A Williams Lake musician has created a new song for his son Arrow that is as tender as Robert Munch’s book, Love You Forever, or Margaret Wise Brown’s The Runaway Bunny.
Brent Morton, formerly Drum and Bell Tower and now calling himself Lyle Bats, shared the song, I’ll be the Bow, as his set closed on Saturday, Feb. 23 at the Central Cariboo Arts Centre during a concert sponsored by Arts on the Fly.
Read more: Brent Morton returns to the stage Feb. 23
Morton had announced the finality of his days as Drum and Bell Tower a year ago during the Dark Times Festival in March.
Inspired after attending a writing workshop at Arts on Fly in 2018, he began writing new songs. Judging by the sold out crowd, Williams Lake was eager to see what Lyle Bats was all about.
At the crux of the song I’ll be your Bow, Morton asks his son “if you were an arrow and I was a bow, how deep did I bend, how far did you go? Oh if you are a dad want your children to know, that you were an arrow and I was a bow.”
Here are some of the other lines in the song’s lyrics:
You make a tunnel of blankets and light.
I’ll do the labour if you’re on design.
A few minutes in you’ll be changing your mind.
I’ll be a mountain because you’ll want to climb.
I’ll be the baker, if you’ll be the pie.
I’ll chop the apples, you add the spice.
If you are a spider, then I’m going to fly right into your web where you are holding me tightly.
I’m tired and a little busy but I’m willing to bend.
Another of Morton’s songs explored the dilemma of having to stay inside with children when it’s smoky outside from wildfires due to the forest being “broken-bone dry.”
“Oh the plume on the rise might seem far away, it is never out of sight or out of mind.
He also touched on waking up from the “millennial dream” with a song about the troubled world on the other side of the touch screen.
“We all fall to slouch loafing on our dear sweet mamma’s couch, but she’s been so kind …. or maybe this world ain’t as bad as I’m making it out to be.”
The stage was set up to look like a living room lined with a bear-skin rug, plants, lamps, instruments, feathers, antlers, candles and containers with shells, and other items.
As Morton performed, his son, Arrow, who will be three years old in June, busied himself in front of the stage handing out small shells, stones and crystals to his mom, Ciel Patenaude, and other audience members, whether he knew them or not. Incidentally, Arrow warmed up the audience before the concert started.
Without hesitation, he went up to the microphone and stood by a drum.
He began to sing a rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
After Arrow would sing a few lines he would stop and look out to the audience saying “cwap (clap) guys cwap.”
It was pretty cute, and something his mom said surprised her.
“He can be really shy sometimes,” Patenaude said.
The evening was billed as an all-ages event and resulted in many young families bringing their children with them to catch Morton’s set.
The evening also featured The Alkemist, the one-man band Jay Myers, from the Fort Fraser area.
Read more: This one-man band will follow Brent Morton with his signature folk party sound
Myers played two sets — the first one for listening and the second one where he encouraged the audience to pack up the chairs to make room for dancing, which they did with genuine enthusiasm.
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