Around The Bend To The Next Blue Sky
Mark Leger is the editor and part-owner of Huddle. This is a weekly column that features opinion, analysis and reflections on Huddle stories, podcasts and business news in the region.
In early 2017, my wife Janet and I spent more than a month in Toronto while she underwent surgery to remove a non-malignant brain tumour. It was a stressful time for our family, with our two young children under the care of family members and friends back home.
To get a break from the long days at St. Michael’s Hospital, I would walk the streets of downtown Toronto, alone with my thoughts or listening to music. Around the same time, Dartmouth musician and Juno Award-winner Joel Plaskett had released a new album with his father Bill called Solidarity. A longtime Plaskett fan, it topped my playlist that month and one song, The Next Blue Sky, inspired and comforted me during a very tough time in my life.
I had gone to journalism school in downtown Toronto more than 20 years before, so it felt like a home away from home. The Next Blue Sky captured my mood as I wandered the streets, passing by the university, my old apartments, and cafes, restaurants, and bars where I used to spend time with friends.
We walk these streets with tired eyes
To find something we recognize
This used to be my town
Like the dominos in the middle rows
Not the first to go
or the last to know
We all fall down
If I can’t get a witness
Can I at least get a drink?
Raise a glass to the last
As we step cross the brink
I felt a mixture of melancholy, fear and fatigue and the lyrics resonated with me, even though Plaskett wasn’t writing about a situation like mine. I chatted with him on the latest Huddle “Home Office” podcast and before the official interview began, I told him about how that album had helped me through a very difficult time in my life. He shared his thoughts about what inspired the song – the changing urban landscape of Halifax and the outmigration of people that happened from all around the Maritime region at the time.
“There were all of these buildings that I used to hang out in that are all gone, the kind of erasure of certain memories, and also the exodus that happened from Halifax in the 90s and Nova Scotia in general when people were heading to Alberta or wherever to work,” Plaskett told me. “It was this idea of, you’re walking through this place you know super well, but it’s changed, so you’re like, around the bend to next blue sky.”
Musicians, and other artists like painters and poets, are in a special category of entrepreneurs. Their “products” inspire and connect with their “customers” in a very personal way. When I spoke with Plaskett on a video call for the podcast, I felt like I already knew him well, and by the end of the interview was inviting him to join my book club.
But in a way, I have known him, and been connecting with him for more than 20 years. When I was settling back into Saint John after my school years in Toronto, I went to most of his shows when he came to the city – gigs in small cafes and restaurants, theatre shows at the Imperial, and an arena show at Harbour Station when he was on a national tour opening for The Tragically Hip.
In songs like Love This Town and Work Out Fine, Plaskett spoke to both the joys of small-city Maritime life and the angst of seeing so many people my age leaving for opportunities elsewhere.
All my friends, where did they go?
To Montreal, Toronto
All my friends, they split too soon
They split town with the fork and the spoon
They all split town and they left me
Sitting with a bottle of wine
Gonna pop the cork, say my goodbyes
And everything’ll work out fine
As I aged and moved through new stages of my work and personal life, Plaskett’s music continued to be part of the soundtrack of those days – albums like La De Da, Ashtray Rock, Three, Scrappy Happiness, Solidarity and 44.
I listened to other Maritime musicians too, especially during the period when I was spending a lot of time with my young kids and we would fight over what music to play in the house or car. We had to listen to songs from Barney & Friends and The Wiggles of course, but they also loved Jessica Rhaye, Dave Gunning and David Myles.
I interviewed Myles on the “Home Office” podcast in January and told him about how my kids, when they were younger, would race around the dining room table when we played his song, Drive Right Through. We took Jack to his recent show at the Imperial Theatre in Saint John and he was the youngest person there, still a big fan.
Podcast: David Myles In Making Music And Hosting A Talk Show
Myles and Plaskett are both entrepreneurial musicians. Myles hosts a show that airs on an Alberta radio station and has his own YouTube talk show, Myles From Home, that features interviews with musicians like Alex Cuba, Classified, and Alan Doyle.
Plaskett runs a production studio in downtown Dartmouth where he’s worked with Maritime musicians like Jimmy Rankin, Mo Kenny and Myles. He also owns a local coffee shop that is run in partnership with the local record store Taz records.
Both men are navigating the difficulties of the pandemic and appreciating the time at home with their families after years of touring. They’re also optimistic about the future, even if the music business looks different post-pandemic.
What else would you expect from a musician like Plaskett, with lines like “Everything will work out fine” and “Around the bend to the next blue sky” capping songs that explore themes of connection and loss in his relationships with people and places?
I take inspiration from them and their music. At the end of our time in Toronto, Janet and I rented a car and began the drive home to New Brunswick. As I drove out of the city, Janet resting beside me in the passenger seat, I called up Solidarity and played The Next Blue Sky. It was a beautiful morning on the open highway with the city in the rearview mirror.
Around the bend to the next blue sky
This is the sound of me saying goodbye
Around the bend the sun is shining…
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Banner photo: submitted.