Pieces of String

Walking into the shed where my Pepe kept his tools, I would see the row of bottles whose covers were nailed along the top frame of the window. Each bottle held the various sizes of nuts and bolts and screws that he needed for his carpentry work. Much of his life seemed to me like that window, simplified through organization. I will take some inspiration from him as I begin the task of sorting the original songs that are my craft and my passion.

What better way to begin than with a tribute to my Pepe, Sylvere Chiasson

When he died, we found a ball of string with his other tools. It was made up of many short pieces saved from various projects. Each piece was useless on its own, but as Pepe tied them together they became long enough to roll into a ball.

Many of the stories we have of my Pepe are quite short, like those pieces of string. It’s in the tying of the stories together that his character is revealed.

Pieces of String

When my Grandfather died we found a ball of string in his old work shed That man never threw anything away At least that’s what my Grandmother said Little pieces of string too small to save that he had tied together Like all the memories that make a good life Ways we can remember

Chorus: Pieces of string, each of them small Tied in a row, all wound up in a ball Little pieces of string, saved in a can Memories, tied to that man

My Grandfather knew how to put in a day’s work, that’s for sure They never had too much to come and go on But no one called that man poor One time he told my mother he was gone so early in the morning and home so late at night, nobody noticed if he had come or gone Someone must have noticed somewhere along the way That’s probably why I wrote this song

I learned to pray in their kitchen, kneeling on the hard tile floor I’d pray so hard, I wouldn’t even notice that my knees were sore One time Pepe said, You must have been praying hard Michael You didn’t even notice that fly crawling across your hands Well, I felt like a saint when he said those words Coming from such a good man

Chorus

We’d sit and watch Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling on Saturday afternoons He’d always say, that dirty son of a B When the Cuban Assassin pulled a foreign object out of his shoe One time, on a commercial, he saw children in the Third World walking miles and miles to get clean water With tears in his eyes, he said he would pump water all day long for those little children It was as if they were his own sons and daughters

Then there was that Easter Sunday when my brother came home from university with a new girlfriend, all the way from Zaire She certainly stood out Up West I don’t think there had ever been a sighting in our church that rare In the aisle after Mass, my Grandfather leaned into my brother and whispered “she’s awful pretty” You see my Grandfather was pretty worldly, for a man who’d never lived in the “big city”

Chorus

There are those who would say that my Grandfather’s life didn’t have much colour After all, he lived most of it on the Harper Road, born at one end and buried at the other There are those who would say that my Grandfather could only see the world in black and white I guess that’s why he always seemed to know the difference between wrong and right

When my Grandfather died, we spent hours and hours beside his bed I don’t know how many times I lifted his head up onto the pillow As he tried to catch his breath He seemed to suffer so much, and all we could do was stand there and wonder why? But then I saw the face of the Man on the cross, when I looked deep into his eyes

Pieces of string, each of them small Tied in a row, all wound up in a ball Little pieces of string, saved in a can Memories, tied to that man Little pieces of string, leading me to that man