Blair Packham

In the final episode of the Teachers, Mentors and Friends series, we're excited to introduce Blair Packham, who will debut two new songs from his upcoming release with The Impossible Dream. A former cohost of a long running major market weekly new radio show about music in the studio on the Bell Media Talk Radio Network.  And now, 16 years after his last release, Could have Been King, Blair Packham is recording  a collection of clever, catchy and poignant songs, entitled  Unpopular Pop. 

Transcript

Participant #1:
In the final episode of the Teachers, Mentors and Friends series, we're excited to introduce Blair Packam, who will debut two new songs from his upcoming release with The Impossible Dream and cohosting a long running major market weekly new radio show about music in the studio on the Bell Media Talk Radio Network. And now, 13 years after his last release, 2004, Could have Been King, Blair Packam has returned to the role of recording artists with a collection of clever catchy and at times poignant and always satisfying songs titled Pop unpopular Pop. Longtime admirers of his songwriting, singing and musical chops will surely disagree. Hear it for yourself. Blair Packham is back.

Participant #1:
So this is the last in the series of Teachers, Mentors and Friends and Blair Packam. You have been exactly that to me for roughly 15 years or so, and I get to geek out a little bit, too, because I'm a big fan, so good morning. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you very much. I'm curious. I asked this about all my guests, Where are you from? Where did you grow up? I grew up in Toronto. Unlike many Torontoians, I'm more or less from here. I spent the first five years of my life in Ottawa, but five years old is young enough, I think, to move to Toronto and call yourself a Toronto. So. Yeah. Always downtown in Toronto and went to high school downtown. Still friends with a lot of people from high school and even from grade school. Yeah. That's awesome. Pretty deep roots here. Where did your interest in music stem from? Early on, my parents bought me a Beatle record when we moved to Dawn Mills when I was five. They bought what's called in Canada Longtal Sally. But the same cover art was used for an album in the States called The Beatles second Album. And it wasn't an official Beatles release in terms of the way the Beatles made records in England. But the North American record company like to put together these for every two albums, they would make three. Basically right. And they were mono too, I guess, right. Yeah. And they were Canadian Masters as well. They were mastered differently. Now. I didn't know any of this when I was a kid. All I knew was I loved the songs on the record, and I loved the way they looked on the cover. And I just fell in love with it. And it grew from there. But really, the Beatles still hold a very prominent place in my heart. Nice. That makes sense.

Participant #1:
Do you mind if we go inside a cut? I really love it's called Land we Knew by Heart. What can you tell us about this one? Well, I was asked at the last minute to work on an adventure cruise that was going from St. John's, Newfoundland to Greenland and with many stops along the way. And I was supposed to be the onboard entertainment, and I'm not really good at leading singalongs and stuff. I just like to play my own songs. I guess I'm selfish that way. I don't know. I mean, I'm happy when people sing along with my songs, but I don't really want to play this land as your land or things like that. Nothing at all wrong with that song, for instance, or most of the songs that people would sing along with. I just didn't want to do that. So I wasn't necessarily the best choice. But I was the only choice they had. They hired me to be on this ship and entertain people, and I felt a few days into it. I realized I don't think I'm the right guy for the job. I thought maybe I was, but I was feeling kind of funny about it, but we stopped in various places along the way and in Northern Labrador, and my other job was to help load the passengers on and off of Zodiac boats so we could do shore landings. And I did that. And then once we had loaded everybody on before, we had to start Loading them off, we were allowed to go around and visit the sites that we're visiting. So we visited this relocated? Well, no, we visited this abandoned mission town called Hebron. Hebron is in Northern Labrador, and in the late 50s, the community there. It was a happy community, by all accounts, and had been there at that point for 200 years. And the Inuit people coexisted with the missionaries there again, according to reports. And I don't know, but it seems like it was a happy existence. And the Newfoundland and Labrador government relocated them in 1959. And it's a disastrous effect. It had a terrible effect on the community generationally and continues to have an effect. A terrible effect. And I just found the whole experience really moving. And I felt like when I got back to the ship, I mean, I read the plaque with the Newfoundland Labrador government's apology, and I read the Inuit people's response, which ended with the words, we forgive you, and I started to cry. I found it very moving, because first of all, I think the world could use a lot more forgiveness, but also just to see that it had come to this, it had come to this apology. An apology from a monolithic government was necessary and so forth. I just found the whole thing very moving. So when I got back to the ship feeling like I wasn't really fitting in, I thought I could write a song about that. I was moved to write a song. So I wrote this song, and I performed it, and the passengers and crew were very warm about it. It was received really warmly and beautifully. I'm really proud of this song. I heard a story on a ship off the coast of Labrador. It's not my story, but it needs to be passed on. So forgive me if you will. My mistakes in any details as I try to speak for others in this song my name is NACA Sack. I come from Labrador. The settlement called Hebron Hebron Bay was my shore all my days I'd Hunt and fish working with my hands and I love to play the trumpets in the missionary span. In the spring of 59, the announcement made in Church, the plan they called resettlements, would ease the public first. They moved us from our home by signing a few pages and soon we left our ancestors in the torn Gat mountain ranges from the land we knew by heart to a land that's unforgiving back home we had a life down here We're barely living the easy arrogance of others forced us to depart to a land that's unforgiving from the land we knew by heart

