Great Lake Swimmers
Album: Uncertain Country
Release Date: 2023
Canada
Tony Dekker’s music spans nearly two decades as the lead singer and songwriter of Great Lake Swimmers. Over eight albums, multiple EPs, live broadcasts and reissues, the Toronto-based group has established itself as a beloved indie folk act in their native Canada and beyond. Great Lake Swimmers has been shortlisted for the Polaris Prize and nominated twice for the Juno Awards. [More]
Lyrics: Swimming Like Flying
She said swimming’s like flying
Yeah that’s what she told me
Then she dove in the water
And did the butterfly
I said flying’s like falling
I was being obtuse
When I fell by the lakeside
Near the silver spruce
Swimming like flying like falling
Falling like flying like swimming
I went back to the Hillside
To dry off in the sunlight
I was thinking of flying
And my mind took flight
Fly away over the ocean
Fly away over the sea
Dive and find a blue marble
And bring it back to me
Swimming like flying like falling
Falling like flying like swimming
Tracklist: Uncertain Country
1. “Uncertain Country”
2. “When The Storm Has Passed”
3. “I Tried To Reach You”
4. “Since January”
5. “Swimming Like Flying”
6. “On A Ship“
7. “Moonlight, Stay Above“
8. “Riverine“
9. “Quiet Before The Storm”
10. “Into It”
11. “Promise Of Spring”
12. “Think, Think”
13. “Respect For All Living Things”
14. “Flight Paths”
15. “Am I Floating In The Air”
Before we talk about your incredibly beautiful new song, Swimming Like Flying, I want to ask you about your [almost] obsession with ‘water’ and your music’s naturalistic character. You have quite a few songs with water, sea, swim, fish, ocean, harbor, and river in them. What does ‘water’ mean to you?
When I think back on it, water was the background of my upbringing in the Niagara region of Ontario, Canada. We lived out in the country not far from Lake Erie, and there was always a river, canal, quarry, or beach to swim in. I think there is a spirituality in it. Water is such a ubiquitous and commonplace thing in every person’s life, but as a substance, it also contains so much mystery. I think there’s a symmetry or at least a resonance in how water works in our own bodies and how it works in the world.
Swimming Like Flying reminds me of some REM stuff from ‘the 90s- simple yet intense, low-key heroic, just a little unsettling, and definitely catchy. Can we say that is the essence of GLS?
I’m not sure. But REM did do something incredibly special in the early 90s by re-writing the book on American roots music. I don’t think we go into that territory too deeply, and we cannot do what they did. And I don’t think we consciously fashion ourselves on that model. But what a beautiful thing it undeniably is, really. I can’t really decide whether Great Lake Swimmers is a singer-songwriter project, troubadour music, a Toronto “collective,” or a slightly left-of-center roots-rock thing. Maybe it’s all of those. I like the “low-key heroic” description, though.
How do you perfectly avoid being repetitive? We can relate this to Swimming Like Flying. How does it still sound so refreshing when it’s also simple and familiar in a way?
There are just so many endless possibilities in music and songwriting. It seems like there would be a way to exhaust the combinations of those seven chords, but then something slightly different always materializes. I like songs that are economical in their structure and I felt that “Swimming Like Flying” has that character. I think in some ways that as musicians we’re all using very old tools but trying to use them in new and meaningful ways. We sometimes arrive at some of the same conclusions, but what makes things new are the life stories and personal perspectives we bring to them. And that has to do with our life experiences but also telling part of the story of where we live and where we came from.
What is the back story of the song? Or in other words, how did things go ‘After January’ all of a sudden?
In the liner notes to the album, I dedicated the song to a friend of the band named Bonnie, who passed away many years ago. She would always say to me, “Swimming is like flying, and you should write a song about that!” I had a lot of time over the pandemic to think about that again, and the chord progression seemed to finally make sense with the words.
I can’t really decide whether Great Lake Swimmers is a singer-songwriter project, troubadour music, a Toronto “collective,” or a slightly left-of-center roots-rock thing. Maybe it’s all of those. I like the “low-key heroic” description, though.
Tony on Great Lake Swimmers
How did you end up injecting those gems such as Since January, Into It, and Think, Think into Uncertain Country?
We kept the machines rolling in between takes and there were some moments of chatter that our co-producer Joe Lapinski put together for fun. All the songs on the album were only considered demos as we were going along, and I think those little interstitial things added to the feeling of that for us. In the end, we decided to include them because it just sort of stuck. And I think it gives a little window into the process, too.
The cover album aside, this had been your longest break between two studio albums. After five years of marinating, it seems to be a perfect mixture of your traditional and non-traditional. Would you agree if I said the ratio between those two has never been this close to each other in your discography?
That could be true. I was worried that the songs wouldn’t play well together because we shifted the focus of the album so many times, over a longer period of time. It was a direct result of the pandemic. Our first session was set up for late March 2020, and we didn’t get to reschedule until September 2020, and then got together in between lockdowns when it was deemed safe to do so. But that first session produced the first two tracks of the album, including the title track, with very little editing. It felt really good to make a bit more noise than we normally would, given the circumstances. Anyway, we shifted gears a few more times after that, but in the end, I think our collection of “demos” documented a very particular and unusual moment in time.
The last question is about another GLS obsession of mine! Can you tell us a little about your Art Bergmann cover, The Legend of Bobby Bird? How did you end up choosing it for your cover album?
Well, for starters it actually wasn’t on the covers album, but was a stand-alone single released in October of last year (2022). I have been a fan of Art Bergmann’s work for decades and wanted to cover one of his songs to commemorate the release of the book about his life, The Longest Suicide, by Jason Schneider. There was talk of pulling together a whole tribute album, but it never materialized. Art has been recording and releasing some of the best work of his life lately. I felt that the message of the song was also very prescient because of the atrocities that are now being discovered in relation to Canada’s residential schools, which systematically abused its First Nations students and actively attempted to dismantle their culture. I strongly feel that we must be the generation to shoulder that burden and try to start coming to terms with the trauma that it has caused our indigenous people. I agree with Art’s sentiments about that and so that’s why that song in particular was a consideration.
