Yellowknife

What do you know? Another original Knees Calhoon tune, written in 2015, when for most of the 90s and 00s Knees thought his creative days were long past. It appears he still has a few notes and words left in him and it's thanks to his Canadian friends in a group called The Cover Album Project Band that they have been pulled out. The song is amazingly simple but maybe that fits the stark, beautiful expanse that the Northwest Territories cover. With average temperatures in the summer barely reaching the freezing point, it's doubtful Knees will ever visit Yellowknife, but for about 2 and a half minutes we can dream. Gavin O'Keefe accompanies the Northern Lights with some haunting viola.

YELLOWKNIFE

MP3

YELLOWKNIFE VIDEO 
Youtube video

You can count all the trees in Ontario

Weigh the ice in the Arctic Dome

But if you’re miles away from Yellowknife
You’re not home.

You can walk from Vancouver to Labrador
And freeze in the Atlantic foam,
When you're a long way from Yellowknife
You’re not home.

In the Northwest Territories
Is where I wanna be
A place to find fortune
A place to be free
By the banks of the Great Slave Lake I wanna lie
When the last bus leaves town let me be
In Yellowknife
In Yellowknife

You can climb all the mountains of Canada
Sail the waters from St. John’s to Nome
But when you ride the bus back to Yellowknife
You’ll be home.

There’s a territory mind
That makes a man roam
Lookin for his fortune
Lookin for his home
But the Northwest Territories is where I wanna die
When the last bus leaves town let me be
In Yellowknife
In Yellowknife

BONUS COVER!

Ever since Knees first heard this song on an album by a bluegrass group called Country Gazette he's considered it to be one of the best anti-war songs ever. But which war? 

FORGET ME NOT

Someday

It was early 1967 and I was killing time before going in the army. I was at a party on Vine Street in Farmington NM and I heard a song on the hi-fi that I'd never heard before. It sounded like Buddy Holly and it had some very nifty chords. I looked at the 45 and sure enough it was by The Crickets, and called "Someday".

Years later in the 90s I was given a complete set of Buddy Holly records, which had numerous early rockabilly songs I'd never heard, but when I looked for the song I couldn't find it. I remained mystified until recently when I googled it and found that the song was indeed recorded by The Crickets, but the singer was Bobby Vee. It's still a damn good song for 1962.

SOMEDAY