Oooooh I do love me a good autobiography or memoir. Getting to enjoy someone's life with them is just brilliant, and Doyle sure tells a story. His childhood in rural PEI is a perfect story for a good Canadian read.
Alan Doyle today is the lead singer of Great Big Sea, one of my all-time favorite bands. This made me tremendously nervous to read the book - what if I liked him as much as I liked A. J. Jacobs?
I need not have worried. If anything, I'm even more enamored with the band, knowing where some of the songs came from. That they perceive "Ordinary Day" as a song that changed their lives (p. 282). I've found some new music (Berry Picking Time, and the band Wonderful Grand Band, one of their inspirations). Hearing about how important writing a hockey tune was (my kids love 'Helmethead').
Some wonderful takeaways from Doyle's life:
On why to own a painting: "Because it will make [a] home a happier place." (He met the painter Jean Claude Roy when he came to paint Petty Harbour - it made such an impact on him that he bought that very painting years later and it hangs in his home). (p.29-31)
On what work is, for Sean McCann's father: "Nobody works for you and you don't work for nobody. You only work with people." (p.109)
On how to approach each day: Doyle is talking about his parents when this thought came up, and it's my new motto for every bad day I'll have - take it with you, too:
"Spend exactly all of your time making the most of what you have and exactly none of your time whining about what you don't have." (p.14).
I'll try, Alan. Thank you for your story. Write another one, please?
Title: Where I Belong - Small Town to Great Big Sea
Author: Alan Doyle
Published: 2014
Pages: 308
Total Books Blogged: 22
Total Pages: 6585
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