Yes, I’m doing research for a song. Because not all songs are about the writer’s navel-gazing feelings, or about love, that bottomless pit of inspiration (and too often cliché) for songwriters.

I love writing songs on unusual topics and songs that tell stories. If they tell a Canadian story, even better. So I’m now writing one about the Sharon Temple (www.sharontemple.ca), a unique heritage site in the north of York Region, where I’ve lived since 2006.

The temple, completed in 1832, was built by a fascinating sect called the Children of Peace. You could say they were the first hippies: they valued peace, social justice and equality; they lived together cooperatively in one village; they held feasts where everyone shared food; they wore colourful clothing when they marched in processions; and music and song were a big part of their worship. (Not much sex or drugs, though, from what I can tell, though there were rumours about their leader having a special relationship with a female member of the sect — and it wasn’t his wife.)

When I visited the temple last summer I thought maybe there was a song there – after all, I’d already written one about the Thomas Foster Memorial near Uxbridge, another striking building with a poignant tale behind it.

So I began by reading a book about the sect written by the curator of the temple, John McIntyre, whom I also happen to know. Then I wondered: would I simply recount the basic facts, how Pennsylvanian David Willson came to Upper Canada looking for land, joined a Quaker meeting, and then had visions that led him to break away from the Quakers to found the Children of Peace and build the temple? That was too straightforward.

One photograph I’d seen at Sharon haunted me: the abandoned temple, paint peeled away, windows broken, with cows grazing obliviously around it.  I kept wondering what it must have felt like to see the temple in that sorry state while recalling its glory days. So I invented a very old woman, the last surviving member of the sect, to be the narrator of my song. I sent my first-draft lyrics to John. He told me that the last member had indeed been a woman, Emily McArthur (1837-1924);  she’d been part of the sect for decades and had in fact seen the temple looking as it had in the photograph!

I knew then I’d found my way into the song. Here are the first two verses (note the village of Sharon was originally named Hope by the Children of Peace):

my name is Emily McArthur
I am old but I remember
when our meeting flourished, one in spirit and in mind
and we named our village Hope
and thus we lived in Hope and prospered
but now I am alone, I am the last one of my kind

Now the temple stands deserted,
peeling paint and broken windows
and the wind blows through the thistles growing wild beside the door
and cattle graze around it
their great brown eyes unheeding
that the Children of Peace are no more

 

I won’t bore you with details of the ensuing saga related to two hospitals and the casts they’ve put on me and then had to modify because of the pain the last one was causing (hmm, I seem to have in fact just bored you with some details, my apologies), but suffice to say I’ve spent far too much time in the past three weeks sitting around emergency departments and fracture clinics, contemplating just how I’ll be getting through the three upcoming gigs I had, given that due to the way the cast sits on my arm, not to mention the fact I can barely hold a dishcloth in the bad hand, let alone a guitar pick, I CANNOT PLAY GUITAR!

So I began to get an idea for a silly song while sitting in Emerg three days ago deep in contemplation of my situation. By popular demand, here are the lyrics, set to a corny, self-pitying (but not quite maudlin) country-waltz tune, which I laboriously — since I don’t actually play piano — picked out on a cheap Casio keyboard:

IN THE LAND OF ONE HAND   © M.L. Hammond 2012

I live by myself in the land of one hand

and unless you have been there you won’t understand

all the things you can’t do when one hand is broke

Like putting on pantyhose – ha! what a joke

in the land of one hand all the beds are unmade

teeth are unflossed and guitars are unplayed

clothes are un-ironed and veggies aren’t peeled

and things packed in plastic are eternally sealed   

(seriously, try opening a bag of e.g. pretzels with one hand!)

and I only eat stuff that comes out of a box

because tin cans and jars might as well be Fort Knox

and for holding things down I use elbows and knees

you should see what I do to give toothpaste a squeeze!

But here is the upside: I’ve got an excuse

for letting my vacuum fall into disuse

My current, modified cast

I’ve never liked housework, so isn’t it grand

that we don’t do much cleaning in the land of one hand

Instead I twiddle my thumb

and I spend hours napping

and that sound that you hear

it’s my one good hand clapping

In the land of one hand, things take twice as long

and get done half as well – for example, this song

so I’ve cancelled today and tomorrow’s unplanned

and for once in my life I’ve got time on my hand!

