Oh to live on Sugar Mountain, with the barkers and the colored balloons, you can't be twenty on Sugar Mountain, though you're thinking that...I'm (eight days) late again....
My introduction to this week's tune came when I was writing my first post about Neil Young (here). As I did my weekly half-assed research, I discovered that Young was much smitten with this song as a young man and how much it influenced his career, so I gave it a listen. Turns out, it was a hell of a song even if I didn't discover until I did my half-assed research this week that it wasn't a solo effort but rather a duo....
Ian and Sylvia began performing as a duo in 1959, were married in 1964, and divorced and stopped performing together in 1975. Ian Tyson set out to be a rodeo performer, but while recuperating from injuries incurred while striving for that goal, he learned the guitar and it eventually led to a long career. Sylvia Tyson (nee Fricker) began playing in clubs in Toronto at the ripe old age of nineteen before meeting up with Ian and forming their duo. They had some success, mostly in their native Canada, before their divorce and their band Great Speckled Bird (formed in 1969) is considered one of the progenitors of country rock. After their demise, Ian raised horses and performed sporadically as a solo artist; Sylvia became a solo artist before joining Quartette in 1993 and later performing one-woman shows. Along the way they were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame as a duo, and both were also inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame individually. For their career as a duo, they released twelve studio albums, one live album, and six singles. Ian passed away in 2022, but Sylvia is still performing and released her latest album in 2023.
"Four Strong Winds" was the first single from their 1963 album, the rather uniquely titled Four Strong Winds (again no Wikipedia entry--again, WTF?). The single did not chart in America but hit #9 in Canada (so many cool kids in the Great White North!). The album hit #115 on the Billboard 200 but surprisingly did not chart in their homeland.
Fun Fact: In a poll conducted by the Canadian Broadcasting Company in 2005, "Four Strong Winds" was voted the greatest Canadian song of all time. That's a pretty damn good legacy.
Fun Fact #2: "Four Strong Winds" was the first song Ian Tyson ever wrote. Their other charting hit in Canada (it reached #4 and through the years has become something of a folk standard), "You Were on My Mind," was likewise the first song that Sylvia Tyson wrote. Talk about your strong starts....
"Four Strong Winds" may be one of the saddest songs ever written. It tells the tale of a man heading out to find a job and leaving a relationship that's over. But he still holds out hope--but nope they've gone over it again and again. Maybe when he gets where he's going (Alberta) he can send her fare--but nope, it'll be very cold in the winter and not much to do. But he still knows he'll go looking for her if he ever comes back--but regardless of his sadness the world is going to keep spinning. Ian Tyson sings with the plaintive voice of a man who's still in love but knows his love will be unrequited. Sylvia Tyson provides backing vocals throughout that seem to only deepen his sorrow. Softly sung, softly performed, and acoustic from beginning to end--if this one isn't a modern (ish) folk classic I don't know what is. A beautiful, beautiful song (says the old fart folkie...).
Lyric Sheet: "Still I wish you'd change your mind/If I ask you one more time/But we've been through this a hundred times or more..."
Enjoy:
Peace,
emaycee
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