Song Story: "Dear Old Stan"

Lesson, learned.

So look, here’s what happened. We wrote an album full of folk songs and sea shanties, Into the North. Some original songs, some traditional.

And hey, look, we aren’t that big of a deal. But among Canada’s active folk-rock acts, we might crack the top 20, and when it comes to actually representing Canada in our music, well, we have like five or six tunes explicitly about something Canadian (the new album has an absolute gem in this genre, by the way). There’s “Poutine”. There’s “Victory Square”. And the whole reason we started doing this is because of the influence of one Stan Rogers, Canada’s greatest ever folk songwriter, who before his tragic death had planned out entire albums based on various regions and towns in Canada.

“Dear Old Stan” had been floating around in my head right up to the recording sessions, but I didn’t include it on our list. It seemed too personal to make the album, because it was about us and our admiration for one guy, not something you’d necessarily see anyone else singing, you know? But at the last minute I pulled out the lyrics sheets, the guys loved it, and we knocked it out quickly before shutting all the gear down on the last day.

And it came out nice.

Now, to answer the question we always get about this song: yes, the last verse is an accurate retelling of what made me start this band. They actually sang “thank pod we’re homeward bound”. Come ON, hippies. Not everything in this world is yours to mangle in the name of imagined moral purity. But thanks for the inspiration, I guess?

Moreover, I am so proud of the lines about my childhood; my mum cried when she heard the bit about her singing to me, and my dad said he was taken back to the days when little 5 year-old me would march around the house singing “HE WAS THE CAAAAAAPTAIN OF THE NIGHTINGALE” at the top of my lungs. The song was for them.

Yet, I was nervous: would people appreciate what we were trying to do? Would the song fall flat? Little did we know that we were about to receive two roundhouse kicks to the face….