You may have noticed these days the indie record/music scene is almost as big as the non-indie scene – if not in terms of dollars, then certainly in terms of the number of artists. In fact, there are undoubtedly more independents than acts signed to major labels. Everyone with three chords and a laptop is a musician nowadays. Democracy comes to the music biz!

Independently poor

The Internet played a large part in this, of course. Suddenly everyone was illegally sharing music and no one was buying. So labels would only sign sure moneymakers, forcing artists to make albums independently – i.e., paying to do it themselves. And becoming even poorer in the process. Sometimes they’d make the money back and even turn a tidy profit, but often they’d end up working at Timmie’s to pay the studio bills.

But the indie scene has actually been around a heck of a lot longer than the Internet. I like to say, jokingly, or semi-jokingly, that at one time it used to be called the folk scene.

Folk pioneers

That’s where my musical roots are. My old band Stringband has been called a pioneer of the indie record scene. What that means is we just couldn’t get any label to sign us all those eons ago. Most of the majors in Canada then were US subsidiaries, aiming at the big US market, and they all told us we were too folky and too Canadian. So we started our own label.

A generous fan funded our first album, done on the cheap, but we wanted a bigger budget for the second. So we borrowed an idea that was floating around: we asked fans to send us $5 up front (yeah, I’m talking the good old days; the horseless carriage had barely been invented), and we’d use the funds to make the album and then mail them a copy.

It worked! We briefly considered running off to Mexico with all those five-dollar bills – it was February – but in the end recorded our next two albums that way. A few other folk acts were doing the same thing, then more followed suit, and  that model has since become commonplace in the indie scene.

Back cover of Thanks to the Following, 1975commonplace in the indie music scene.

Crowd pleaser

Now they call it crowdsourcing; we just called it asking fans to help. In fact, for our third album, I got the bright idea to title it Thanks to the Following, and we printed all the supporters’ names in tiny font starting on the front cover and almost completely covering the back.

If you decide to go this route, there are websites that can help you, such as http://www.kickstarter.com/, http://www.gofundme.com/ and others. Or you can do what I and many musicians do: contact your mailing list, and tell the fans you’re making a new CD.

Full support

Create multiple levels of support – e.g., see my fundraising pitch – and offer various perks. For example, my “entry” level is $20 to pre-order one CD; my top two levels include, among other goodies, an honorary producer credit on any song of the patron’s choice.

So “honorary producer” may not be quite like twiddling the controls at the recording console (more likely a computer these days) or telling the drummer to go easy on the high hat, but several devoted fans have chosen to support me this way, and I know many other artists with “angels” who have happily contributed to their recording projects. As the wise woman said, “You won’t know if you don’t ask.”

And –  oh yeah — dear fans awaiting the new CDs, please be patient. I’m crowdsourcing as fast as I can!

New Horse Song in the Works!

I thought that the horse-song CD would have the nice round number of ten songs on it and I had all the new songs written. Then a very cool thing happened: a horsewoman I’ve never met commissioned me to write song no. 11!

And what an amazing true story the song’s about! Perhaps the Korean War’s most unlikely hero: a little Mongolian mare named Sergeant Reckless. You can see a video about her at 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIo3ZfA9da0&list=FLg1_okroY6NaYnkwbdMhxrQ&index=9&feature=plpp_video

So “The Ballad of Sergeant Reckless” is joining the herd. You “herd” it here first!

New Website Launch!

Designed by Carol Noel and implemented with much ingenuity in WordPress by Hollis Morgan. Some elements of the site are still works in progress, but hope you like it so far!

TWO new CDs Coming!

Yes, two. Because I’m nuts and enjoy being poor. But mostly because after a long dry spell,  the songs started pouring out and demanding to be written and recorded, and I couldn’t seem to close the floodgates!

Creatures contains songs about human creatures, animal creatures, the environment, and all their interrelationships. (Oh, and even one about a heavenly creature too!) At least one will be in French, and genius musician David Woodhead, who produced Pegasus, is producing again.

Hoof Beats, because there’s almost nothing out there like it. All songs at least 50% about a real or legendary horse – none where the horse is merely a metaphor or a passing mention. Contains songs from previous CDs, plus new ones. An extension of my EP Two Old White Horses.

You can pre-order or support these projects by become a sponsor and using this online form.

