The Log Driver’s Waltz

Was my favorite music video as a child — commercial for the logging industry of BC? I never really thought about it, just found it a cool cartoon with a catchy tune. “The Log Driver’s Waltz”1 is an amazing Canadian folk song, written by Wade Hemsworth2.

Jennifer Hoffert reminded me of this video with a post to her FaceBook writing “This was my first favorite music video!!!” Mine too!

I thought it was “whirling” “down, a-down white water”, know I know “It’s birling down, a-down white water”.

“But none is so fine as my lad on the river”

” A log driver’s waltz pleases girls completely.”

Hug a logger and a tree.

The Log Driver’s Waltz was a constant along with the lame TV shows that seemed always on3: Inspector Gadget, Teddy Ruxpin, and the particularly disturbing 60s cartoon Tales of the Wizard of Oz:

Need I write more? US politics today imitating art?

Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera are timeless, but I wonder if there was ever a time for Tales of the Wizard of Oz.

  1. Wikipedia entry for The Log Driver’s Waltz , lyrics, National Film Board of Canada page. [↩]
  2. Wikipedia entry for Wade Hemsworth [↩]
  3. Upstairs we had a TV with rabbit ears so I think we only got channel 13, but even if you had all the channels there was never anything on TV for kids on Sunday morning [↩]
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This entry was written by Lloyd, posted on May 1, 2007 at 11:48 am, filed under Consuming, Personal. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

5 Comments

  1. Trent
    Posted May 2, 2007 at 12:28 pm | Permalink

    That is way to funny! I had to add that to my VodPod! Any good Canadian kid knows those! Thanks for those! Why did you look these up anyways? (seems a little off the wall :) *as I sing along…*

  2. Lloyd
    Posted May 2, 2007 at 1:00 pm | Permalink

    Right on Trent. I will have another listen to log driver’s right now.

    As I mentioned my friend Jennifer Hoffert posted it to FaceBook.

  3. Chris Bracken
    Posted May 6, 2007 at 12:33 am | Permalink

    A classic, and one of my favourites too.

    Not sure if you’ve seen this or not, but almost all the old National Film Board shorts are up on their site. Link is to another one I loved.

  4. Dr. David Klein
    Posted July 23, 2007 at 11:39 pm | Permalink

    I have never seen that cartoon before. I especially loved the first part with the real loggers. That was amazing. Where I live, in San Diego, we don’t even have very many honest to god trees.

    We are doing a re-do on your cartoon. Check back in a day or two and we should have a better version :)

    I said this to your wife too. Meeting the two of you, and the other automatic guys was one of the highlights of the trip. All of you really exude warmth, and integrity. A real pleasure.

    Now on top of that a logging mixed media film and cartoon? What more could one ask for?

    Thanks!
    dk

  5. John F Weldon
    Posted October 25, 2007 at 6:38 am | Permalink

    Hi…
    I’m glad to see this film is alive and ticking in cyberspace. (I directed and animated it in 1978!) It wan’t a commercial for anything, it was part of a series called “Canada Vignettes”.
    I’ve retired but I’m still alive and ticking and anyone who wants to see what I’ve been up to lately can visit my website, or look up “lepenseurdeux” on youTube.
    cheers
    John F Weldon

    PS- other old films of mine can be found by looking up the channel “KleoNeko”.

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