From the recording What Fools Endure
A love song about the French and English Canadian solitudes, inspired by the lights that sparkle at night over the Beaupré area from Mont Ste-Anne, Québec. A nod to Gilles Vigneault's "Mon Pays."
Trevor Tchir – vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica
Lyrics
Dear Ste-Anne
City walls shine in the distance
Pride and reminiscence
Survival in the wake
Of bitter freeze and all they’ll take
My country’s Winter, you sang
While the waves hung like meringue
On the wide and icy way
Below the bluffs of your Beaupré
Found a friend, left a lover
Across these solitudes
We can say we knew each other
Like passing shorebirds do
It’s cold consolation
Your touch, it warms a man
I see you there
By the lights of dear Ste-Anne
I might mess it in translation
Dad said, “Son, enjoy the station
The train, it leaves before you know
For life’s next picture show”
And I’m from a pretty prairie, too
But it’s a million klicks from you
I had to be returning
Though it’s dragged me through the blue
Found a friend, left a lover
Across these solitudes
We can say we knew each other
Like passing shorebirds do
It’s cold consolation
Your touch, it warms a man
I’ll see you always
By the lights of dear Ste-Anne
If you ever made it out
Though we don’t know when or how
You’d see your Rocky Mountains
I keep telling you about
You say you’d want your private guide
I’d play my latest side
And you’d bring maple sugar candy
That’s the deal we’re living by
Found a friend, left a lover
Across these solitudes
We can say we knew each other
Not much else that we can do
It’s cold consolation
Cause Winter’s come again
And cause I love you still
And the lights of dear Ste-Anne