Here’s a list of the songs so far…

We put this song on the CD-ROM portion of Pegasus because by the time I released that CD, some lyrics were already obsolete.
(see “unplugs his modem,” etc., below). 

He used to own a pony, now he’s got no time to ride
instead he’s got a mouse thing with a clicker on either side
he used to stick to the range now he says “I go where I please” (and he does!)
‘cuz instead of punchin’ cattle this cowboy is punchin’ keys

Chorus:
He’s my computer cowboy,
cruisin’ down that lonesome information trail
he’s my computer cowboy, obsessing with his new toy
while me I’m prayin’ that the power’s gonna fail

These days he’s crazy ’bout Adobe and he’s quick on the Corel Draw
but still he keeps insistin’ that his system has a major flaw
he says “I need a bigger hard drive to improve my capability, and I say
“Honey, get a life! The one that you’ve got sure looks plenty big enough to me.”

CHORUS
He exits at eleven, says he’s feeling tired
he unplugs his modem but I’m still wired
so we go to the drive-in but it just ain’t fair
I can’t sit on his lap ’cuz his laptop’s there!

I got my own software package, it’s the kind that makes other men sweat
but he don’t seem to notice ’cuz he’s too busy surfin’ the Net
we used to ride all night in the moonlight’s silvery sheen
but now the only dates we have are by the light of his monitor screen

CHORUS

Why look at that, the screen went blank!
I wonder what goddess I have to thank?
come on honey, you can fix it later
I think it’s time that we merged our data
what’s that you say, you want to reboot?
well I hope that’s just your way of being cute
now listen to me, you cyber scout
if you reboot I’m gonna boot you out!

CHORUS

Written in the mid 1990s, this song is now several Leonard-Cohen-girlfriends out of date…

I’m sitting in a coffee shop one ordinary day
the radio is blaring out an ordinary tune
ah but then a Leonard Cohen song comes on and right away
the sun sets and the sky turns dark, save for a mournful moon
and the customers start waltzing in a slow and dreamy fashion
and the cashier weeps remembering some ancient crime of passion
and yet I’m not surprised – I know these are the kinds of things
that happen when Leonard Cohen sings

It’s four a.m. on Clinton street, I’m feeling pretty low
so I strum my favourite Leonard tunes and I haven’t long to wait
till the sky fills up with fireworks, or bombs for all I know
and Joan of Arc comes riding by and stops before my gate
and her soldiers fill the streets and now they’re bursting through my doorway
and Joan just shrugs when I demand the reason for this foray
and yet I’m not afraid – I know these are the kinds of things
that happen when Leonard Cohen sings

Ah when Leonard Cohen sings
the broken dove flies up on trembling wings
and I become a child again and yet I’m as old as time
I am the song of Solomon, I am a nursery rhyme
I sit here in the dark regretting all my hopeless flings
when Leonard Cohen sings

Bridge:
And when he sings “Show me slowly what I only know the limits of,
dance me to the end of love,” it takes my breath away
for those lines I’ll forgive his tinny synthesizer solos
I’ll even forgive him that Rebecca de Mornay!
la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la 

I’m in a huge cathedral now and Leonard’s standing near
my hands are gnarled and spotted, my hair is thin and grey
and I don’t know how this came about, I don’t know why I’m here
but I was humming “Closing Time” when I woke up today
and the saints above and fiends below are battling to possess me
till Leonard smiles and tenderly commences to caress me
he is my Prince of Darkness and he is my King of Kings
and I die happy, as Leonard Cohen sings

Ah when Leonard Cohen sings
the trembling dove flies up on mended wings
and I become a child again and yet I’m as old as time
I am the song of Solomon, I am a nursery rhyme
I yearn for pure and burning love detached from all its strings
when Leonard Cohen sings
when Leonard Cohen sings

 And no, I haven’t run off to join the Mounties and their Musical Ride. But for the last year I’ve been writing some horse-themed songs – enough, in fact, that along with five I’ve already recorded, I’ll soon be able to release an all-horse song CD. 

 A special barn concert

Not only that, on Saturday September 17, I’ll be playing my very first-ever BARN concert. That’s right, I’ll be playing some of those horse songs, and others, at a fundraising event at the stable where I ride in Whitchurch-Stouffville.  (A while back in my Yorkscene blog I wrote about house concerts – concerts that take place in someone’s home. Well, this is a spin on that concept!)

