Anne Murray - Canada's Pablo Picasso

Yesterday was such a big day. It was the anniversary of Japan's Pearl Harbour attack, which the owner of the 69 Mile Ranch describes as the only good thing the Japs did for the world (recall the American elite's glee for fascism until they were inconvenienced by Hitler's North Pacific buddies) besides making dirt bikes, and Anne Murray was on the tv.

I neglected to tell Henrik Anne Murray was on the tv last night until he had a few scotches in him. Henrik, like many Columbian gold medal Swedes, has trouble with the finer points of just what the fuck it means to be Canadian. He gets Stompin' Tom, Stan Rogers, the Hanson Brothers and Joe Shithead but he would rather listen to ABBA than Anne Murray. Before he went out for a smoke, rather than endure Kenny Rogers' duet with the Queen of Nova Scotia, I told Henrik, "It took four fucking Swedes to make ABBA, but there is only one Anne Murray. If Anne Murray could have found three other talents to match her own the Beatles would have been forgotten before they disbanded." From out on the porch Henrik, his non-Swedish wife and Sonja looked in on me drinking my beer in the rocking chair as I once looked in on a soon to be dead old fashioned aunt watching Lawrence Welk on a Christmas evening when I first started smoking dope.

I wish I could say Anne singing with kd lang in her stinky Alberta socks was the highlight of the show but how can you top Anne singing Dylan's "Don't Think Twice (It's Alright)" with Glen Motherfucking Campbell?

Ok, Glen Campbell is not exactly Johnny Cash but he did have a tv show of his own once. And Glen Campbell had Bobby Orr hair. And Glen Campbell and Anne Murray may as well have been singing from another planet compared to what today's electronic gizmo sucked in kids listen to in their teeny weeny music machines.

But there is one thing Anne Murray had to say during the show I question. She thinks she can choose good songs to record and perform. I will believe that when she sings the the Modern Lover's "Pablo Picassso." Truly, if Anne Murray wanted to knock out the whole wide world, and she wants to Bruce Allen, she does, she would belt out some punk rock treasures like she means it, man.