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no homes in which to put us no one's waiting arms and welcomes the food was scarce and what was worse. Families were badly broken only we wintered in our tents Our children lost their language we never had a chance from the land we knew by heart to a land that's unforgiving back home we had a life down here We're barely living the easy arrogance of others forced us to depart to a land that's unforgiving from the land we knew by heart Walk the beach at Rama Sea fair tracks on the sand they will wash away waste soon enough as we were washed from the land but our spirits prevail Because our pride is strong we will forgive but we won't forget as time goes on and on when we go on and on from a land nearby heart to a lamb that's unforgiving

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down here We're barely living the easy arrogance of others forced us to depart to a land the sun forgiving from the

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land we knew by heart to a land that's unforgiving from the land we knew by heart

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great story. It's longer than the stories that I usually tell before songs. In fact, I tell my students, please don't tell stories because I really feel that unless it illuminates the song, because often people's stories are like, often they're excuses. Oh, man, my voice is really kind of messed up. I stayed up late last night and they're going to tell you why they're about to be bad. I don't think an audience deserves that. I think that's about your ego. And I think you should put that away and you should perform the song as best you can and give them the best that you can the best of yourself. So I tend to make my stories before songs pretty short unless they're really important, like, important to the understanding of the song. Well, yes, I should mention that at some point in your career, you began teaching songwriting, and when did that start? And you're still doing it? I know.

Participant #1:
Yeah. I teach at Seneca College here in Toronto, and I've been doing that for about 13, maybe 14 years. At this point, and I really love it for a time. I taught at Humber College as well. And before that, I did a bunch of workshops for the Songwriters Association of Canada. So I kind of got used to teaching per se in that way, like through workshops. And so that's the style that I bring in my classes at Seneca, and I find it really fulfilling. People will ask me, civilians, that is, people who don't write songs will say, how can you teach songwriting or can you really teach it and so forth? And they don't always use that voice, by the way. But I understand why, because the romantic notion of songwriting is that it just flows out of you and that there's no editing involved, and it's just magic. Well, there is absolutely magic involved, and I don't want to diminish that. And I won't diminish that in any way. But I also believe that it takes some discipline to write good songs. And so I try and show how you might use this idea or that idea. And I listen to the student songs. That's mostly what we do is listen to the student songs. And then I make suggestions. You might try this or have you ever thought that the chorus might come sooner or that chorus sounds more like a bridge to me? Why don't you have another goal with a chorus that kind of thing. And a lot of the students resist.

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They believe that romantic notion that it should just flow out of you. And they feel like if they look at it too hard, they're spoiling the magic. And I just feel like that's naive, right. So how important do you think collaboration is then? I think it's really important, but it's important. However, it works for you. There are people who have never written a song with anybody else, and they're just fine with that. I think collaboration, though, can let you off the hook as a writer in a good way in the sense that you might have a fantastic melody and a set of chord changes. And you have zero ideas for lyrics. And then somebody comes along. You and I collaborated on something. You happened to send me a lyric, and I happened to play this music track that I had been working on, and I just started singing your lyric, and I thought, oh, that works pretty good. Now I haven't released that or anything because I'm working on other projects, and I really want to be careful about releasing stuff at the right and the wrong time. And so now it's been years since you and I collaborated on that. It's fantastic. I really appreciated it. And, wow, that's how it came together. You already had the melody. I already had a lot of the music, and so I just started singing it up loud so that's the magic part. The magic part was coming up with the chord progression. And then seeing your lyrics and feeling inspired to start singing something. That's the magic part, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to just go, okay, great. And then sort of show it off to everybody. Hey, look at my song. It's like, no, I want it to be great. And so it's taking a while for me to feel that. And I think it's there. But sometimes I play songs. I'm about to release a song that I wrote in 2009. No, sorry. In 10 19 99. Funny how funny? How, yeah. That's going to be the first release for my new band. It's truly a wonderful song. I really love it. Thank you. Thanks. Yeah, I love it, too. And I play it with my band. I've got a new band. I say new, but we're not really that new. The Impossible Dream is the name of the band. Jim Nielsen is playing upright bass, and Andy Humphrey plays drums and sings. And, yeah, there's lots of vocals, and it's a fun band. Fun project, for sure. Very nice. A trio. Yeah, that's great. So, yeah, since we're talking about funny how from the first time I heard this song, it still gives me goosebump true, raw emotion. And I guess as a breakup song, it's still a love song and it really delivers and vocally. Come on, forget about it. You're a fantastic singer. Thank you. Funny how right now

