Remaking a love song for hockey
Song Quest entrant has high hopes for success
So, Sir Paul McCartney has submitted a tune for consideration in the CBC Hockey Night in Canada Song Quest contest. Sort of.
John Oriettas is best known as the Paul McCartney pretender in Replay, one of the country’s premier Beatles cover bands. But with the wig and the makeup off, the Montreal native has embarked on his own magical mystery tour.
“Sir Paul is moonlighting — he needs the extra money. A billion dollars ain’t enough,” Oriettas jokes, while preparing to perform his submission on one of the Rialto Theatre complex stages.
Oriettas has dusted off a tune he wrote 35 years ago and has entered it in the competition search for a new Hockey Night in Canada anthem. The song is called It’s Not Easy, and it couldn’t have been easy taking a tune about love gone wrong and adapting it to scoring on another front.
But Oriettas changed a few lyrics and, suddenly, he has a hockey anthem. Actually, it’s the second time the lyrics have been altered. About 20 years ago, his buddy and one-time band mate Luba — the Juno-winning singer/ musician — added new lyrics, and Oriettas recorded her singing it.
“I told Luba at the time that I had this song that would be perfect for her,” he says. “So she changed the lyrics and we recorded this nice little demo, but it never really went anywhere.
“Then a couple of weeks ago, my wife told me about this song contest but the deadline for submission was two days later. So I went through all my old songs. It then occurred to me that if I changed the words with the song I did with Luba, it could work.”
So Oriettas took out the mushy love parts and added inferences about not giving up until the game is over and about battling for victory. “The lyric used to be about climbing the mountain for love, but now it’s about climbing the mountain of life.”
The CBC has received more than 1,000 entries from around the country for the contest. The public broadcaster will then pick 50 tunes, based on the opinions of judges as well as votes from the public and social media action (such as “likes,” “adds” and ”plays”). This first voting period ends Dec. 11.
The Top 50 songs will be further whittled down to get down to the winning composition. The winning composer will record a studio version of their song with Canadian rocker Joel Plaskett and join such heralded Canuck musicians as the Tragically Hip, Sam Roberts Band and Neil Young by having their track featured in a prime time montage on Hockey Night in Canada. Plus, the winner gets a trip to Lloydminster, Alta., where they will perform live at the Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada concert.
“Personally, I’d settle for a Don Cherry jacket as the prize,” Oriettas muses. “Or even part of the $5.2-billion broadcast rights deal Rogers cut with the NHL.”
Oriettas is a huge Habs fan, but hasn’t let his feelings for his team colour his song. “The song is for all Canadian hockey fans. We have to keep it neutral.”
But there’s nothing neutral about Oriettas’s passion for the Beatles. He recalls being blown away by the Fab Four on the Ed Sullivan Show 50 years ago when he was a kindergarten student. And he remains smitten.
Replay was formed 11 years ago, and the four originals remain. In fact, Oriettas points out that Replay’s four members have now been together longer than Paul, John, George and Ringo were.
Oriettas, though he plays guitar, drums and piano, is most at home on bass, which made him the easy choice to assume the role of McCartney, the Beatles’ bassist. And with his wig and stage movements, Oriettas can pass for Paul to the point that he has fans swooning for him.
“Thank God for wigs,” cracks Oriettas, a graduate of Concordia’s music department. “Without them, Replay might not have had a career.”
Oriettas estimates that Replay performs up to 50 concerts — all Beatles tunes — a year in Montreal, across Canada and the U.S. and as far away as Morocco and, recently, Guatemala, where the guys were invited by the country’s British ambassador to play a Queen’s Diamond Jubilee gig. The group has also been invited to partake in the International Beatles Week in Liverpool next summer.
Replay headlines a concert at the Rialto on Dec. 21 and returns to the theatre Feb. 8 for Fab 4ever to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
But Oriettas insists he never gets confused as to whom he really is: “My wife reminds me on a daily basis that I’m not Paul, that I have to take out the garbage.”
There are at least six Beatles cover bands in the country, but Oriettas insists Re-
“My wife reminds me on a daily basis that I’m not Paul McCartney.”
JOHN ORIETTAS
play can hold its own with the best of them.
Yet while he pays constant musical homage to the Beatles, his personal preferences also run toward Mötley Crüe and Queen. “I wouldn’t even dare try to pretend I was (late/great Queen lead singer) Freddie Mercury.
“But there’s no mystery as to why the Beatles have endured. They wrote fabulous music and lyrics and had great melodies and harmonies. It’s a quality product, which has stood the test of time and will continue for a long time to come.”
With that admission, Oriettas dons his wig, grabs his Hofner bass — just like Paul’s — and again assumes the role of his alter ego as he starts crooning Magical Mystery Tour on stage. And if one were to close one’s eyes … To listen to John Oriettas’s It’s Not Easy, go to http://music.cbc.ca/#/artists/John-Oriettas
Replay does the Beatles, Dec. 21, and Fab 4ever, Feb. 8, at the Rialto Theatre, 5723 Parc Ave. Details: 514-7707773, info@theatrerialto.ca or www.theatrerialto.ca.