Kitchener singer has a novelty song for every occasion
When is a song about marijuana not a song about marijuana?
When it’s a song about world peace written by Kitchener’s answer to Stompin’ Tom Connors.
“I’ve played almost every kind of venue you can think of,” says Kevin Westphal, the twangy social anthropologist who has written ultraCanadian songs about everything from highway traffic (“A Typical Day on the 401”) to pandemic haircuts (“The Barbershop Song”) to the tiny village of Lucknow, Ont. (“Lucknow”).
“I’ve played honky tonks and bars and legions and bowling alleys and old-age homes and farm fields and you name it. Whenever there’s live music, there’s marijuana. It’s always been there.”
He’s not a pot head or a hash slinger out to corrupt society, he says, eager to promote his latest populist anthem, “The Marijuana Song,” with its merrily nonsensical lyrics “Puff puff pass and a tokey tokey giggle, laughy fun tobaccy feel wacky, make you happy, have a snackie.”
He’s a man of the people, striving for unity.
“Everyone hates each other because of politics,” points out the grassroots crusader, climbing on his metaphorical soapbox.
“Politicians know this, and every one of them has turned the people against each other. And if you think any of these guys are going to fix problems, they’re not. The only way problems are going to get fixed is if the people fix them.”
The people, of course, are his people, the little people, snootily disparaged by elites for their concerns about highway traffic and the price of gas when there are vast ideological empires to be built.
But it’s these hard-working, meatand-potatoes Canadians, properly motivated, who Westphal says will ultimately call the shots.
“The people can end the wars,” he insists.
“The people can end the homeless rates. The people can get houses built. The people can help the starving. We have to come together to get out of this mess that we’re all in!”
Typically when I talk to Westphal — it’s been 24 years since we first spoke — he’s more circumspect, less agitated.
But something about the current state of the world has him jacked up, despite the mellow sentiments of his cannabis song.
“I didn’t want to write a song about just getting high,” he stresses with vigour.
“That’s not what I was feeling inside. I was feeling that we’ve got to start loving each other.
“I’m not just singing about marijuana. I’m singing about peace and love.”
You can see how, even with pot legalization in Canada, his message might be misinterpreted.
But with pointed lyrics like “I’m sick and tired of the 6 o’clock news/ I’m done with politicians and political views/ You know the world’s much better when we all get along/ Maybe in the next verse we could fire up the bong,” he’s determined to thread that needle for a loyal audience built over 25 years, since he started ranting about pocketbook issues during his stint as sideman in a local country band.
“I was playing in Guelph at the
Stampede Ranch around the year 2000,” notes the man dubbed Kevvy Canuck, whose invigorating “The Gas Song” found a receptive audience back when prices were pushing 80 cents a litre.
“And our lead singer was in the middle of a song, broke a string on his guitar, looked at me and said ‘Kevvy, talk to the crowd for a bit so I can change the string.’
“So I jumped on the mic and just started bitching about gas prices and telling everybody ‘I’m gonna trade in my pickup truck! I’m getting fed up with the price of gas!’ And all of the sudden I had 600 people quietly staring at me, all ears. The more I mentioned gas prices, the more everybody cheered.
“That’s how the whole thing started.”
It’s been a wild ride in the years since as the former warehouse employee turned truck dispatcher turned school custodian used his penchant for witty lyrical refrains and foot-stomping melodies to articulate uniquely Canadian frustrations that speak to the so called silent majority — people just like Kevin Westphal.
“I never have a plan,” he admits without apology. “I fly by the seat of my pants.
“I’ll hear somebody at the bar talking about how good the pickled eggs are. I’ll hear somebody talking about ‘Let’s go smoke some marijuana!’
“That’s what’s given me the idea: the people. I sing for the people.”