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Song dedicated to an old friend on a new trail. Music by John Annand. Lyrics by Michael McGrath with assistance by Xavier Kataquapit. Guitar and harmonica – John Annand. Drums, base and other guitars – Don Elliott. Vocals – Michael McGrath. Produced and mastered by Don Elliott.

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I Don’t Feel Like Singing Anymore
By Mike McGrath for Emily , June 21, 2007

C……Em……F……G……Em…..C

I don’t feel like singing anymore,
Feel like a bird that’s fallen from the sky,
I don’t feel like dancing all around,
Feel like a butterfly that broke its wing
It’s like the world has grown cold and grey

I don’t feel like laughing anymore,
Feel like a clown that’s lost his funny bone,
I don’t see the colours in your flowers,
They seem so pale without you around
It’s like they are leaving with you now

You move around me like a fading wind,
You brush against me make me feel again,
I hear your words inside the corridors,
Of all those memories we built in time,
And time heals everything in time

I don’t feel like gazing at the stars,
Feel like you have joined them, gone to far,
I don’t see reflections in the lake
Just deep wells of swirling sadness
It’s like my world’s turned upside down

I don’t feel like walking down the trail,
The forest seems so dark and lonely,
And I don’t want to sleep and dream,
My dreams seem troubled and full of anguish
And your not there when I awake

You move around me like a fading wind,
You brush against me make me feel again,
I hear your words inside the corridors,
Of all those memories we built in time,
And time heals everything in time

I don’t feel like singing anymore,
Still I try to find my way in song

Time For Living
Lyrics By Michael McGrath for an old friend April 14, 2008
The Song is being developed

Well I’m standing here feeling like a long lost friend,
Just might come by blowing in with the wind,
It just could be that I’ve finally bottomed out,
And just when I thought that life was over for me,
I’m moving ahead and feeling free

Feel like that little boy I once was,
I can see clearly what’s ahead of me
Time for living clean and free
Clean………

It feels like I’ve been spinning round and round,
Trapped in some kind of sinking reality,
Going down for the third time baby,
When you reached out and took hold of me,
I’m moving ahead and feeling free

Feel like that little boy I once was,
I can see clearly what’s ahead of me,
Time for living clean and free,
Clean………..

Been so long since I could look in the mirror
And really like the person looking back at me,
The fog is clearing now and I can see my way,
A helping hand here an honest word to go,
I m moving ahead and feeling free

The Living Room
By Mike McGrath for John E, April 14, 2008

Somewhere they are waiting,
Tea is on the stove and cookies baking,
They are playing the piano and singing tunes,

Nothing really matters in the living room
Nothing really matters in the living room
Nothing really matters in the living room

There comes a knocking on the door,
No need to fret there’s always room for more,
Friends and neighbours come and go,

Time stands still in the living room
Time stands still in the living room
Time stands still in the living room

Hard times and little tragedies all forgotten,
Forgiveness answers when called upon,
Comfort comes in their sweet songs

Nothing to hide from in the living room
Nothing to hide from in the living room
Nothing to hide from in the living room

It’s warm and cozy and you can lay down,
Rest your weary mind and get lost in the sound,
Of all the voices of everyone you ever loved

The sun shines out the living room,
The sun shines out the living room,
The sun shines out the living room,

In the morning at the buffet, it is as though a thick fog permeates throughout the expansive concrete room. Most of the crowd is pushing its way unsteadily towards tables and chairs where they can anchor themselves for a feeding at the trough. The buffet room is actually more of a hall. It is pretty much central in the midst of the Russian 1960s era concrete tourist blocks here in Varadero Cuba. There is a little bit of wood trim here and there, mostly around the windows and doors. Tiled floors glisten as a result of the hard labour carried on by the smiling, poorly paid Cubans.

The long tables have been more or less reserved by the French and Italian, elderly long term tourists from Quebec and Ontario. They seem oblivious to the ever changing wave of new comers that check in to Mar Del Sur on weekly or two week all inclusive vacation packages. The old retired folks pull prod and push each other along with the use of canes and the odd wheelchair. They are like sharks ready for the kill in their strategy at the buffet. They pretty much know what to expect and they have an eye for the best pickings. They are fast in their draw for a plate and then it is straight to the meat, pasta, potatoes and vegetables at the hot buffet. Then they pick their way through the vegetables. Before they start into the main course they pounce on the dessert stand and make away with badly butchered pieces of iced cake and assorted pastries.

Some of them have more of a taste for adventure and they stalk the little Cuban chef at the barbecue stand outside while he turns pieces of red flesh into charcoaled pork chops, hamburgers and sausage. He does all this with no conversation. Unless you have been tipping him, everyone is on equal footing.