 The stable is a special place, called Horses of Course, which accommodates riders with a range of disabilities as well as able-bodied riders. One of them, Krystianna L., was a plucky little girl diagnosed with neuroblastoma when she was very small. Krystianna spent huge amounts of time at Sick Kids’ Hospital, but whenever she was well enough, she’d take riding lessons at Horses of Course. Her favourite horse was a little chestnut Quarter Horse mare named Meg.

 Sadly, Krystianna died in 2009 at the age of 13 – but not before the folks at the barn put Meg on a trailer and took her to Sick Kids so Krystianna could see her one more time just days before she died.

 Canter for a Cure

So this Saturday her friends and family are organizing a day called Krystianna’s Canter for a Cure, full of horsey demonstrations, and activities to raise money for neuroblastoma research, and also for a bursary for young riders with disabilities who need financial help with riding lessons. And that’s why I’ll be singing my horse songs there. If you’re a horse lover AND a music lover, then this is the event for you. Not to mention you’ll be supporting two worthy causes.

It’s a benefit!

And that’s something we musicians do a lot of: I don’t know a single musician who hasn’t played benefits and fundraisers, and we’re always happy to do it, because we rarely have much money in our pockets to donate, but we can usually find the time to sing for a great cause. In fact I’ve played so many I’ve even written a tongue-in-cheek song called “Not Another Benefit.”

But as well as singing about chestnut mares, naughty ponies, and other equines, I’ll be more than happy to play that song this Saturday with the sound of horses nickering around me.

From My Fabric Art Book, posted by Marie-Lynn Hammond on 8/20/2011 (8 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

From My Garden Transformation, posted by Marie-Lynn Hammond on 6/10/2009 (19 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

This is a story about geography – physical, cultural, emotional. To understand it you have to remember that Canada’s capital, Ottawa, is situated on the Ottawa River, which at that point, and for several miles in either direction, also forms the boundary between the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Across the river from Ottawa is the city of Hull, but don’t be fooled by the name: Hull is French.

In the real old days, there was only one bridge between the two cities, the Interprovincial Bridge, and even I can remember a time when the Ontario side of the bridge was paved, and the Quebec side wasn’t. When you saw the sign halfway across saying “Bienvenue au Quebec,” and your car wheels hit those wooden planks, well – you knew something had changed.

Two separate cities, inextricably linked. You couldn’t live in one without being aware of the other. As I remember it, it was like this: Ottawa was English, Protestant, rich and staid. Hull was French, Catholic, poor and – funky. It was where all the students went to “get down.” The bars stayed open later, you could buy beer at a grocery store, and the French girls were, well…they were French – and you know what that means.

For me though, the differences weren’t quite so clear-cut. First, although my maternal grandparents had been born in Quebec, they had emigrated to Ontario. In the 30s they and their large brood settled in the Ottawa-Hull region, and there they had stayed, living largely in French but able to get by in English. They tended to live on the Ontario side, but there was a certain amount of back-and-forth across the river. Secondly, my mother had had the daring to marry an English Canadian, so I myself was a hybrid mix.

The summer of 1965 my air force father was still working for NORAD in North Bay. I had been accepted to Carleton University in Ottawa for the fall. Normally I’d have gone up to our cottage (which was on the Quebec side) for the summer with my mother and sisters, but the year before, after intense parental resistance, I’d acquired a horse. The deal was if I won a scholarship, I got to take him to college. If not, I’d have to sell him. I won the scholarship. We found a place to board Traveller on the Aylmer Road, on the Quebec side, (where everything seemed to be cheaper), and that summer I was sent to stay with one of my mother’s brothers, Mistai Vaillant, and his wife, Lucille. They owned a little grocery store in Hull and were delighted to have me: they loved children but had none of their own.

It was an idyllic time. In the morning I would catch the Aylmer bus to the farm where Traveller was stabled and spend the day riding through sun-bleached fields and shaded woods. There were mansions along the Aylmer road that fronted onto the river, but I noticed that most of the names on the mailboxes were English. The stable owners and horse owners in the area were also Anglo; the stable hands at our barn, though, were French. I suppose I was already aware that the English, with their power and money, felt contempt for French Canadians, whom they tended to view as illiterate peasants. I know that, away from my mother’s family, I unconsciously played down my francophone side, an easy thing to do with my father’s Anglo name and my unaccented English. But I didn’t stop to analyze: what did politics matter, anyway, to an almost-seventeen-year-old living out her equine passions in that shimmering green-and-gold summer?

