The forward march of time doesn’t always mean progress, and for that reason Vancouver-based roots band Rusty Creek looks back on the past with nostalgia in their new single “Lookin’ For Blue Skies” – available now.
Replete with banjo, fiddle, and a zany marching rhythm, “Lookin’ For Blue Skies” is accompanied by a music video full of people and animals having wholesome fun – swimming in pools and creeks, participating in parades, dancing, frolicking on the beach. While the song shimmies with the sound of sunny positivity, the lyrics contain a bit more of an ache:
In the old days, everybody had a house
And that house became a home
Yeah, in the old days, y’all had a home
And every dog had its bone
“This song is about growing up in Vancouver in the ’50s and early ’60s, but it could be any city,” the band said. “The song is about the past, but it also refers to what living in the same place today is like. Harkens back to a time when most families were nuclear and homelessness was less common.”
“Overall it’s a positive song,” they added, “as long as we look for blue skies to remind us of what we once had and but may have lost forever.”
Rusty Creek is a collection of lifelong musicians Alex Deeth, Peter Callaway, Lee Stephens, and Leonard Saidman who have all enjoyed a variety of success in the music industry since the 1960s. Their experience makes for a well-polished collection of roots music that you could hear at any pub from coast to coast. Their most recent album, The Road of Life, is full of songs that range from moods as varied as a stomping party to reflective storytelling. Their previous singles include “Bombs Away,” “White Sails,” “Hello, Old Friend,” “Kitchen Party,” and a bluesy cover of Elton John’s “Honky Cat.”
