Canadian Harbourside by Nick Siepmann
As the lyrics suggest, this song came into being on my morning commute, thanks to the suggestion of a title by my friend and patient mentor John Ord (anordinarymanblog.blogspot.com/). As a singer of folk songs, I put myself in the shoes of a lot of sailors, miners, farmers and the like, and I worry sometimes that maybe I, with my comfortable urban life, have no business appropriating these songs of toil and trouble for my own purposes; that perhaps I'm diluting the significance of a musical tradition that has sustained people through impossibly hard times.
On the other hand, it may be that the gulf between my world and theirs is not quite as absolute and clear-cut as it may seem, just as the boundaries of 'traditional music' get fuzzier the closer you look at them. Meanwhile, the songs themselves provide us a more intimate and personal view of the lives of others than we ever could find in mere historical record. Canadian singer Stan Rogers, while he came from the inland town of Hamilton, Ontario, wrote songs that took audiences aboard the fishing boats of Nova Scotia, and those songs have been taken to the heart of the very people who inspired them. I suppose all one can really do is to try to make an honest connection with the lives of others, and there are few ways as deeply felt as music.
'Clyde Water' (also known as 'The Drowned Lovers') is this single's trad B-side, which I learned from Nic Jones's excellent version on 'Game, Set, Match'; I love singing this one, and usually just about remember most of the verses...
Tracklist
| 1. | Canadian Harbourside | 3:23 |
| 2. | Clyde Water | 4:37 |