The Reiki Spirit lady moves about the room. She looks like a ghostly apparition. Her hair is white and done up in a bun at the back. She looks to be about 75 years of age and she has a perpetual smile but it does not camouflage her nasty beady little eyes. She wears wispy dresses and seems to float around the buffet like a witch queen. She gropes everyone that comes within a foot of her. The groping is masked as sympathetic, holier then thou, lit from within self promotion. She is like a leech reaching out to suck on the good nature of anyone that comes into her realm. She is the buffet witch queen.

Her cohort is a tiny woman also in her 70s. She seems almost sculpted in a tacky Barbie doll fashion. She too is lit from within and holds herself in an upright and determined manner as she skitters about the buffet tables sneering at everyone from behind a plastic looking face. She props up the spirit lady, buffet witch queen at every turn, with every raise of a fork to a mouth or some cackle ridden words of holier then thou wisdom. She is the straight man of the non-comical duo. The two feed on each other when not tackling some bony piece of meat from the buffet. It is miraculous that they ever found each other and a sad reality for all those that are touched by this schizoid partnership.

The fat old retirees pretty much keep to themselves. They don’t fool around. They are here for the long term and it’s in and out scheduled around the demands of 80 year old bladders and life sustaining pharmaceuticals. Most of the old men look like bowling balls with feet and their wives like crusty hens. Here and there, there are younger families with smaller children, young couples and the adventurous singles.

A young and hip Torontonian moves about as though somewhere a remote were controlling him. He is friendly enough in some unbalanced manner. He is up and down like a yo-yo. He is pensive and articulate in one moment and erratic and mentally disordered in another. He is very determined yet with no direction. He seemed to like us right away. He had decided that we were going to be friends and he was somewhat set back when we didn’t bite. I know the template, I have seen it before. He is all about ‘what you can do for me’.

The first night we met him at the check in desk, he nervously snuck around hoping that something would click. He just about jumped a couple of girls from Norway. Then again they were drunk. He got laid that night but he probably didn’t feel anything because he continued to lurk around the buffet tables with great intention yet no idea why. We were always fending him off and he always seemed to be surprised that we didn’t want to take care of him and worship the very ground that he walked on. He was tall, almost sickly thin and had black hair on his chest. He was always somewhere between drunk, drugged and caffeinated to the extreme which made him confused, erratic, unstable and anxious. He spoke in terms of a hope of creating an image of someone else, someone more together, witty and confident. But he was like the little birds on the buffet hall floor darting here and there in search of a crumb.

I was singing about the strange looking sweet potatoes and the mysterious meat hash when the gargantuan stud next to me commented “vous chante bien”. I looked up at him and said “thanks, I was just singing about the food”. He smiled knowingly. He was a huge man who filled out a tight t-shirt and skin tight denim shorts. He was probably 60 years of age but he carried his time well. He was all about macho with white curly hair, his strong square face and a cow horn moustache. Try as he might, he could not hide his soft heart and gentle demeanor. He had been wandering around the past few days with the most outrageous person.

His partner was something else. No doubt the couple stood out. She was perhaps a he or he was perhaps a she. I was not sure and we never really figured it out. She/he was black and almost purple black. She/he was just as big as her white Quebecois stud, stocky and sturdy. She had big solid cartoonesque tits, draped in a bikini tight top with silver and gold patterns on it that drew your eyes to her taught bullet like nipples. She/he wore the shortest skirts I have ever seen. They were skin tight and did not do much to hide her/his enormous butt and muscular thighs. She/he had a beautiful head of straight shoulder length black hair. Even if she/he were looking at you, she/he didn’t seem to recognize that you were there. It seemed to be everything she/he could do to stand up and walk with the weight of the world on her/his strong back yet, it pushed she/he down. The weight of who she/he was and where she/he came from bent her/him forward and she/he walked awkwardly trying to catch up to her/himself on flashy bizarre high heels. It was as though she/he were walking on stilts and afraid of toppling over at every step. She/he always seemed to be reaching out with her muscular arms in an effort to balance her teetering body as she/he raced in pursuit of her/himself on these stilts. At the buffet she/he teetered precariously and people made way for her/him. Still they made a nice couple.

The incredible value packed all inclusive packages offered by the Mar Del Sur drew a host of trailer park white trash. They smoked, drank and swore themselves silly 24 hours a day. Unless you were drunk or wrecked there was no way you could be anywhere close to their radar screen. They were in another realm stupefied by alcohol, nicotine and caffeine. They didn’t really go anywhere and they didn’t really do anything other then sit around the all inclusive bar by the pool during the day and evening. At night they moved to the 24 hour all inclusive bar near the front desk and lobby. When people are that drunk they can only communicate with those in a similar reality. So they hung in trailer park white trash circles that revolved around the free domestic beer and hard stuff.

