1. |
Railways West
03:04
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We rose with the setting sun
Like a train that never comes
But always goes
We left with our hands out
To quell the doubt
Of those who’d never find us
Oh what it means to be alive
In this dark night
I think about it way too much
Seek the light
We left our homes behind
To bear us in their mind
Or let us go
We followed railways west
We fronted the night
And sang for a new day
Oh what it means to be alive
In this dark night
I think about it way too much
Seek the light
Be the light
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2. |
Settler Song
05:33
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You know we shut down 10,000 indigenous voices
You know there’s no going back to the way that it once was
We took what we wanted screaming we deserve this
And ever since we’ve forced them to disappear or to join us
You know we trapped them in reserves and broken treaties
You know we outlawed their culture and stole their identities
You know they can’t cultivate the land the way that they once did
You know they can’t fish and hunt the way they once did
You know they can’t care for the land while we build our pipelines
You know they can’t care for the land when there’s nothing left behind
Oh Canada we built our homes on Native Lands
Oh Ontario when you have no legs it’s hard to stand
Haudenosaunee Anishnabe walkers of this Land
Oh Ontario when you have no legs it’s hard to stand
You know there’s a culture and a song and a drum
You know there’s truth and wisdom that lasts for 7 generations
You know there’s artists and walkers, storytellers and medicine
You know there’s so much to learn if we could only sit and listen
But we stand and we take and we take
But we stand and we take and we take
Oh Ontario when you have no legs it’s hard to stand
Haudenosaunee Iroquois Anishinabe walkers of this land
Oh Ontario when you have no legs it’s hard to stand
Oh great lakes of old when you have no legs it’s hard to stand
Water beautiful and cold when you have no legs it’s hard to stand
You know we shut down 1,000,000 indigenous voices
You know there’s no going back to the way that it once was
We took what we wanted screaming we deserve this
And ever since we’ve been trying to get them to disappear or to join us
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3. |
Leaving You
03:50
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I saw you standing there
With teardrops in your eyes
Your smile could not disguise, oh
You fell to me
Each day I realize
I hate saying goodbyes
The memories terrorize
You fell to me
Never wanted nothing else yeah,
To be myself and find my own path
Leaving you and what we had was
Never really part of that plan
Now that I am walking alone
Looking for a piece of my soul
I start to think inside
Maybe that home is you
Hair, skin, lips
With every piece of you
Heart break grips
Into my soul and it
Hurts me
It breaks me
You meant to me
I think of days gone by
With teardrops in my eyes
And strangers by my side, oh
You told to me
I don’t want you to go
become the man I want
you to go become
It spoke to me
Hair, skin, lips
With every piece of you
Heart break grips
Into my soul and it
Hurts me
It breaks me
Time stands still
With every thought of you
Hearts still linked
Deep with your soul and it
Hurts me
It breaks me
You meant to me
I think of days gone by
Beneath the deep blue skies
The memories crystalize
They’re here with me
Today I realize
The visions in my mind
No longer terrorize
You meant to me
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4. |
Gunny
04:05
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We settled in the North when I was a child
From overseas to a land remote and wild
I ran away from home when I was a teen
Studied visual arts with shattered self-esteem
Somehow I ended back up in the North
Cared for my ailing mother on Death’s door
And now I’m the last of our line to stay
And I am so old and I am alone almost every single day
I want to move out to the east coast in a tiny home
I want to drive into the water when it’s my time to go
They shut down the train to Cochrane
Can you hear the isolation talking
Here the trees outnumber people
Out here the old folks freeze and topple
There’s an apocalypse coming
But I’ll be gone before the culling
My generation polluted the earth
Soon we’ll be gone for what it’s worth
I want to move out to the east coast in a tiny home
I want to drive into the water when it’s my time to go
And I am sorry for our greed
Only art gives me release
There is nothing I can speak
Only art gives me release
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5. |
Listowel
05:22
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On the day my brother died
On the day our parents cried
When the neighbours heard the sound
Like a garage door coming down
Our footprints gathered in the snow
Led by God or something we don’t know
Now some days I walk alone
And look at stained glass church windows
Someone said these boys are all
Under a roof that never falls
I still live in a hockey town
Swirling memories that cannot be found
But I don’t know what I’m longing for
A muffled voice from behind closed doors
The news reporters they don’t know
Artists and lawyers they don’t know
They write their words and sing their songs
But soon the memory will be gone
I can’t remember my brother’s face
What could have been still cannot replace