Participant #1:
she don't know

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faster half of opposition we're bundled up a stone Funny how life we thought we made cross muffled with the signing of a page We're free of all those mouths should be laughing but somehow it ain't so funny now and it strange how she seemed to look right through me I gave back her key then again how she thought she ever knew me Just a mystery Funny how life we thought we maybe crumbled with the signing of a page We're free of all those bows should be laughing but somehow it ain't so funny now Funny how I never gave her that much credit And I was wrong to criticize I love to go But I probably only told her like some constellation

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crumbled with the Sky We're free of all those mouths should be laughing but somehow it ain't so funny now

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a good time disappears resolved the way in fear and it's funny how

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funny how she flew all the way to Boston she don't know

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all we know is all we see all the rest is a mystery goes the opening line I don't know is the name of it and it's simply a great love song that's all I know a million stars up in the Sky Everyone's been wished on once or twice. These illustrate the backdrop of a romance, wonderful stuff and catchy and memorable. And I can't help but think it's like trying to make sense of the undefinable. So anything you can tell me about? I don't know. You wrote it? No, that was a funny house. Sorry. Yeah, well, no, I wrote that one a long time ago, but I released it as well at the same time that I wrote it. Really. I wrote that in, I think, 10. 00 19. 99 with my ex wife, Arlene Bishop, who is a brilliant singer songwriter and a great lyricist. And she wrote the last verse about all we love is all we have and all the rest is up for grabs. Will you love me? Like you said, will you stay with me till death? I don't know. And we didn't stay together. And I remember playing that song for my Seneca class. And just shortly after Arlene and I split and just breaking down, crying and stopping because it was about. But here's the thing. Songs I don't know about you. But when people ask me, Well, what's that one about? Songs can be about a bunch of different things. They don't have to be about one thing. So it's about my marriage. But my marriage was going okay at the time, it was going pretty well, I thought. But it was also about my dad.

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I don't know. My dad was sick and he died in 2002. But anyway, it's about losing people. And the initial line is about love.

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All we know is all we see. That's all we know for sure. And all the rest is a mystery, including love and faith and all that stuff and death. What does death mean? I was musing. My cat was getting sick and he died, and I loved him so much. And I was thinking, Where does that love go? Where does that feeling go? Where does that energy go? And where does his soul go? My cat? And where did my dad's soul go? And where does the soul of a marriage go? And a love and all that stuff. So it's really all those things. And I think that for me, I don't know about other people. But for me, most of my songs are about multiple things. So whenever somebody says and they inevitably do, what's that one about? I'm like, Well, here's a long list of things that it's about. All we know is always see all the rest is a mystery do the clouds reach for?

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Does the silence year for sound? I don't know

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all we want is everything everything the world is meant to be through the leaves hold to the tree does the shore belong to the sea? I don't know.

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A million stars hang up in the sky every one of them been wished on once or twice. I'm glad my wish came true you belong to me and I belong to you

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all we love is all we have all the rest. Will you love me? Like you said, will you stay with me?