Then there were the fast drinking hormone ridden, bright and bushy tailed young men on the move. Although most of their waking day centered around getting drunk, their second passion revolved around getting laid. The two worked well together and within a day or two, most of these guys had managed to snag one of the desperate and hopeful young Cuban resort service workers from either the front lobby, the waiting crew, the bar crew or the cleaning staff. Although you could tell most of these young women had been used and abused by the fun seeking tourist boys, they just couldn’t seem to give up having one more go at their dream. All of them were sure that one day one of these visiting buckaroos would sweep them away to Canada, France or Italy and make all their dreams come true. Instead, most of the time, they ended up with disappointment and an empty feeling unless of course they have not been careful and then their stomachs bore the fruit of their dreams.

Like the strange combinations of vegetables, meats, fish and pasta at the buffet table, the visiting tourists somehow seemed pretty much the same under the hot Cuban sun.even though they were different nationalities, colours, ages and sizes. They were almost transparent in their blandness. No matter what they looked like they were all the same. It was all about escape. They were cheating death, taunting death, skirting death, living dead and perhaps trying to make some sense of it all in some way. They were stopping time on the shores of the powerful salty Caribbean Ocean and no holds barred all inclusive vacation. What more could anyone ask for.

The End

I could smell the grass and earth beneath me. Crickets clicked in a concert all around and the sound of town hummed in the background. In the tall yellow grass in my backyard I could hide from the entire world. If a friend were around we could play war games. In hide and seek I would chase my sister Patty and our friend Sue all day until Granny called for supper. Sometimes, after eating, I managed to spend a little time laying in the grass bathed in the glow of the deep red beams of dawn in late August.

Most people in Iroquois Falls on our block had big backyards. We all kept our modest homes tidy and the grass was cut on the front lawn and often on part of the back. However, most of the backyard was allowed to grow into high grass or hay. That yellow grass was a couple of feet high by mid summer and drew myself, my sister Pat and our friends like metal to a magnet.

In the spring my grandmother chose a day to burn any dead grass in the backyard. I always loved to watch the spectacle that usually involved one or more of my uncles and sometimes a neighbour. She liked to burn grass as did all our neighbours. The sweet smell of burning grass still brings me back to those early days. Granny always did this when the water from the winter snow had finally dried up. She claimed it was to give the yard a clean look and provide the grass with a good fresh start. I always thought she just really liked the smell of burnt grass and that it reminded her of being on the farm back in Waltham.

Life Was Simple

In the mid 50s life was pretty simple for the most part in Iroquois Falls. In my case I had the challenge of the complexity of being raised by my Granny and mom with no dad around. That always kept me off balance but still I was loved, well cared for and ran and laughed with my friends up and down the street and through all the backyards and in between the rickety old garages and sheds in the neighbourhood. Inevitably we ended up in the backyard taking cover from anything and everything and sometimes just as a place where we could whisper, question and plan. We were always planning something. At times it was a refuge where I could come to sulk when I did not get my way or when I felt hurt in anyway. The long grass was always accommodating and comforting.

Most of the excitement in those days had to do with local home fires or grassfires. Those events were announced with the high pitched whine of a siren. Sometimes someone familiar would die and that always started with fright and shock and ended in grief and gloom. Life was like an ocean with the ebbs and tides. Horses still pulled wagons and carts around in 1950s Iroquois Falls although the car was well on its way to domination of the roads. Still, I would wake in the morning to the sound of the clip clop of Mike Kusmick’s milk wagon pulled by his horse. I would lay in my bed listening to the clip clops and the rattling of glass bottles starting and stopping all the way down the street.

Sometimes the Theriaults across the street would run a team of husky horses up to their place with a wagon full of wood following behind. Saws whirred and axes chopped as our neighbours readied their wood piles for winter. We had Croatins wood yard deliver our wood and coal most of the time but sometimes for reasons I could never figure out Terau and Debarge would race up to our drive way to dump a load of wood.

Like A Cyclone

Terau and Debarge were like a cyclone. I would catch glimpses of them daily racing down the narrow streets. Their horse Queen seemed to always be sweating and puffing steam from her regal nostrils. In the summer their wagon kicked up dust and kids ran as fast as they could to catch up and jump on the wobbling wooden rubber tired craft. I was forbidden from joining the neighbour hood children in their wild and free ride through the streets of Iroquois Falls courtesy of Terau, Debarge and of course the mighty Queen. Once in a while one of the kids would fall off and knock their noggins but amazingly nothing major every happened. The only time I ever got to spend with Queen was when I was with my friend Dean and we ventured out on the town limits where Queen was pastured when not hauling that quivering wagon and Terau and Debarge and a host of kids around town. She was black and had a white spot on her forehead. She was kind enough and often very approachable. Queen took our offerings of grass but if you really wanted to make her eyes light up an apple would do the trick.

