For musician and Megaphone vendor Bernie Bouzane, his original songs often take up the tempo of real life
A story about 'Sam'
Bernie Bouzane is a long-time Downtown Eastside resident who has been a part of the Megaphone family since 2015. He was born in Newfoundland—the third-oldest of seven children—was raised in Kitimat, B.C. and came to Vancouver in 1973.
He’s worked in the dry ice industry, run his own businesses and was the maintenance supervisor at Mica Dam north of Revelstoke.
He’s also a lifelong musician.
“I play almost every musical instrument there is,” he says. “Guitar—bass and rhythm—violin, organ, piano, accordion, banjo, harmonica, drums.”
He still has an electric guitar at home, though he doesn’t crank it up too loudly these days.
Bernie also writes poems, many of them songs. Several have been published in Megaphone magazine and the Voices of the Street literary edition. He started taking music lessons when he was 16 years old, paying for them himself. As a young man, he played in several bands.
“Organized Confusion was the main one,” Bernie says.
He stopped by the Megaphone office in January to drop off the lyrics to his latest tune, which we’ve published below. Is the 16-year-old who got kicked out of school by a principal named Magraw autobiographical?
“Yes,” Bernie says chuckling. “Yes it is.”
Untitled
Sam went home
With note in hand
It said something like this:
“Sam did wrong, he does not belong
He’s caused so much distress
Sam wore clickers on his boots
And he’s made me
Lose my cool
So please consider him hereby
Expelled from this school
Your insubordination
Has brought shame
Upon this school
You’re a disgrace to your classmates
You've made me lose my cool
This will be the last day
That you wear
Clickers on your boots.”
I’m no fool, I’m wiser now
You’ve made me more astute
Now principal Magraw
Was a patient man they say
But his face turned red
A bright beet red
Upon that fateful day
He hollered as he shook
As he wrung his hands with wrath
He said, “I’ll teach you Sam
You know I can
You must walk a different path.”
Now Sam felt so self-conscious
His spirits sank so low
How he could live another day
Without his boots He didn’t know
He paid a pretty penny
From his paper route
It’s true
For the jet black boots
With the clickers
For the fashionable crew.
— Bernie Bouzane sells Megaphone outside High Point liquor store on East Hastings and Slocan in Vancouver.
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