Despite his chosen career as a whisky-drinking, globetrotting, accordion-wielding, klezmer-playing singer-songwriter, Geoff Berner is nothing if not pragmatic.
Which is why, instead of writing a ditty in praise of the Green Party, which he ran for federally in a number of elections during the ’90s or crafting a musical ode to the Rhino Party, which he represented while running in then-Premier Gordon Campbell’s riding, the politically minded musician decided to pen a song throwing his reluctant support behind the NDP this federal election.
Although “Probably NDP” and its less-than-enthusiastic chorus “I think that we should probably just vote NDP this time” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement you’ll hear Thomas Mulcair and Co. blasting on the campaign trail to lather up supporters, it manages to be both humorous and instructional — a quality all too rare in contemporary music, Berner acknowledges.
“What was interesting to me about the artistic challenge of the song is that nobody writes this,” Berner says. “Nobody in the indie world of Canada sits down and goes, ‘OK I’m just going to tell you how I think you ought to vote.’ It’s so verboten. You’re going to alienate some of your fans or whatever. There’s a kind of cowardice inherent in the fact nobody ever does this. It’s sort of taboo… There’s almost an inherent humour in simply saying outright, ‘OK I think we should vote for these guys.’”
Although beloved children’s singer and outspoken Twitter star Raffi recently released a chipper, 29-second, anti-Harper, get-out-and-vote anthem called “I Want My Canada Back,” the man behind “Baby Beluga” and “Bananaphone” doesn’t go far enough for Berner’s liking.
“Of course I adore Raffi, but that’s not my perspective that Canada was just great before… I think he’s following the conventional thing where you can’t say who you’re voting for. He’s just saying Harper is bad.”
Not that Berner is saying Mulcair and the NDP are the panacea for all of Canada’s woes, either. In fact, the self-described “independent man of the left” sings that if he was ever in charge of the country, he’d abolish all private property and nationalize the banks. Besides, “After [the NDP] pass proportional representation, you can go ahead and vote your Green,” he warbles near the end of the song.
“I always keep in mind this German public health guy in the 19th century named Virchow who said politics is medicine on a large scale,” Berner says. “And so when you look at who to vote for in an election, which is only part of what you should do in politics, you’re talking about triage. Let’s alleviate the maximum amount of suffering that we have the power to do. Let’s not pretend that we can create paradise on earth if we pull the right lever and we fill in the right circle… It’s really just a crappy first past the post English system designed by bad people.”
Berner wrote and shot a video of himself performing the song this summer when he was in Manitoba for the Brandon Folk Festival. “I was staying in a hotel room at the Colonial Inn, where they put all the First Nation performers,” he says. “It was good that they booked so many First Nations artists but they were a little peeved about the whole Colonial thing.”
He also issued a challenge on YouTube to other Canadian musicians to tell their fans who they’re voting for in song or otherwise.
So far the response has been rather timid, admits the musician. Not even his Green Party supporting friends seem offended by his turncoat music stylings, though he has received a few negative online comments.
“It’s the Internet so it’s the right-wing trolls who are ironically right wing but they’re slacking off work to look at the Internet saying, ‘This is terrible, he can’t sing, he can barely play and this is the kind of stuff that the Canada Council funds. He should get a real job.’ So those guys are pretty funny, and I just tell them, ‘Get back to work.’”
If listening online to Berner wax poetic on politics and proportional representation isn’t your thing, there’s a good chance he’ll perform the song when he celebrates the release of his new record We Are Going To Bremen To Be Musicians Sept. 12 at the WISE Hall as part of the eighth annual Accordion Noir Festival, although the tune is not on the album.
“I plan to play the heck out of it because it will totally be useless after the election,” Berner says.
The federal election is Oct. 19.
mkissinger@vancourier.com
