Subject: Songs from Connie Kaldor to Support Student Study of Pairie Tour

Hi IMYM5 teachers,

Are you looking for some music to inspire your students in their study of the prairies? Well, Canadian singer and song writer, Connie Kaldor really loves the prairies and has produced many songs whose lyrics tell of the unique qualities we experience when living and travelling on the prairies. Mary Dalton of Rolling River SD alerted me to Connie's website
http://www.conniekaldor.com/more/learning/prairies.html.

On Connie's website you will find written lyrics for all her songs as well as MP3 files of some of her songs that you can play directly from your classroom computer (for teaching suggestions see Learning Experience 3.4) http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/k12/tech/imym/teacher/prairietour/index.html.

Poetic Writing from my recent Christmas travel across the prairies and an encounter with a dust storm on the road helped me relate to her song entitled "Harsh and Unforgiving":

I come from a land that is harsh and unforgiving
Winter snows can kill you
And the summer burn you dry
When a change in the weather
Makes a difference to your living
You keep one eye on the banker
And another on the sky
But oh I get caught by those wide open spaces
Caught by the sight of those straight horizon lines
Caught by the sight of those lined open faces
Weathered over trouble and time
'Cause that big old flatland
She doesn't suffer fools lightly
Watch yours step if you're new around
Brown broke down in a blizzard last winter
Tried to walk and froze to death fifty feet from town
Chorus
But oh I get caught by those blue spring ditches
Farmers seeding hoping it will pay
Hoping that July won't see their hearts
Caught in that topsoil
Watching the wind blow it away
You can work all year
You can get it in the bin
There's no telling what price you get or if it sells
You just hope you can hold on so
You don't end up like the neighbors
Him and her they're weeping as the auctioneer yells
Chorus

Comments: I wrote this on a drive out of Winnipeg to a concert in Baldur, Manitoba. I had just come back from Boston and I was thinking about where I was from and what makes me the way I am.

Copywrite: Connie Kaldor, Coyote Entertainement, Quebec, Canada.