This story was originally published on Nov. 30. It's being shared again today for readers who may have missed it.
TIMMINS - An 83-year-old songwriter from Timmins has been hit with some Christmas inspiration.
“On Algonquin, just before the bridge, there was a commercial sign there, and the sign said ‘tell the children that Christmas is the little baby Jesus’ birthday,” said Paul Henry Dallaire. “I got a napkin and somehow or another I started to write the song.”
With a pencil in hand, the song started to take shape.
Dallaire has shared this song far and wide to spread the word of what Christmas is all about in Timmins. After decades of writing songs about current events, his moment of inspiration for 'Christmas in a Mining Town with Sleigh Bells' seemed to come together with a touch of holiday magic and a little help from his friends.
Dallaire worked in a funeral home, and between the embalming room and the local Tim Hortons, he’s found inspiration in news stories on the radio and the things happening in the world.
“While I was doing my work, I had the radio on, so I could hear what was going on, and at the same time I could do my embalming work,” he said. “If you’re going to write something, it’s got to be from the core of your soul. I don’t mind love songs, but they’re all the same. I like story songs.”
He said he felt like sharing what Christmas was about in his hometown of Timmins, but shifted it a little when he found that Christmas in My Home Town was somewhat overused.
“I went online and every Tom, Dick and Harry’s got a song about Christmas in my hometown, so I had to change the title a little,” he said.
With the help of a fellow local musician, Serge Revard, Dallaire got the vocal track recorded for the song, but he said it wasn’t living up to his expectations.
“He told me he had a small recording studio, and I told him I’d just written a song about Timmins and the Christmas holidays,” he said. “I went to his place with my guitar and we started to record the song.”
He decided to put the song aside for a bit.
"I told him, maybe we’ll try another time,” he said.
A few months later, he ran into Revard, who had put some work into the track and come up with something great.
“He’s got a CD with him and he hands me this CD and says Paul I reworded that song,” he said. “I went to my car on the way home and I put it on, and I said ‘well, that sounds pretty damn good to me!’”
Dallaire has been writing songs for decades, and remembers fondly submitting a song to a contest in Alberta.
“In the '80s, they had a contest about the city of Calgary, they wanted a song so I wrote one, and I sent it to Ralph Klein,” he said. “He liked it, and he sent me a nice certificate, but nobody from Ottawa was going to win that contest.”
‘Christmas in a Mining Town’ is available online, and Dallaire has high hopes for it this holiday season.
“I was hoping someone would play the song at the Santa Claus parade,” he said.
