At the East Coast Music Awards last night, the Newfoundland band Hey Rosetta was the big winner.
Newfoundland's Hey Rosetta! won big at the East Coast Music Awards gala Thursday night in Sydney, N.S. The indie group -- formed in St. John's 10 years ago -- took home album of the year and group recording of the year for the album "Second Sight," and song of the year for "Soft Offering (For the Oft Suffering.)"
And I couldn't be happier.
Not just because they're a great band.
But also because I can never forget the song they released exactly two weeks before the last election.
The song was called Land You Love. I was a joint collaboration with the BC band Yukon Gold.
It was a lament for a country so many of us felt we were losing.
What have we lost, poisoned, or crushed?
What highest hopes were stolen from us?
What holy rolling hills were cut into dust?
What voices were stifled, silenced, scared and carried off?
When I was a child, I sang the anthem with pride
It stood for justice, peace, and human rights
It stood for the holy rolling hills and a home for all walks of life
And it must again, for my children, and theirs.
There is a time (oh)
When a change has to come (oh)
For you to speak your mind (oh)
For you to fight for the land you love
But it was also a call for action. It ended with a band member holding up a sign with this written on it.
Imagine October 20
And a call to vote strategically to "avoid another tragic Harper government."
And although there were many great songs during that long and nightmarish campaign. With its combination of sadness and defiance, no song moved me more than that one.
Now try to imagine the day that song was released, exactly two weeks before the election.
When some polls were suggesting that the Cons were heading for a majority...
Stephen Harper was in a frenzy...
There was a feeling that anything could happen.
And now listen to that song again, shining like a light in the darkness...
And I think you can imagine how I felt. And why I was soon strumming my guitar furiously, and singing that song as loudly as my quiet voice allowed.
Congratulations Hey Rosetta and thank you Yukon Blonde.
October 20th 2015 was even better than I had imagined.
And one of the happiest days of my life...
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And who can forget:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bluerodeo.com/stealingdreams/
Hi David...yes you can forget that one either. I think I ran it twice on this blog. And I will be forever grateful for a the singers and musicians who helped cheer us on during the darkest days of the Harper regime...
Deletepersonally I still like the "harper man" song with the scientist and his church group. Oh, how dangerous he was, they suspended him from his job...........
ReplyDeletehi e.a.f..that was a great one too, and I think I ran it at least three times....
DeleteThat graph looks like one from the Canadian version of Unskewedpolls which pretended that aggregation polling sites like 538.com were wrong.
ReplyDeleteHint. They weren't.
hi Dan...it was an Ekos poll, and while the aggregated polls turned out to be a better reflection of reality, at the time we couldn't be sure what was going to happen, and it was scary period in Canadian history...
Delete...
ReplyDeleteAnd a call to vote strategically
...
It seems to me you've been at pains to point out that NOBODY did that, that the decline in support for the NDP was entirely of their own making, and therefore that the Golden Boy did it all on his own.
Aren't you undermining your own position by pointing this out?
Parenthetically, My choice to voote strategically was aided by the slide into "New Labour" territory that was engineered by Layton, and then very much more so by Mulcair, but still, you've been a little self-serving, it seems to me.
hi Les...I didn't say that strategic voting carried the day. It did have some effect I'm sure. But I think the Leadnow movement and others did help boost the vote, and that and the collapse of the NDP vote was what finished off the Cons.
DeleteAnd I don't know why you would call me self serving, for I have nothing to gain from the present situation, or the Liberal government. And all I ever wanted was for the Con regime to be defeated...