In the late afternoon, I’d head back from the stables to my aunt and uncle’s place and start the vegetables for supper. Mis and Lucille lived behind their store in a tiny, old-fashioned apartment that consisted of a large kitchen and a bathroom on the ground floor, and one upstairs room partitioned to form two small sleeping spaces. There was no living or dining room, but then, my aunt and uncle practically lived in the store, which they always kept open late – the only way they could compete with the brash new supermarkets.

I loved that little store, with its rickety screen door and creaky wooden floors and faded cut-outs on the walls of pretty girls drinking Coca-Cola. After supper I’d hang around the cash register, drinking cream soda and chatting in French to my aunt, while my transistor radio played the hit parade – in English of course – in the background. It was pleasant, but part of me was just a little lonely.

One night a boy walked into the store. We stared in surprise at each other. It turned out we’d met once before, up at the lake the previous summer. Michel, who lived in Hull, was French, of course, although his English was quite good. He was two grades behind me and a whole year younger, but something about his shiny dark hair and soulful brown eyes made me feel I could overlook this. We began to go for long walks. Mostly, we spoke French. He was the first francophone boyfriend I’d ever had, and I discovered something. In French, you could talk about the most serious, heartfelt, emotional stuff, and it didn’t sound corny. It sounded wonderful, and right. Somewhere in the middle of our second conversation, I think I fell in love.

After I met Michel, the summer flew by. We walked, and talked, and poured our hearts out. Sometimes he’d recite French poetry to me, and sometimes, in the shadow of the maples behind the store, we kissed. Then suddenly it was September, and time for me to start a new life as a college student in residence. “Ce n’est pas loin,” he would say, pointing across the river at Ottawa. “We will see each other, certainement.” I wanted to believe him. The river divided, but, as I knew, things weren’t black and white. There was also the bridge. Surely the bridge connected?

I settled into residence and started university. I was unprepared for the busyness and confusion of it all. Registration, freshman initiation, lectures and meetings and parties and – dates. It’s not that I’d forgotten Michel, but suddenly guys were asking me out, something that had never happened in high school. Meanwhile Michel was trying to reach me by phone, but I was rarely in the dorm. When I’d finally phone back, I’d get his mother. The one Saturday I made it out to the stables, he was at his great-uncle’s funeral fifteen miles away.

Finally, almost three weeks after parting, we connected. Already his voice on the telephone sounded wistful, distant and – dare I say it – foreign. Still, we agreed to meet the next Saturday, in the residence lounge.

When I came down to meet him, he was standing stiffly by the lounge door, wearing a suit. I was taken aback. I’d never seen him in a suit before. “Hello,” he said, shy and almost formal. “How are you?” This was the second surprise. He was speaking English, and in English, he sounded the way he looked: awkward, uncomfortable. The soulfulness and poetry was gone, crowded out by the hard consonants and unmusical vowels of that other language.

Looking back, I understand it now. He was in alien territory. Around us, knots of confident-looking students were laughing and calling out – in English, of course. So why didn’t I have the courage to shift to French? I suppose I, too, felt intimidated. Instead I became tongue-tied, in both languages.

We muddled through for almost an hour, then he looked at his watch. We both knew it was over. “I must go now,” he said. “Goodbye.” We shook hands like strangers, then impulsively he leaned over and kissed my cheek. I started to draw back, but he moved in again, and suddenly I remembered – of course! In Quebec, you kiss both cheeks. I mumbled an apology, my face burning, and moved forward again to complete the stilted little embrace. As his lips brushed my face, he murmured, “Au revoir, Marie-Lynn,” and walked away. I wanted to cry out, “Wait, Michel, come back!” but I couldn’t think of the French words. They were gone too. And I knew it wouldn’t work in English. So instead I just stood there and watched him disappear.

Now, I wonder, how did he feel, on the long ride back down Bronson Avenue, back to the other bus at the city’s edge, the one that would take him over the bridge and across the river? As for me, I wasn’t feeling anything. I didn’t want to. There was a bridge inside me, and I’d just knocked it out. It would be years before I would feel ready to face the other side of the river – and rebuild once again.

The lyrics to one of my songs relates to this story

La tête anglaise, le cœur français