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Winter always turns to spring, as the Buddhist saying goes... Up in northern New York, on the border with Ontario Canada, the ice floes in the river were a sure sign of spring. Judy says this is one of her favorites of John's songs, and I think it may be mine. This reminds me of something I might have heard on a Canadian TV variety show, from grown' up on the border we caught a lot of those as youths in the sixties.There were Irish Rover shows, and the Ian and Sylvia Show, Gordon Lightfoot. So I tried to make it sort of rustic but smooth in a regional network TV sort of way. There's a poignancy in the line "did you ever mind the years we left behind us, as springtime rose..." that perhaps only people that have been together for a long time can appreciate. I love this song!

lyrics

Verse 1:
Did you see that star...shinin’ across the river
Consider that star’s been shinin’ since this old world’s been young
And did you hear those melodies ... From the pond beyond the willow trees?
It sounds just like springtime’s comin’ home

Chorus:
I heard a North Country song, Carried on a west wind
Bringing summer, and I remember when the white snow had no end
I heard a North Country song ... it had waited all winter long
to be sung when the ice flows down and the green grass grows again

Verse 2:
Did you see those white flowers, newly growin’,
Showin’ off their color, along the pathway to the well?
And did you ever mind those years we left behind us
Springtime rose, as the evenin’ shadows fell

Chorus:
I heard a North Country song, Carried on a west wind, Bringing summer,
and I remember when the white snow had no end
I heard a North Country song ... it had waited all winter long to be sung
when the ice flows down and the green grass grows again

Verse 3:
Did you see them black crows...in the hemlocks
They been calling’ to each other now the snow is finally gone
And did you hear them voices risin’ ... from the backwoods harmonizin’
It sounds like springtime ... coming’ home

Chorus:
I heard a North Country song, Carried on a west wind, Bringing summer,
and I remember when the white snow had no end
I heard a North Country song ... it had waited all winter long to be sung
when the ice flows down and the green grass grows again

credits

from North Country Songs by John Elwood Cook, released June 19, 2020
©John Elwood Cook, work intended in tribute to my friend and late neighbor

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Jim Bouchard Boston, Massachusetts

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