Big Smoke

Del Barber (composer and performer; album: Praireography, 2014)

Blinded by the city lights
No one can see you stallin'
It's been so long since you've seen the prairie stars
You're not sure you can recall them
But there is something here for you to find
You may have found it once and lost it now

We used to fly through the woods
On the backs of quarter horses
Pickin' dandelion bouquets for our sister and our mother
We felt like men but we were boys
Too young to know
That we were as free as fire

And you're lost out in the Big Smoke
Lookin' for a way home
There are no straight paths
There's no easy way

Brother do you remember
That one September morning we were shooting cans
With Dad's .22 without a worry or a warning
You pulled the trigger down and dropped that deer
And you looked at me with tears in your eyes

And I never in a million years
Thought that you'd make that shot
And I picture you tonight, with your sights still on something so far off
Wherever you are I hope you're being careful
About the things you think you want

And you're lost out in the Big Smoke
Without a fire of your own
There are no straight paths
There's no easy way

(Last year, father and son produced 12,000 bussels. Under the Crow, they paid thirteen cents a bussel to ship it to Vancouver: $1560. Within four years they'll likely be paying twice as much and within a decade maybe five times as much. "If the price of grain would increase, I suppose a guy wouldn't feel it quite so badly; but on the horizon we don't see it, an increase." "Supposing they, ah, say that a few towns down the road - that grain should be here. There goes our elevator and I would think that 20% of the taxes in this town come from the elevators.)

The sky is getting hazy
It's filling up with grain dust
And it could be in a year the bank finally gets the best of us
But our cows are fed and the bins are full
We're hoping to see you before the snow

You're lost out in the Big Smoke
Without a fire of your own
There are no straight paths
There's no easy way

You're lost out in the Big Smoke
Without a fire of your own
There are no straight paths
There's no easy way