POP-CULTURE COLUMN: Pye Dubois, Canadian Wordsmith
By Dan Brown Not many people know the name Pye Dubois. But odds are, you’ve heard his lyrics. Dubois – who died at his home in London on September 15 at age 77 – helped create the soundtrack for my generation of music fans in Canada. After growing up in Sarnia, he wrote lyrics for 1970s rockers Max Webster, then paired with band frontman Kim Mitchell when the long-haired singer launched his solo career in the 1980s. When I think of Dubois, I think of being in the cafeteria of the old Strathroy District Collegiate Institute listening to the crunching guitar of Go For Soda or driving the backroads with the gentle nostalgia of Patio Lanterns playing. How big of a part did Dubois’s work play in Canadian culture? Patio Lanterns was used by Tim Hortons in one of its TV commercials back in the day. He captured that youthful patio magic we all have stored in our summer memories. And where does he rank in the pantheon of homegrown songwriters? I would argue his contributions as part of a songwriting duo with Mitchell rank up there with Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, or Jim Vallance and Bryan Adams. But he didn’t write exclusively with Mitchell. Max Webster’s A Million Vacations, with its sardonic chorus of “You can only drive down Main Street so many times,” was co-created with the band’s drummer, Gary McCracken. Dubois – who never appeared on stage as a performer but was considered a full member of Max Webster – was a standout talent in a group that had no weak links. Keyboardist Terry Watkinson penned the number that is arguably Max Webster’s signature song, Let Go The Line, including this immortal observation. “Life has been likened to a poker deal, or a poor, brief candle, or a karmic wheel.” Imagine trying to compete with poetry like that! The Canadian music world being as small as it is, Dubois also collaborated with prog rockers Rush back in the day. The FM radio classic Tom Sawyer started out as a poem by Dubois. “His original lyrics were kind of a portrait of a modern-day rebel, a free-spirited individualist striding through the world wide-eyed and purposeful. I added the themes of reconciling the boy and man in myself, and the difference between what people are and what others perceive them to be,” Neil Peart once told a Rush fanzine. Dubois deserves deep thanks from Canadians for that one legendary tune alone. I’ve interviewed Mitchell twice, but was unable to get any insights out of him into his work with Dubois. The music business being what it is, they had a falling out that ended their partnership in 1995. What a loss. Dubois lived his life off-stage. He wasn’t a presence on the public scene, but he can go to his reward knowing his words are imprinted on the minds of a generation of Canadians who grew up in the 1970s and came of age in the 1980s Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 34 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly Graphic-Novel Group book club.
Dan Brown’s Pop-culture Column feat. Dan Brown
It’s a four-letter f-word that you see a lot. No, I’m not referring to the naughty f-word. I’m talking about a term you see in many a song title these days. It’s “feat.” and it’s short for “featuring.” As in song titles like “Low by Flo Rida feat. T-Pain” and “Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis feat. Ray Dalton.” Used in the name of a song like those two examples, it indicates that a guest artist rapped or sang a verse or even shorter snippet, like providing backing vocals, on that particular single or album track. It’s a way for an artist to tip their hat to someone who helped them realize their musical vision. And it’s freaking everywhere. If you don’t believe me, just look at the streaming charts. Right now, the No. 5 song according to Billboard is TV Off, a Kendrick Lamar song featuring Lefty Gunplay. All told, there are currently four collaborations (or “collabs,” as they are now known) in the Top 10. So what’s the problem? Stick around for a moment and I’ll tell you. First, my credentials as a music fan: I’ve been listening to music for my entire life, 56 years now. I am a daily consumer of music on my three Alexas at home and the satellite radio in my pickup. My work week is spent in the company of university students, who are all in their peak years as music enthusiasts – they often bring songs I don’t know about to my attention. If it’s on their radar, it will make its way onto mine. It’s in my nature to listen to a wide variety of musicians, from Willie Nelson to Billy Joel to the Red Clay Strays to Murray Head. And with summer coming up I plan to see a few live shows, like Daniel Lanois’ two-night stand at the Aeolian Hall in August. I have covered music as a journalist for more than three decades, interviewing the likes of Don Henley, Gordon Lightfoot, and Howard Jones. I also met Lou Reed once. Anyhoo . . . I don’t know when “feat.” (or sometimes “ft.” or “with”) first appeared, but it has proliferated to the point where it’s self-defeating. If every song has a guest performer, then that’s just the way music is made in 2025 and the designation isn’t necessary. Maybe it was a prestigious thing in the beginning. It doesn’t set a song apart anymore. I know the music biz is a tough one, but the practice has exploded to the point where listeners can just assume the “feat.” part on any given song. Now, I don’t want to say everything was better when I was younger, but in this case it might be true. For example, when Neil Young recorded Harvest in the 1970s he didn’t feel the need to let his audience know Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor sang backup vocals on that album. If I have my music lore correct, they were working in the same studio at the time and they popped in to give the Canadian rocker a hand. He thanked them, and that was all the credit needed. No one insisted on getting a “feat.” credit in those days. And as a listener, you figured out whose voices were on a song with repeated listens. It was a fun way to grow your music knowledge. Back then, it was more a team approach to music than any one individual needing to feel special – which matters because now the name of every song is a platform for marketing and self-promotion.. The counter-argument, I suppose, would be that it’s better for everyone to get their due in a public way and it’s a question of equity. If that’s the case, then song titles are literally the only part of the music world that’s equitable. Sometimes I get to thinking I must be a strange music lover because the tunes I listen to generally don’t have a featured artist on them. If “feat.” had been a thing back in the day, then we would have had to get used to song titles like Gimme Shelter by the Rolling Stones feat. Merry Clayton. That’s a mouthful. So go ahead – call me a purist. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
