Song picture
#68- Son of The North Country (1985)
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Single   $0.5
For Stan Rogers
folk funny political sixties novelty gentle prolific idiosyncratic lehrer jefferson airplane ochs paxton steve goodman
Artist picture
Tom Paxton meets Jefferson Airplane. Extremely prolific singer songwriter with a wide range of styles from bizarre novelty tunes and surrealistic poetic songs t
With more than 300 songs and counting and for more than 30 years, I have written in a variety of acoustic styles from novelty tunes to love songs to historical ballads to poetic surrealistic songs to retro-acoustic pop. From bizarre to traditional from funny to poignant, whatever style the song is in, the melodies are usually memorable and the lyrics unpredictable. This site will eventually contain rough often first take demos of my entire song catalogue. Many of the earliest songs when I first started writing will of course be shaky. So expect the songs to get better as time goes on. Feel free to come back and browse often as I will constantly be adding songs, one by one in chronological order, starting in 1974. If you are looking for some unusual songs to cover from a little known but unique artist, you have come to the right place. Just e-mail me. If you find a song here that intrigues you, but you don't like a line or two, or you think it needs a bridge, drop me an e-mail and maybe you can earn writer's credit if it gets that song to be recorded or performed.... otherwise just enjoy. You can become a Rob Lincoln fan at no cost to you. I promise that if you keep coming back there will be some real surprises along the way. While mostly acoustic, some original material will veer into folk rock and even 60's pop, but the garage rock and loudest material will also be found in full band arrangement at soundclick.com/abrasiveflowers Eventually some of these 300+ tunes may be rerecorded and make it on to CD, including a novelty CD that would be suitable for Dr. Demento or an historical ballad CD or a political song CD--but until then, this is the only site you can hear most of these songs. (A few of my songs CAN be found on songramp.com/RobLincoln and myspace.com/lessickandlincoln)
Song Info
Charts
Peak #344
Peak in subgenre #43
Author
Rob Lincoln
Rights
1985
Uploaded
July 01, 2007
Track Files
MP3
MP3 3.4 MB 128 kbps 3:39
Story behind the song
For those of you who know folk music, you are most likely familiar with the great Stan Rogers, the Canadian folk singer who tragically died in a freak airline fire in 1985. I had seen him play numerous times and had actually gone to his show about a month or two before his death. You can hear from his recordings that his voice was smooth and deep and his songs are wonderful, but if you had never seen him and his band play live, it's hard to imagine what all the fuss was about his performances. Suffice it to say that not only was his live presence powerful, but he was really funny and he also had one of the sharpest tongues of any performer I've ever seen. I'll never forget what he used to do to hecklers. Once he stopped the show in the middle of a song, and asked the entire audience to applaud the man and congratulate him because he had just drunk his first beer. Another time he apologized for a hapless heckler as it was "his first day on the planet." It was great, but I guess you had to be there. This song was written shortly after his death in honor of Stan Rogers. Mp3 listeners enjoyed learning more about Stan Rogers off Wikipedia and were asked to click the Mary Ellen Carter link for an amazing true story. The song received lots of "3's" and a few "4's" and a "5" The Mp3 listener averaged 3.8 out of 5.0.... Comments included: "great tribute to a musician, even though I never heard of him" "if you never heard of him or saw him it just loses too much" "I liked this song, good info about Stan Rogers too."
Lyrics
The winds are blowing cold now As we've closed the shutters tight The larks no longer singing And the sky's no longer bright But the old sailors still remember singing Deep into the night And the young ones still sail above the waves From north in Canada There came songs upon the land They were sung by voices And they were played by hand Oh how the music sailed above The waters and the land And the air was filled with harmony And we still can see the Mary Ellen Carter We know that she'll forever rise again Just as his spirit still rises anytime that you hear The songs of the son of the north country Oh he hailed from Ontario from a family of song And family played by his side Garnet always came along With privateers and witches And farmers of the land We all met them as his friend Oh his tongue was a sharp as a knife As he slew his hecklers-be But his voice was as smooth As the calmest of all seas And how it could swell over Plain folk like you and me And it still echoes in the air And we still can see the Mary Ellen Carter We know that she'll forever rise again Just as his spirit still rises anytime that you hear The songs of the son of the north country And we still can see the Mary Ellen Carter We know that she'll forever rise again Just as his spirit still rises anytime that you hear The songs of the son of the north country Just as his spirit still rises anytime that you hear The songs of the son of the north country The songs of the son of the north country The songs of the son of the north country
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