Monday 9 December 2013

"In Days of Yore": CANADIAN SCHOOL REUNION

POST #6
PARODY-LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG:  "The Maple Leaf Forever", by Alexander Muir, modified
lyrics by Vladimir Radian 1997.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, September 2013, updated 2015, 2017, and 2018.

FURTHER SONGS ON THE SAME THEME: For other nostalgic takes on Canada's national hymns, you can view (and sing along with) ...
post #22 (February 2014) The Maple Leaf Ad Infinitum  
post #65 (January 2015)  Flight of the Loonie
post #181 (June 2018)  Something to Groan About




            

 




Grade 8 classes
Cedarvale Public School, 1958
.












You can also view these lyrics and commentary (without images or chords)  displayed on a parody-lyrics website at AmIRight.com Post "Canadian Reunion"













CANADIAN REUNION

(to the tune of "The Maple Leaf Forever")





















While young and frail at Poplarvale
Our mentors taught Muir's stirring song;
It eulogized forefathers’ feats,
Didn’t help us to belong.

As baby-boomers, second-gen,
Homes shaped by cookie-cutters;
Its patriotic sentiments
Maple Leaf Gardens
Carlton Street, Toronto
Dismissed those of our mothers.

No copyright, no fleur-de-lys;
Of insight only traces - 
Muir's Maple Leaf excluded half
Our countrys founding races.
       
Though regments touted it their tune,
And Anglo journals ranted,
Decades ago, O Canada
Muirs time-worn chant supplanted.


More recent play: ere Y-2-K,
Ann Murray sings
Maple Leaf Gardens
February, 2013
The C-B-C a contest ran;
So flourished a new pluralist "Leaf"
By songwright Vlad Radian. 

Its fabled British glory tamed,
No heaven or hegemony;
Olympic Closing half-time showed,
While "O (Canada)" did Ceremonies. 

Its reassembled mission clear, 
A newfound "Feuille" quite clever --
Anne Murray sang, The Gardens closed: 
The Maple Leafs forever.        

Five decades late, we congregate,
Our Grade Eight class remembered,  
No “Maple” hymn heard in the gym  - 
The song’s appeal now severed.

Reprise:
Last year Muir's ancient fabled tree
Was felled by stormy weather*.
Still sometimes heard, but seldom hymned -- 
The Maple Leaf Forever

* an ancient maple, that presumably had inspired
 Muir’s lyrics, was destroyed by a storm in July 2013.









HOTLINKS TO OTHER CANADIAN-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS
Canadian Reunion (see below)
..AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS
Canada Day 2015 (singable limericks)









UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT
(Click on any chord-chart slide to move to 'song-presentation mode'; then navigate through thumbnails at bottom of page.) 
  

















The reunion committee meets years later (November 2018) at Toronto's Le Paradis Restaurant
Present (left to right) R. Ruskin, D.  Mandel-Ross, H. Abrams, M. Greenstein,
G. Coniglio-Hurwitz, E. Kirzner; A. Gans (photographer)

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