Posted on December 13, 2020.
Early November was harsh, with the fallen leaves having laid bare the urban ugliness. Mandatory confinement, closed borders, shorter days, gray all around. And then suddenly a song came over the radio with, “I ask myself all the time/How do these poor folks get along … It’s so sad that when/I get back home/I see all of America weeping/In my rearview mirror…”
The song “America Weeping” on the Dashing Cowboys’ new album “The Antipodes” is staggering in its justice, its perceptiveness, its timeliness. For these, it won awards at the recent gala of the Quebec Association for the Recording, Concert and Video Industries. Everything about the lyrics by Jean-Francois Pauze and the vocals by Karl Tremblay is remarkable. A year after its release, the song is even more moving, because America is in tatters, because of Donald Trump, COVID-19, police shootings; because Quebec is part of North America and because the song’s narrator, a clear-headed truck driver, makes us see reality with sorrow and empathy. He encompasses the social landscape that we know as ours. How can we stay dry-eyed when we hear his song?