Mats Sundin’s Tears
Music by Sal De Meo; Words by Finley Mullally; Arrangement by the Riverthieves
Canadian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan were permitted a two-can beer ration once a month. It was the practice for units to take this beer ration together, often outdoors in the cool hours of the night, while watching hockey games projected onto the concrete blast walls of their FOBs.
On 14 Oct 2006, the Toronto Maple Leafs were playing the Calgary Flames. The Leafs fought back from a two-goal deficit to tie the game in regular time, with Sundin scoring twice and ending the third period with 499 career goals. In the dying seconds of the third period, Toronto took two penalties to start overtime short-handed. Mats’ dramatic 500th career goal was a five-on-three, sudden-death, game-winner. In the emotional post-game celebration, colour commentator Harry Neale noted that Mats was crying, and he could be forgiven for that.
The very same day, in the Panjway District of Kandahar province of Afghanistan, Sgt Darcy Tedford and Pte Blake Williamson, both with the 1st battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment based at CFB Petawawa in Eastern Ontario, were killed in an ambush by Taliban fighters.
Mats Sundin's Tears
It happened on a Wednesday, Blue light on the Wall:
Calgary at Toronto, nothing special at all.
The kids had gone to bed; cold beer in the mug;
Feet on the ottoman; dog curled on the rug.
The Leafs coughed up a two-goal lead to the Flames in the second;
But tied it in the third and overtime beckoned.
Mid-week hockey binds us all; it’s communal television:
It’s an excuse to call your brother during second intermission
To say Don Cherry called that right, to make some weekend plans
See the faces of the fallen from Afghanistan
Projected on the blast wall in the desert, 2 a.m.
The soldiers watch the Leafs wrestling the Flames.
Panjway’s so far removed from ABC Lumber
And pick-up hockey at the rink on the East bank of the Humber.
When he joined the army he was such a Weston kid
He put double-7s on his arm just like Paul Coffey did.
Mid-week hockey binds us all; it’s communal television:
It’s an excuse to call your brother during second intermission,
To say Don Cherry called that right, to make some weekend plans,
See the faces of the fallen from Afghanistan.
Season 13 for Sundin five-on-three in overtime;
Tonight’s goals bring his record to 499
But the Swede’s hat-trick is magic, completely unassisted
Short-handed and decisive, his 500th is listed.
With our skipper on our shoulders and our monthly can of beer
On blast walls in the desert, we imagine Sundin’s tears.
Mid-week hockey binds us all; it’s communal television:
It’s an excuse to call your father during second intermission
To agree that Gretzky’s still the king, but Béliveau’s the man
See the faces of the fallen from Afghanistan
Don says they’re beautiful boys…
They’re beautiful boys…
They’re beautiful…
How Long Have I been Sleeping
Music by Devon Matsalla; Words by Finley Mullally; Arrangement by
the Riverthieves
Devon and Finley both deployed to the Afghanistan mission and returned as most soldiers do: intact and able to resume pre-mission careers and relationships successfully. However, all deployments are life-altering: they take a toll at home and overseas, leaving their scars, regrets, victories and battle-tested friendships. This song is not for them.
This song was inspired by close friends whose war time experiences left them suffering life-changing injuries, visible and otherwise. Their immediate recovery was compared to waking from a restless sleep full of nightmares and terrors. Periods of rehab were just as arduous, sometimes stretching through years of pain-management and depression. And the sweet siren-song of self-harm – in all its forms – haunts survivors of war trauma, leaving us two classical images:
Ulysses, passing the deadly Island of the Sirens, is tied to the mast of his ship and held safely by his comrades. Their ears are filled with bees wax, saving them from that tempting melody which overcomes their friend, weeping and begging to be released to follow to those rocky shores…
And Orpheus, the great, mortal musician, boldly descends into hell to bargain with Hades for the return of his love. Due to the sweetness of his music, he is granted this wish provided he does not glance back on the long ascent to the world. He wrestles with himself, struggling to keep his gaze forward, for the entirety of that long road home.
How long have I been sleeping?
How long have I been sleeping? How long have I been out?
I feel like I’ve been dreaming, but sometimes…, sometimes I have my doubts.
Now the fog about me’s lifting from this dark road I’ve been on
And I hear whispers in the darkness but in the light… in the light those sounds are gone.
It’s a long road home…
Navigation’s tricky: the streets have changed their names.
And everything looks different, although I know.. I know it’s all the same
I’ve been to where the maps end; I’ve stood on mountains with no name;
I’ve clung to hope and I’ve been hopeless; I called for help.. called for help and no help came
It’s a long road home…
Friend, I’ve heard the Sirens singing while comrades held me fast;
I wept for beauty and for pity like Ulysses, Ulysses at the mast.
How long have I been sleeping; how long I cannot tell
I’m like Orpheus ascending up the narrow road from hell.
It’s a long road home…
Taking the Cougar to Tarin Kowt
Music by Sal DeMeo; Words by Finley Mullally; Arrangement by the Riverthieves
I had a difficult job of work to perform briefly in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan, during my 2009-2010 tour on Op Athena. I was flown from my base at Kandahar Airfield to the largest FOB in the region, Dutch-controlled Tarin Kowt, by the Royal Netherlands Air Force in an AS532 Cougar helicopter. On the remarkable journey out of the Kandahar desert and into the dramatic, jagged Uruzgan mountains, I meditated gloomily on several infamous military encounters : the 18th century Battle of Culloden when the English artillery destroyed the uprising of the Scottish militias, who were led by my ancestors in the Irish Brigade; the experience of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment (the “Blue Puttees”) plucked from Suvla Bay in Gallipoli only to be massacred at Beamont-Hamel in France during WWI; and the “raid” on Dieppe during WWII, where the Canadians were ordered to attack a German position during an opposed, amphibious landing conducted during daylight, with no discernable objective; after this, its architect, Earl Mountbatten, was censured by vets and the Royal Canadian Legion. In each of these military defeats, the only thing to praise is the courage and obedience of the soldiers. (Finley)
Taking the Cougar to Tarin Kowt
I’m taking the Cougar to Tarin Kowt over the mountains over the sand,
Thinking of places my people have fought.
I know what I’m doing as soon as I land.
I’m taking my son up to fight at Culloden; O my boy I know you’ll be brave.
I’m taking my son up to fight at Culloden.
Tomorrow we’ll lie in the very same grave.
The Blue Puttees are sailing from Suvla; the British will send us to Beaumont-Hamel.
Christ we were happy to shove off from Suvla,
But the Brits they are marching us straight into Hell.
Ora pro nobis…Kyrie eleison…
The Canucks are ashore at Dieppe and we’re leaving, everyone bending to Mountbatten’s will.
We put them ashore to be killed and we’re leaving.
We’re watching the boys shelled till they’re still.
I’m taking the Cougar to Tarin Kowt thinking of places our fortunes get told,
Working out other men’s scheming and madness.
We do what we’re told. We do what we’re told.