CANADIAN PACIFIC

This is a barn burner! Ride the tracks across the continent from Halifax to Vancouver – to meet your true love. Note that the TTBB recorded version (Chor Leoni) includes two clarinets
the published score is without the extras. However, the clarinet version is available upon request (but you’d need really great players 🙂

LYRICS

Sailed aboard your liner to Newfoundland where I made a livin’ in an iron mine.
When I got my fill I moved to Nova Scotia and I fished them salty waters for a time.
Passing through Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick,
I could see the rocks and cliffs of solid stone.
Listening to the seagulls calling to each other
Made me miss my darling and my distant home.

Canadian Pacific, carry me three thousand miles,
through the valleys and the forests
to the sunshine of your smile,
‘Cross the plains and the rugged mountains,
keep this wandering boy from harm.
Canadian Pacific, take me to my baby’s arms.

The Atlantic disappeared on the horizon and Quebec lay waiting for me down the track.
For a while I drove a truck to keep from starving. In Ontario I was a lumber-jack.
Manitoba and Saskatchewan then followed,
where the wheat fields and the old Red River flowed.
In the quiet hours your whistle on the prairie,
Touched my heart and set my memories aglow.

I could feel the nearness of her soft,warm kisses as we rolled into Alberta westward bound.
I worked on an oil rig to make some money, to buy a ticket to the sweetest one I know.
Pushing on past Lake Louise in all it’s splendor,
Where the trees and Rockies touch the sky above,
I got to British Columbia and heaven –
on your track I made it home to my true love.