But I don’t know what I’m longing for
A muffled voice from behind closed doors
There’s no memories of you in my world
No not even a trace
Even the stories of our childhood long past
They sit still longing to be found
And I can’t believe
What it’s done to me
Let’s get together
Feel what we can’t remember
We are a hockey town
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6. |
Marathon
04:29
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They founded our town on solid ground
A paper company in Wisconsin
On the canadian shield, Our souls to be healed
By the life that to us was given
What becomes of a town when the houses
were built out of paper
When the industry moves out in search
of cheaper parts and labour
When the mine shuts down when the mill moves out
Will the people stay strong or falter
Buildings were made here by volunteers
Supplies came from marathon paper
The company bell rang from the hill
Signalling breakfast, bedtime, lunch, and dinner
Under the sidewalks made of lumber
Children searched for coins fallen from purses
When any of us got lost in the forest
The whole town made sure that we’d be found
And they still do
What becomes of a town when the houses
were built out of paper
When the industry moves out in search
Of cheaper parts and labour
When the mine shuts down when the mill moves out
Will the people stay strong or falter
Peninsula came home
Home is what you make it
Peninsula came home
Home is what you make it
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7. |
Goderich
04:45
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Someone answered my question with a question and
Someone told me not to cry
Someone overcame every good intention and
Someone noticed you and I
As we walked through the still streets of Goderich there was
Something heavy on my mind
On a path torn up by a tornado and past the new buildings
I sighed
Whoa these things whisper in my ear like ghosts
Soon after we reached Lake Huron’s mighty shore
And that great blue salt mine
There we were told the story of eight years ago
When someone there had lost their life
Where a worker there saw the tornado approach
And warned the others to leave
While frantically rushed to shut down the machines
The tornado arrived
Whoa these things whisper in my ear like ghosts
Maybe it’s true that the water needs the wind to stir it up
Like Goderich and its many storms
Though it make many an Edmund Fitzgerald still my cup
It may yet overflow
Whoa was it worth it all this time, this life?
Someone answered my question with a question and
Someone told me not to cry
Someone overcame every good intention and
Someone noticed you and I
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8. |
Sudbury
02:59
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Where we grew up the rocks were black and sulphur spewed from the smokestack
And noxious clouds they would come down from copper cliff with puckered lips
We’d jump up off our bicycles and stay inside with the windows closed
Until the smelting was done
Where we grew up the trees were killed just miles and miles of barren hills
And beneath our feet the tunnels deep would grow and grow entombed below
Extracting ore no end in sight the molten slag glowing at night
A desert moon with empty lakes
We didn’t know we didn’t know that what brought us here would bring desolation
We didn’t know we didnt know that what was keeping us here was destroying us
To earn our pay we had to stay though all that’s green had gone away
Our nickel sinks shipped all around our sulphur stink was world renowned
When NASA sent their spacemen here, we knew the time to change was near
Or else our fate would be sealed
Regreening Sudbury took time we had to forgive ourselves our crime
We could not change the past just change ourselves and hope to make things last
All levels of the town took part so that our kids could have a start
Here in the city of lakes
Nature she comes back strong
Still there’s much to be done
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9. |
Jackfish
05:30
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Forest grows up and then it burns down
And I am here in a ghost town
Jackpine cones release their seeds
Into the embers on the ground
Jackfish was a little town
Before the people moved on out
And walking amidst the bushes and the trees
I see ruined houses cars and memories
Japanese people were once sent here
To build the highway we hold so dear
There’s a skeleton sitting on the tracks
Looks like a lynx or a mountain cat
The railroad spread like ivy vines
The flowers bloomed in their own time
Seasons pass and nothing stays
Flowers rot, the province changed
And here’s the sound of a lonely train
Plaintively winding around the bay
I pick blueberries near the rocky shore
Nothing’s gone there’s only change
Nothing dies there’s only change
Nothing dies there’s only change
It doesn’t have to die there’s only change
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Matt and Jun Hamilton, Ontario
We are 1st year medical students at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario. From July-November 2019 we are going on a road
trip across the province to learn more about the places and people who call Ontario home. We seek to express what we learn, see, feel, and hear in our journey as a musical album, that captures some of the essence of life in Ontario.
Page Art by Gunhild Hotte.
... more
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