Steven Page did a long introduction to this in BNL's recent Glasgow gig (May 1). The song's based around the story of the Bloor Street viaduct in Toronto, which was a suicide hotspot with people jumping to the "cars and trucks below" on the Don Valley Parkway. Apparently it got so bad that one person was committing suicide by jumping from the bridge every 22 days at one point making it the #2 suicide spot in the continental US behind the Golden Gate Bridge. A massive campaign was launched and eventually succeeded in getting "a net there to catch their fall".
People did stop jumping but then moved to the next bridge down the road and jumped from there instead.
Steve said: "I thought, 'how ridiculous, how futile to try and stop people'. But the more we've been singing this song, the more I talk about it in the shows I realised that fundamental to everything I believe in is that we're here on earth to take care of each other. And we can express that in our politics or our religions or songs or the way we deal with our families and friends and strangers, but the second we stop holding our arms out to catch people as they fall is the second we lose our humanity. This song is for people who've lost the will to survive and lost the fight against themselves to stay alive."
Oh, and coincidentally, it's my favourite song on the album. Beautiful.
Steven Page did a long introduction to this in BNL's recent Glasgow gig (May 1). The song's based around the story of the Bloor Street viaduct in Toronto, which was a suicide hotspot with people jumping to the "cars and trucks below" on the Don Valley Parkway. Apparently it got so bad that one person was committing suicide by jumping from the bridge every 22 days at one point making it the #2 suicide spot in the continental US behind the Golden Gate Bridge. A massive campaign was launched and eventually succeeded in getting "a net there to catch their fall".
People did stop jumping but then moved to the next bridge down the road and jumped from there instead.
Steve said: "I thought, 'how ridiculous, how futile to try and stop people'. But the more we've been singing this song, the more I talk about it in the shows I realised that fundamental to everything I believe in is that we're here on earth to take care of each other. And we can express that in our politics or our religions or songs or the way we deal with our families and friends and strangers, but the second we stop holding our arms out to catch people as they fall is the second we lose our humanity. This song is for people who've lost the will to survive and lost the fight against themselves to stay alive."
Oh, and coincidentally, it's my favourite song on the album. Beautiful.