Page 27 - Rita MacNeil of Big Pond

ISSUE : Issue 27

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1980/12/1

point I'm not going to get out of this, and I don't want to be like that--because I have a great love for people, all peo? ple- -and I want that in it, the whole thing. And it wasn't so much angry, but I was a hell of an aware woman, and that was painful. The lupins are dead now, But they did bloom well now. And the vetch and the wild weeds That grow in your green fields. And please God, if time's kind And there's still a Big Pond, Oh I'd love to come back here again. I grew up here, yeah. Used to live in the store over the road there--MacLeod's store. My father built that store, and a few oth? er places he built around the area. And my memories of Big Pond are really, really good--the sky and the water. I would be a- way, and I wrote the song MY ISLAND when I lived in Toronto--I'd just close my eyes and that's what I used to think of, run- ing over the road to the wharf here, going swimming. I've always been madly in love with the place--this little spot, Big Pond. I haven't been around the island much, on? ly maybe twice--it was always just Big Pond I would think of. It's really strange. And here I am. And it's my home, for how? ever long I can live here, I guess, and make it. (What made you come back?) Just very very unsettled away.... I came here because I wanted to come home, I wanted to try at home--and am I ever glad I did. Rita MacNeil has two albums now: BORN A WOMAN and the recent PART OF THE MYSTERY. She is also heard on the new RISE AND FOLLIES OF CAPE BRETON ISLAND. The texts and tunes of sever? al early songs are available in the book "Bom a Woman" (The Women's Press, Toronto), in? cluding a lovely selection of photographs. All available in local stores. When You're in Halifax, Visit the Home of KM' A Minglewood Band Mictx/ Long John Baldry Moon Sam Moon Spice THE ' Jf * /CABARET 3700 KEMPT ROAD NEAR WINDSOR STREET, HALIFAX Now Available On Record! A LIVE RECORDING OF HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 1980 MUSIC AND COMEDY PRODUCTION Ask at yc for $7.98 ur local record store or send cheque or m to: oney order The College ot Cape Breton Press P.O. Box 5300, Sydney. Nova Scotia, BIP 6L2 u/;

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