More Canada Day - Two Great Tastes That Go Great Together
"Educating Rachel - Manditory Canadian Songs" Dept.:
A large part of the Canadian character involves not confusing busyness and volume for meaning (sounds pretentious, but hey, we're pretentious sometimes too). It's something we're kind of proud of.
Judy Collins and "Unca Lenny" Cohen, perform SUZANNE for PBS in 1977. I like the way Judy says "Only drowned-ed men can see him" in this...
Click to viewOne of my all-time favourite videos (directed by Curtis Wehrfritz with Cinematography by Miroslaw Baszak, and edited by Ross Corindia) for one of my all-time favourite songs (doesn't hurt that I've had the pleasure of meeting the two leads, either). Shot at THE MATADOR CLUB in Toronto, on November 30th, 1992 - less than a mile away from where I live. The two hot backup singers spider-walking their fingers across Lenny's shoulders are Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen (both of whom both have a number of albums out now). Check out the look of hurt that Deb gives Earl "Mr Skin" Patsko on the "I loved you now when our love was blessed / and I love now that there's nothing left / but sorrow and a sense of overtime" line, before she drops her smoke into his shotglass. Anything that anybody needs to know about Life, Love, Getting Old, and What Happens When You Die are in the lyrics to Unca Lenny's CLOSING TIME. No, *REALLY*.
K.D. Lang and Roy Orbison sing CRYING on THE TONIGHT SONG
Something lighter from Miss K.D. - might help to know that Chatelaine is Canada's national fashion magazine - isn't it weird how much she facially resembles Dita VonTeese in a few of the shots here?
Lennie wrote this one for Janis Joplin, who he used to bump into occasionally in New York
"It goes like this: The Fourth, The Fifth, the Minor fall, the Major lift - a baffled king composing Hallelujah." KD gets Cohen right for all of us:
Almost done now, folks.