"Your Rocky Spine" - Great Lake Swimmers

I'm not really interested in sports, and I am definitely not an athlete by any means. I do love swimming though. I'd swim anywhere; ocean, river, pool, but I especially like lakes. Having grown up in North Western Ontario I was surrounded by them. My hometown was situated around Lake Nipigon, the largest lake that lies entirely within the province of Ontario, and feeds into Lake Superior - the largest of the five Great Lakes. A fun little fact for those of you that may not know, but Lake Superior is actually the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area. I'll tell you another thing that I know from experience, not from a textbook. Lake Superior, even in the dead heat of summer, is always effing FREEZING! After a good twenty minutes in the drink you'll be jumping out to warm up.

I grew up swimming in Lake Nipigon and Lake Superior, so I�ve acclimated. I'll jump into any lake now without so much as a shiver. I guess what I like most about swimming is the weightlessness. The feeling of just floating. I never feel so small as when i'm treading water and can only see water in any direction I look. I'll admit one of my favorite things to do in summer is skinny dip. Not necessarily in a sexy misbehaving way. I just like getting naked and jumping in the lake. My cousins and I take our jet-ski out mid-day in the summer and do it. No harm no foul. Our parents however, do not think it's funny when we switch our bikini's before arriving back at the beach.

Well, chalk one up for the neighbor again. This is a song recommended by him, I feel almost like he should be getting royalties.. that is, if I made any money off this blog. I suggested he write a guest blog for me (probably one of the only people I�d trust to do so). He said he would want to write about something interesting like himself.... so in short, he will not be writing on my blog anytime soon. But I certainly appreciate his recommendations as I've been a bit stumped on what to blog about lately. If you have any suggestions feel free to message me with your songs!

Great Lake Swimmers is a fairly new band, debuting their first album, "Ongaira" in 2007. Clearly good ol' Canadian boys,"Ongaira" is actually the original name for the infamous Niagara Falls. Their songs definetly have a "folk" feel to them. If describing their music in one word, I would say "haunting". Tony Dekker's vocals sound positively ghostly in some of his songs, particularly this one. After analyzing the lyrics to "Your Rocky Spine", it finally hit me. At first glance I assumed it to be a love song, written about someone. I was right in the sense that it's a love song, but it's not about someONE, it's sometTHING. In my opinion Dekker has written this song about Canada, maybe even more specifically Ontario.

Dekker does a brilliant job of personifying the environment in which Canada is famous for. "I was lost in the lakes", "The mountains said I could find you here/they whisper the snow and the leaves in my ear",�I was moving across your frozen veneer". Lakes, Snow, Trees, Cold, yup that's Canada if you ask me.

I was lost in the lakes

And the shapes that your body makes
That your body makes, that your body makes
That your body makes

The mountains said I could find you here
They whispered the snow and the leaves in my ear
I traced my finger along your trails
Your body was the map, I was lost in it

Floating over your rocky spine
The glaciers made you, and now you�re mine
Floating over your rocky spine
The glaciers made you, and now you�re mine


I was moving across your frozen veneer
The sky was dark but you were clear
Could you feel my footsteps
And would you shatter, would you shatter, would you


And with your soft fingers between my claws
Like purity against resolve
I could tell, then and there, that we were formed from the clay
And came from the rocks for the earth to display


They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind blows a venomous rage through your hair
They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind rages through your hair

"Everybody Knows This is Nowhere" - Neil Young

Living alone I find that late at night, when there's no one else around to talk to, I think of really bizarre things. My mind will wander about the most useless and random subjects. For example, I spent a good ten minutes the other night thinking about the large spider living above my patio door - which led to thoughts about poisonous spiders, spider bites leaving spider eggs under your skin, and finally Spiderman. One subject I often think about it is if my condo caught fire what would I grab? After the no-brainers, like the animals and my purse, I thought probably my laptop and most definitely my guitar.

Me and my baby

My acoustic guitar is one of my most prized possessions. It is incredibly special to me, not because it was my first guitar, but because it was given to me. When I was younger I played piano for years but was always begging my parents to buy me a guitar. The problem was I didn't know anyone that played guitar, and no one in the small "Nowhere" town that I grew up in taught lessons at the time. After years of repeatedly annoying them my parents finally had a solution. 

Before I was born my Dad's sister - Nina, succumbed to cancer. It was her one wish to stay alive long enough to see me born, but sadly we never met. My family often says I remind them of her, particularly when I'm being inappropriate my Gramma yells, in her broken-Ukrainian-English, "You just like Nina!" Nina had played guitar, and after she passed away my Dad remembered that it was probably still sitting at her old house. Sure enough when we phoned my Uncle, he brought over the Yamaha guitar - still in the original case, that had been collecting dust since her death.

That moment when I played her guitar was when I can remember my love affair with music began. I was young at the time - twelve or so - and really had no interest or preference in music. Teaching myself how to play acoustic naturally led me straight into the arms of all of the music greats - Springsteen, Petty, Dylan, and Neil Young. With bleeding fingers and disgusting calluses I finally learned to play a few songs. One of the first songs I ever learned to play was "Heart of Gold".

I learned to play "Heart of Gold" because it was fairly easy to play and a good beginner song. This song opened up the whole wide world of Neil Young for me. At that point I began to download anything Neil Young that I could find. I like Young's consistency for outstanding lyrics paired with simple, yet catchy guitar melodies, and his ability to tell stories. Like Dylan and Springsteen, Neil Young used his music not only to entertain, but to send a message.

Mr.Young

"Everybody Knows this is Nowhere" was released off of Neil's second solo album of the same name. I've always liked this Neil Young song best because it reminds me of back home. Essentially I grew up in a small Northwestern Ontario town that is best described by the chorus line, "Everybody knows this is nowhere". As small and isolated as it was, there is always a comfort in the simplicity of back home. I'll never truly be a "city girl", even though I do my best to fake it. There are times when I find myself  hating the city and fantasizing about "going back home, to take it easy". Young's roots are apparent by his reference to "back home", because only small town people refer to it as that. This song was written after Young had achieved a significant amount of success and fame. Being a small town boy and pretty low key, Young probably wanted nothing more than to go back to his small "Nowhere" town and chill out.

Nipigon, Ontario - Home Sweet Home

I especially like the line, "I wish that I could be there right now, just passing time." There was never really much to do back home except pass the time and just enjoy being there. A visitor could never appreciate its' peacefulness. As boring as it might have been it is amazingly beautiful. The air is different; it smells clean; like a combination of trees, water and soil. And everything is quiet. You can hear crickets and frogs chirping at night - just like in the movies. Sometimes I find myself feeling more lonely in a city full of people than I ever did when I was alone back home.

P.S. I couldn't find video for it - but Young does an amazing solo acoustic version of this song as well. It's a live version off of his "Acoustic Afternoon" album.

I think I'd like to go

back home
And take it easy
There's a woman that
I'd like to get to know
Living there

Everybody seems to wonder
What it's like down here
I gotta get away
from this day-to-day
running around,


Everybody knows
this is nowhere.
Everybody, everybody knows
Everybody knows.

Every time I think about
back home
It's cool and breezy
I wish that I could be there
right now
Just passing time.

Everybody seems to wonder
What it's like down here
I gotta get away
from this day-to-day
running around,
Everybody knows
this is nowhere.
Everybody, everybody knows
Everybody knows.