 2013
Thought I’d Call Tonight is a country song I wrote in 1982. My good friends, Tom and Leona MacLeod, recorded it with me.
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Let me know what you think – be honest, please.
mightyturk 