I was always mystified by Terau and Debarge. It was wildly known that Debarge had come to Iroquois Falls in the 1930s from France. He looked like he should be walking the streets of some quaint French town in his beret and wool coat and pants. He was trim, organized and had the air of aristocracy about him. Still he was regarded as a sort of an outcast in some way. He always ran his business delivering wood in what seemed to be a very efficient and professional way. People seemed to like him but they kept their distance. Terau his partner, was considered slow. He was a plump fellow with a large black beard and he always wore a toque or floppy hat. He was French also but possibly from Quebec. They just seemed to arrive one day in the town’s early years. Most people had friends, family or some past to connect to but Terau and Debarge seemed to have just dropped from the sky.

Once a year I was treated to the arrival of Terau and Debarge in their rickety wagon. Queen would storm into the driveway with a dozen kids holding tight and they would all end up in the middle of our backyard. This usually happened at the end of summer when the grass was very tall. Granny and the other neighbours on old Third Avenue had a deal with the Frenchmen and they visited every summer’s end to cut the grass or hay as feed for Queen. Terau and Debarge jumped from the wagon and swathed the field with long scythes. The hangers on , mostly boys, piled the cut hay into the wagon as Queen stomped her feet and pulled her head back. In a flash they were gone in the laughter of boys and a trail of dust up the street.

A Mystery Shrouded In Time

It was many years later that I realized that Terau and Debarge were probably gay. They lived as partners in a little house on radio street. Although they seemed destitute it did not make sense. There was lots of money to be made in delivering wood and coal. It was rumoured that the duo also bootlegged whiskey in earlier years. Life must have been hard in many ways for them. Once I caught Therau helping himself to a raw broken egg on the back porch that Granny had left out for my dog Lassie. He was as surprised as I was and took off in a flash across the backyard and onto an adjacent street. I told granny but she seemed accepting. Perhaps she knew something more about the two then most.

One night in the early 1960s a fire broke out in the Frenchmens’ little house on Radio Street. It was a great blaze and although both men escaped they required some medical treatment. The rumour was that money was discovered in the walls and floorboards of that little wooden house.However, afer the fire the two moved on to Laurier Street about around the corner from our house. Debarge’s health deteriorated and he passed away in the mid 1960s. Their old house was torn down and money was discovered in the walls and floor boards. Much of it was turned over to the parish priest who committed it to good use some believe. Perhaps some of it was provided for the care of Terau. Soon after he was taken south where he was put in the care of his sister who was a nun and placed in a home. Nobody had much to say as a followup. They just seemed to have disappeared in much the same way they came to town. There was never another mention about the two Frenchmen and they slipped into the history of Iroquois Falls surrounded in mystery. They were simply two people that nobody ever talked about again. Until now.

The End

A cross cultural song dedicated to grannies or Kookoom and grandpas or Mooshoom in the Cree language. The music is by Michael McGrath. Lyrics are by Xavier Kataquapit, Ron Kataquapit and Michael McGrath. Studio production at Lakesidestudio in Iroquois Falls. Engineered and mastered by Donald Elliott. Rhythm Guitar and piano by Michael McGrath. Percussion, bass and keyboards by Donald Elliott. Lead guitar solo by Carle Brisson.

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A song dedicated to the town of Iroquois Falls.
Lyrics and music by Michael McGrath. Originally recorded by the music group, Under The Northern Sky, consisting of Michael McGrath, Ron Kataquapit and John Elliott. Vocals and guitars by Michael McGrath and Ron Kataquapit. Keyboard by John Elliott. Recorded at Studio 92 in Toronto, Ontario.

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A song dedicated to anyone who has taken the road of sobriety.
Lyrics and music by Michael McGrath and Ron Kataquapit. Originally recorded by the music group, Under The Northern Sky, consisting of Michael McGrath, Ron Kataquapit and John Elliott. Vocals and guitars by Michael McGrath and Ron Kataquapit. Keyboard by John Elliott. Recorded at Studio 92 in Toronto, Ontario.

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A song written for anyone who ever sat around a campfire.
Lyrics and music by Michael McGrath. Originally recorded by the music group, Under The Northern Sky, consisting of Michael McGrath, Ron Kataquapit and John Elliott. Vocals and guitars by Michael McGrath and Ron Kataquapit. Keyboard by John Elliott. Recorded at Studio 92 in Toronto, Ontario.

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A haunting song written by Michael McGrath.
It was originally featured on the ‘Spirit Of The Wolf’ by the group ‘Under The Northern Sky’.  That group featured Michael McGrath, Ron Kataquapit and John Elliott.  River was recorded at Studio 92 in Toronto, Ontario.  Music and lyrics by Michael McGrath.  Vocals by Michael McGrath.  Guitar by Michael McGrath and Ron Kataquapit.  Keyboard by John Elliott.

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