Participant #1:
You have to leave it open to interpretation because other people's perspective, they're going to give it their own meanings. Absolutely. And you can ruin it for them. You really can. For instance, I did a bunch of demos with Ron Sexmith early in his career. And we're friends, but I don't see him very much because he doesn't live in Toronto anymore. But he's a great guy. But he did say to me there was a song of his called The Strangest Things, and it was cool. It was a really cool song that was one of the demos we did. Well, The Strangest Things keep happening in my life. So it's sort of bluesy. But through Ron's voice and I said, I made the foolish mistake of saying, hey, what's that one about? Because the chorus goes, you were born in a cabin, but now you're King. And I thought, wow, okay. Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley, like, who, what's that about? And Ron said in his inimitable way, his sort of offshock kind of way. He said, yeah, well, that one things were really hard. And then all of a sudden, I was getting calls from record company people and a Andr people and they wanted to talk to me about doing a record deal. And I was so let down. I was like, because it was about getting a record deal, like, I thought it was about something magical, something I wouldn't say it ruined it. For me. It's still a great song. But there was another one. It was Give the little guy a chance. And I thought I didn't know what it was about. I didn't know who the little guy was. It was Bob Ray. He was talking about who Ron was talking about. And Bob Ray. I'm a big fan of Bob Ray. Yeah, NDP politician. Well, then Liberal and interim deputy interim Prime Minister for Canada for a while. But I'm a big fan of Bob Ray to this day. A great man, I believe. But it kind of ruined the song because I didn't know what it was about. I thought it was about something heavier somehow. So to your audience, I would say, maybe don't ask that question because you may not like what you hear

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music.

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It could have been a jittery song. To me. It sounds very much like it could have actually been a hit for The Jitters. Oh, thank you. Well, it's guitar pop. Yeah, for sure. And it's got a lick to it a release which is called Unpopular Pop. It's funny because you used the word catchy a few times, and I'm not saying that you're saying it this way. But a lot of people that I know use the word catchy as a pejorative, and it somehow diminishes the music. Yeah, it's kind of catchy. They say it, and I'm like, yeah, that's good. Because of my Beatles upbringing. I think I like catchy. I think catchy is good. It gets in your head and you find yourself singing it later. I've been accused of writing earworms as if that's a bad thing. And I think, no, don't you want people to remember your song exactly? I agree. Yeah, this one I wrote with Craig Northy, who is the leader of the Vancouver band The Odds, and he's a frequent but irregular collaborator, and he's really fantastic. He's a great writer. He's a great human being. I love him. I'm very happy that I know him, and I get to occasionally send him stuff and say, hey, can you do something with this? And next thing you know, he sends it back. I had to wrangle this one into shape, mind you, because he was almost going, like stream of consciousness and so forth. And I had to figure out what's the chorus and talking about catchy. I had to figure out what's the catchy part. Then I shuffled things around and found something and then realized that I think I was writing about a Trump like figure. Okay. I was going to say, it seems like you're writing about a character. Yeah. Not a personal lyric. No, it's from the point of view of this person. He's sitting in a hotel suite naked, and he's surfing the Internet and looking for himself, looking for what I call ego surfing, right? He's got everything he needs, but he's jaded. And enough is never enough. He actually remembers with vague fondness the time before the check started coming in. That life was simpler, but he's hooked into this thing and just getting attention. He wants to get more attention. He wants to see who's talking about him right now. Okay. Can I read you a quote that I read recently? Sure. It seems to sum up the writing process to me on a personal level. It's from May Sarton, who is called Journal of a Solitude for a long time. Now every meeting with another human being has been a collision. I feel too much sense, too much. Am exhausted by the reverberations after even the simplest conversation. But the deep collision is and has been with my unregenerate tormenting and torment itself. I have written every poem, every novel for the same purpose to find out what I think to know where I stand. Does that ring true with you? Yeah, I would say for me, I put it slightly differently, but it resonates for sure. I write to make sense of my life and to make sense of the world. That's why even though my songs tend to be from my point of view, that last one notwithstanding, they tend to be it's not a character. It's usually me. And I'm writing about myself and my own experience in the world. I would say so. I would say that resonates for sure.

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And the silence

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music

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never going to be that way again. Yeah, that was written with

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sheer great songwriter. He produced that record.

