Unlike novels and poems, songs are often written by more than one person. A songwriting team can work their magic in various ways.  The Beatles for example.  Many, perhaps most of their songs, were team efforts. Paul on the other hand wrote Yesterday alone but added John to the credits because that was the deal they both agreed to when they began to write together.

Some famous songs gave a songwriting credit to someone who only added one idea. As Gate Lepine tells it, that is what happened with Stompin’ Tom’s album, Long Gone to the Yukon.

In the summer of 2023, Gate and his cousin Roly drove to Brockville from Ottawa to meet with me over a shitty Burger King coffee. Gate was in fine form that day as he gave me a Canadian country music history lesson. Gate began to talk about his songs that Tom included on his “Long Gone To The Yukon” album.

He tells it best in this video.  

I got in my car and streamed the entire album on my drive home. Having learned that Gate was responsible for most of the songs, I listened carefully and quickly concluded the album was a masterpiece… except for one song. That song nagged at me so I listened to it many times.

“I’ll Do It For You” had a lot going for it. The “hook” was singable, the rhythm had a country swing kind of feel, different than most of Tom songs and the melody was strong but….it didn’t have a bridge and I thought it needed another verse.

Whoever chose the songs for the project and sequenced them (maybe Tom or someone at Capital), decided this song should be second last. I thought it odd given the merits of the song. Positioned down the list, it might not get listened to as often as it was near the beginning.

Months before our Brockville visit, in the middle of Covid, Gate called me and gave me 15 songs that were in his vault. They were songs that he and Tom started but never completed. That was on my mind when I returned home from the Brockville show and began to learn I’ll Do It For You.

I loved singing it. That’s exactly what I did, over and over. In a couple of hours, I did something I never thought I’d do - I made two significant modifications to the song. I turned one of the verses into a chorus and I wrote another verse to replace it. I knew the song was too good and would be added to my Stompin’ Tom show. Then I nervously called Gate and told him what I had done.

His reaction was immediate. “I wrote that song for my wife Jean in 1973. When I played it for Tom, he loved it. On the album, he sang it as I had written it. He might have added a line or two - I can’t remember. But as with many songs on that album, it was mine.”

I sang my version over the phone and he was ecstatic. “Much better Dunc. It needed that.”

So, as the 2024 tour began, I sang it for the band at the first sound check and they loved it. We soon had an arrangement, with Billy MacInnis switching to guitar and Douglas John Cameron playing the harmonica. After a couple of run-throughs, we had ourselves a new song for our show.