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Music

We Built This Nation

On Friday morning, Toronto arose to the glory of Mayor Ford (The World Will Remember): a full-throated anthem for the defiant phoenix of Ford Nation. It was also apparently sincere. Or was it?

On the one hand, Jenny James would be performing her ballad at that night’s Ford Fest in Scarborough’s Thomson Memorial Park. On the other hand, an image prominently featured in the official video was a bad Vice Photoshop of a sore-lipped Ford wearing a crown and holding a crack pipe. (Though Vice later clarified that, whoops, the pipe they’d depicted was actually for meth.)

So many questions.

James performed the song three times at Ford Fest, interspersed with myriad covers. Prior to the second of these renditions, lyrics sheets were distributed to the crowd so that we might sing along. Doug Ford and Rob Ford and several city councillors joined her and her band on the makeshift stage to participate with varying degress of awkward enthusiasm.

Afterward, we caught up with the 28-year-old James – who moved to Toronto from the Phillipines in 2007 – to find out how she managed to set a new standard for Ford-themed surrealism.

Justin Bieber’s Beauty And A Beat played in the background during the interview.

What was it like performing the song with Mayor Ford and the councillors and everything?

It was really a lot of fun, ’cause I wrote the song for him. And seeing him there, you know, it’s a lot of fun, yeah.

How did the song come about? How did you decide to write it?

I actually, we knew that we we’re performing for the Ford Fest about two weeks ago, and it wasn’t confirmed. Once we found out that it was confirmed, one of the friends made a joke out of it, that “I think you should write a song for Ford, since it’s Ford Fest.” And then, you know, I have some other songwriters with the song, and that’s how it started, and we tried to finish the song for tonight so we can perform it for him.

How did you decide on the style of song?

I thought it should be rock, kind of like an 80s feel. When I imagine the song, it should be like more an edgy kind of thing.

In terms of the lyrics, what sort of message did you want to convey?

The message is [laughs] is that Ford will be remembered. You know, like, the world will remember. It could be like negative or positive uh, it depends on who you talk to. Yeah, so.

What does “rollback viceroy” mean? I’ve been wondering about that all day.

[laughs] “Rollback viceroy,” um. Well, one of my colleagues actually came up with this line, and it’s because, like, you know how Walmart or Price Chopper have rollbacks, and I think that’s how he is. [laughs]

The video went up this morning and got a great reaction in a lot of places. How did you feel about the reaction that it got?

I actually didn’t expect anything. We went from a band practice last night, and we went home pretty late, but I really want to put the song together for tonight, and I just thought maybe I can compile some pictures and just uploaded the music along with it. And I just let it upload, it took so much time, and then when I woke up in the morning, I didn’t expect that it was getting a lot of attention. It was a total surprise for me.

So you uploaded it last night, and when you woke up it was already up?

Yeah.

I guess, have you heard that it had a photo from Vice that showed him in a crown and that he…

Yeah. [laughs] You know what, I was pretty tired last night. I was working on it at, like, four in the morning. And I was trying to prepare myself for tonight, and I thought that one of the pictures had a crown. I never really thought that that was [laughs], you know, something else. So when I see in the comments, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I think I made a big… thing here.” So, yeah, I… that was a mistake.

So you learned from the comments there?

Yeah. And some friends told me, “Hey, did ya know that this is here?” I said, “What!?” And I tried to edit the video, and it was taking a long time, so I tried to clean the video and reuploaded it.

So how do you feel now that the performance is done, and they liked it, they sang along. Is it one of the top moments of your career?

It’s actually, yes. When I found out that I’m gonna be performing for Ford, I was really honoured. Not a lot of bands have opportunities like this, and I was pretty honoured. And, you know, the energy of the crowd is really good. So I was pretty excited and really pumped, and we prepared for this event.

Jenny James at Ford Fest from NOW Magazine on Vimeo.

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