If “We Are The One” sounds like the title of Sarah MacLaughlan, Sting and Bono’s collaborative effort to bring puppies to the puppyless, in truth, it’s not all that far off. It’s the latest single from Saint John’s resident bard, Brent Mason, championing a far more local cause with a love letter to his community in the city’s Old North End.
Brent Mason may famously be the boy from Belleisle, but for the last decade and a half, he’s called a six-acre stretch at the end of a hilly road that overlooks the river. It’s his own piece of paradise within one of Saint John’s oldest neighbourhoods.
Most of us are lucky if our communities are any better than cookie-cutter; a series of inoffensively streamlined houses built to move and move again for the modern growing, albeit transient, family. As Mason shows in his latest video, Saint John’s North End is anything but that. It’s the sort of place where character seeps up out of the sidewalks and whether the character of the place is the cause or a natural byproduct, it certainly has it in abundance.
“The North End is one of my favourite parts of Saint John—it has beauty, character and history,” explains Mason.
“I’m a bit on the periphery but I drive in and around it every day. My sister lived there for several years. It’s maligned by outsiders a lot because it’s low income etc., but I’ve been around enough to know, as Neil Young said, that you meet the Lowe’s in the best bars and the winners in the dives. People are invariably friendly here. It really was the hang I had with about twenty people at the start of the project that coalesced these rather oblique sentiments into a song that reflects it. ”
In July, Mason part participated in a pilot project called Spotlight. Organized by InterAction School of Performing Arts and funded by the City of Saint John, the program was designed to place artists within different communities with the mandate of “leaving something palpable and permanent behind as a connection between the artist and the area.”
“It really was as simple as spending time with a group of people from the area aged 15-70 and listening while they talked about their home. [It was] really moving; their sense of place and community and connection to each other,” says Mason.
Mason says that by working with One Change in the Nick Nicolle Centre—naming Sean Simpson in particular—he was able to meet people within his own community and to hear some of their stories. For Mason, the experience proved to be a moving one.
“We had an amazing summer evening of sharing time together on the banks of the river down on Bridge Street. It was a fantastic experience and moved me to write this song,” says Mason. “Sometimes, things coalesce and when they do you have to get it down before the sense of it disappears. That’s what happened that night—literally booted it home up the hill to the coop and wrote it in a couple of hours. It feels great to think I did something that resonates as real. Real for the people who are from or know the area.”
And the result really is a love letter—warts and all, as they say. “We Are the One” is a realistic and loveable perspective of his own neighbourhood and the superabundance of character that gives it its own unique charm.
Aside from the resulting song and a video—produced by Lauchlan Ough—that showcases the area and its community, Mason has said he still wants to do more. As a result of his experience, Mason wants to create a creative scholarship/prize for young people in the area, with all the proceeds from the single going towards sponsoring the award.
“I plan to use [the donations] to encourage potentially creative writers, artists and musicians to pursue their path. I feel that if I can help create a few creating opportunities for young people in the area through this initiative, then that’s a good thing. People sometimes need to be encouraged to tell their stories.”
‘We Are The One” is available for purchase via Brent Mason on Bandcamp.