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Well, he wrote all through the night for Cindy Lauper, and he wrote if she knew what she wants for The Bangles. And he was the creator of Mtvh One's unplugged series that he got fired from shortly after he launched it because Don Henley didn't want a host. He didn't want to have a host. And Jules was the host. But at that point, Don Henley was at the height of his powers. And so he said, no, I don't want a host. And then MTV or BH, one thought, oh, we don't have to have a host. We can save some money. But anyway, Jules great guy, funny guy, fantastic songwriter. And he wrote the bulk of this lyric, which is very unusual for me to have somebody else write much of the lyric, but it tells a beautiful story. It also means I can go on about it effusively and talk about what a great lyric it is. And I'm not actually saying that I'm great. I'm saying that the lyric is great that Jules wrote. I see. So what were those years like and being in the jitters and having some chart success? They were great, as I say, for the first five and a half, six years of the band, we had some ups and downs, but it wasn't like a steady rise to stardom or our version of Stardom, which is pretty mild, but it was still fun. And we worked a lot and we were able to make a crappy living. But playing our own original music without having to work at other jobs and doing a lot of gigs. A lot of gigs. Yeah. A lot of afternoon lunchtimes at universities and stuff like that and backyard radio parties, radio station parties and stuff like that, as well as tons of clubs. So, yeah, we worked a lot. We laughed a lot. We were best friends. And it was great to play music with my best friends. And we were like a gang. So it was great. And then we had a chance after some real adventures, we made a bunch of recordings with Bob Ezron, who at the time was the biggest producer in the world. None of it was released, but we did some stuff. And we wrote some songs with Bob as well. And we opened for Famous People before we had a record deal. We opened for Huey Lewis and The News, and we opened for The Kinks, and we opened for The Birds and all kinds of well known people. Well has produced so many people. Well, yeah. At that point, it was relatively soon after The Wall by Pink Floyd, which was the biggest record and an incredibly huge record. Writing and working with Bob was amazing. But there's a lot of scuffling around. And then in 10, 19, 86, we were put in touch with a guy named Paul Gross, not the actor. And he was one of the owners of Phase One Recording Studios, which was a major recording studio. There were a bunch of big time recording Studios in Toronto at the time, but his was definitely one of the two big ones. Three big ones, I guess one of the three big ones, I'd say, was Metalworks Manta Sound and Phase One.

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He wanted to work with us. And the deal was we wouldn't have to pay him any money at all. We would record, and he would shop it around, try and get a record deal. And if he could get a record deal, then we'd finish an album and we put it out. With whomever signed us. Capital Record signed us. And they were the Beatles label, like, it was the same label from that record that I got when I was five years old. Amazing. That's so cool. Yeah. So for me, it was extra exciting. And then we suddenly were on the radio. And we had been on the radio a little bit before with the Q 107 homegrown contest in 1987. We're on radio all across the country and other stations other than in Toronto. And it was super thrilling. I remember vividly sitting in a car outside the base player's house, Matthew Greenberg's house, waiting for him to come. We're going to a gig. And they debuted our song on Q 107 in between Led Zeppelin. And I think my name is Peter Gabriel. And to me, it sounded all muted. It sounded all muted, like that. It wasn't. But I was so sensitive and so tuned up to what it was going to be like to me. And then when I heard the next time, it sounded fine. Actually, that wasn't the first time I get this. The first time was actually walking with Matthew base player down Young Street and hearing it coming out of a car going by, hearing Last of the Red Hot Fools that song. And then a guy coming up to us, like, as the car goes by, he comes up and he goes, hey, you're the guys, you're from that band. And we had a video that was out on much music, like had been out for, like, two days. And I said, yeah, I was very proud that's us. And he said, we sing your song all the time in the west. And I said, Well, that's fantastic. We're about to head out west for the first time. I've never been west of Thunder Bay. And he said, no, man, the West Detention Center. So he was talking about in jail. They sang, I've Been a fool, played it dumb like that in the shower. Yeah. Exactly. That's funny. But anyway, yeah. So now that I think of it, that wasn't the first time. That was a little later, once the first single had already hit, which is why I guess he recognized us on the street. So that happened a lot, too. We got recognized on the street, usually by people who didn't know who we were, but they knew that they had seen us somewhere. And sometimes by people who thought it was really important to say, yeah, I'm not a fan of your band, but my little sister really likes you. And I would think, Why do you have to say that. Why do you have to share that with me? Like what? You see that that's kind of hurtful, don't you? But to them, it was important. I probably thought you were Paul Hyde. Yeah, maybe. Who knows? Well, this has been a pleasure. I'm not going to keep you too long. I think we've got some good stuff. Do you have any final words? I'm going to slow release the music from my trio, The Impossible Dream. And when I say slow release, what I mean is I haven't decided yet. Whether it's once a month or once every six weeks, I'm going to have a new song and a new video. And then eventually, after six months or eight months, I'm going to have an EP with six to eight songs. And I'm going to release that in the way that we release records these days, which means, really, you're just putting it on Spotify, et cetera. And I would say if you're around Toronto and you see that The Impossible Dream are playing somewhere, come and see us because we're fun. Right? And you finally are. It's been a while. It's been a while. But I've done five paid gigs in the last month, and it's been so much fun. That's great. Let's end with Last of the Red Hot Fools. All right, here. Fist pump. There you go. There we go.