Bob's Oeuvre

The old folksinger recalls his songs
This is segment from "My Obituary," an interview about my career in folk music published in the Canadian Folk Music Bulletin.

BB - Songs are like your children, you love them all in different ways. Daddy Was a Ballplayer has a special place, because it was the first one I wrote that had its own voice, that didn't sound like anyone else. The Maple Leaf Dog is another like that: no one else would ever have written that song. They were also songs that people responded to. They played a role in Stringband's little history. On the other hand, I've also always liked "Look What's Become of Me," in part because no-one else did. I am proud of the compactness of expression in some of the songs: Newfoundlanders, Tugboats, Dief, The Casca and the Whitehorse Burned Down. I like the way they paint their picture with such simple-seeming strokes; then the meaning kind of radiates out from the song's little three-minute world. Madelyn's Lullabye, on the new album, is like that. There is really a lot going on in there, about family, about love, about social class, even though is is a really simple song. I like Ya Wanna Marry Me? because it is so much my own personal love song, although, ironically, it is also one of the most popular of my songs. Whenever it is played on radio - which it is periodically - I get calls and letters from people who want copies. I think they respond to the fact that the song is both sweet and realistic about my own marriage - that rings a bell. Lunenburg Concerto was like that, too, personal as can be, and, because of that, personal to other people too. Lunenburg and Satchel Paige are probably the richest, deepest, most emotionally complex ones. And then I am really happy to have written some of the overtly political songs like Show Us the Length and Sulphur Passage. They have played their own small part in changing the world. Show Us the Length has literally been sung round the world, despite virtually no air-play (for reasons that are obvious if you know the song.) Its success has been completely outside of the commercial stream. I am always hearing from people who heard it in some far-off place, who sang it themselves in some school show or at some protest. Someone sent me a tape of it being sung at a women's music festival - in Japanese! Sulphur Passage is starting to have the same kind of non-commercial, hand-to-hand success. It really is playing a part in the struggle to save the forests, first in BC and now in lots of different places. The video is so powerful, and it is being seen in different countries, in schools, at film festivals, at conferences. It really encourages people to fight on. It brought tears to my eyes, the first time I saw it, and I know it affects a lot of people that way.

here's a list of Bob's songs and where to find them