Dear Montreal, I still love you.
They may call you corrupt and crumbling, a disaster and a disgrace. But they don’t know what it feels like to awake each morning cradled between your rows of triplexes.
They may call us pathetic, brain-dead, lazy, or just plain lâche. But they aren’t thinking about the heart-thumping thrill of cycling up the Main on a Friday night.
For so many Montrealers, what matters isn’t what goes on in city hall, its what goes on in the parks and the alleyways and the bars. The mafia may build the roads and the city councillors’ friends may build condos, but it’s the stories, and of course the crazy nights out on the town, that give Montreal its soul.
And so it is definitely time to launch this “coups de coeur” column highlighting art, music, theatre, film and literature that celebrate – and even create – this city and its neighbourhoods. I’m sure I’m not the only one who got to know Montreal’s history and neighbourhoods by reading Mordecai Richler and Gabrielle Roy novels. And it was Michel Tremblay’s characters who invested the Lower Main with meaning that led me to defend it against new proposed developments.
When it comes to creating places that people care about, books and films and songs are a better way to our hearts than even the best urban planning policy.
So to kick it off, here’s a music video from the United Steelworkers of Montreal. According to front-man Gern F., the song Émile Bertrand is inspired by Griffintown’s 100 year old, history-rich hot-dog and spruce beer joint of the same name (which sadly closed its doors in 2006).
Emile Bertrand’s famous spruce beer is still available at Paul Patates in Pointe-St-Charles, the restaurant that provides the yellow-checkered casse-croûte backdrop for much of this music video.
The video is an ode to the South-West neighbourhood that the film production company, Urban Handed Works, calls home, with beautiful, nostalgic footage of the Lachine Canal in grimier times. Felicity Hamer’s whisper and Gern F’s rumbling voice come together with a gorgeous warm glow that feels like coming home.
12 comments
Don’t mean to be a nitpicker, but it’s “Lachine” not “Laching”
Lovely post Alanah.
Great post! Loved the video.
Wonderful! Where do I exchange my cash for a date with the talented Felicity Hamer? Ok, well, at least the song?
great post and video!
Beautiful, Alanah, thanks so very much. Makes me remember how my heart used to burst open every time I took the bus from Ottawa Sunday nights from my parents house to return to Concordia University. I’d just sit in the bus and pratically cry with joy. That was 20 years ago. I was so in love with this city. Still am.
Nice hommage to our lovely city. But I think it’s a shame if Montrealars can’t love what goes on in the city’s parks and alleyways while also be preoccupied by what goes on at city hall. Because, really, what’s brewing at City Hall will have an effect, sooner or later, to what goes on in the parks…
j2 – you can exchange cash for USWM songs at:
– CHEAP THRILLS 2044 Metcalfe
– INDIGO 1500 McGill College
– HMV 1020 St. Catherine
– GRUMPY’S BAR 1242 Bishop
and they hav a few shows planned for january (check the website)
Thank you very much Darling…. for more info on the great south west of Montreal please visit the St-Henri Historical Society located on the 3rd floor above the fire hall on Place St-Henri. They are presently running an exhibit on the Turcot Yards. Half of everything I know about the South West I picked up there.
Love Gern
As well j2 you can find the USWM’s music on line at iTunes, or weewerk.com or follow any of the links from USWM.CA
Great idea, great post, great first choice of video.
I wondered why my pictures of Felicity Hamer on flickr had been receiving hits all of a sudden – now I know.
Looking forward to more!
Montreal! Wow!
I came across this compliment about Montreal. I enjoyed the words of history and phrases of praise.
It is the daily living of Montreal that makes Montreal a great city. The beauty is us who love our Montreal. Who give it the life that it has.
A house is not a home until it has love. It is in these words I feel our Montreal is not Montreal unless it has us to make it what it is.
Betty-Ann Doskas
Saint Henri/ Point Saint Charles / Verdun /South Shore