November: Stronger Word for Love

from A Year In Song by The Nautical Miles

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about

About the song…

In 2006 we released an album called Tell me again how this place got its name. The last track on that record is Accidentals, Exotics and Escapes. The lyrics are taken from a poem by Don McKay by the same name, from his collection of poetry Birding, or Desire. I have been a huge fan of Don McKay ever since his work appeared on the list of required reading for my Environmental Writing course in the first year of my undergrad. That was also the year that I started writing songs for Corbin Murdoch and the Nautical Miles. I was wanting to write songs quicker than I was able to produce lyrics (a problem that I still face today), and so I turned to the art of interpretation. I wrote to him asking for his permission to use the song on our record, and he very graciously agreed.

In my last year of university, I was writing my honours paper on songwriting as an ecological process. I read McKay’s Deactivated West 100 as part of my literature review for this project. Not wanting to spend my summer writing essays, I convinced my advisor to let me write songs about the books I was reading, instead of writing papers.

A Stronger Word For Love is the song I wrote in response to Deactivated West 100.

Originally a Pan Pan song, we asked Chris Suen one of Vancouver’s finest banjo pickers, to join us in the studio to add his inimitable flare to the tune. Chris plays in the smoking hot, old-tyme band Shout! White Dragon. Jesse Gander, our perenial studio engineer, is on back ups. We knocked this one off in an hour or so. It was a great time.

About the artwork…

This piece was created by two of the loveliest people I know, Jennifer Van de Pol and Adrian Robertshaw. Jenn and Adrian lived in Vancouver for many years, but have recently moved to the hamlet of Cedar, BC on Vancouver Island where they have opened Strathcona Press. If you find yourself on the island, it is definitely worth your time to look them up. They recently published a book of Jenn’s writings and drawings entitled Adagio. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

I gave Adrian and Jenn my copy of Deavtivated West 100 when they traveled to Nepal and India last year, so it is fitting that they produced the artwork for this month’s song. It is an honour to have them involved.

Check out more of their work here:

jvandepol.com
adrianfilm.com

credits

from A Year In Song, track released November 15, 2009
Jennifer Van de Pol: artwork
Adrian Robertshaw: artwork
Corbin Murdoch: vocals, guitar
Christopher Suen: banjo
Tim Tweedale: dobro
Jesse Gander: vocals, production

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The Nautical Miles are an adventurous roots music band from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

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