There was a woman who attended Fat Albert’s open stage who was usually an audience member though at least one time she tried to play. I wasn’t there that night but heard about it. It was a curiosity because there were two camps, performers and audience members, and she was there a few years but always as audience. I didn’t know she had aspirations to check out the other side. She was a very kind and beautiful person, maybe six feet tall with an out of the ordinary name, Babette. She took her life in the 90s. By that time I didn’t know her and have no idea how or why it happened. She never seemed depressed or troubled on the contrary she was warm and attentive to others and appreciated humour. I met her before the open stages as a U of T student. In Blue Rodeo’s early days we once played a bar at U of T, she was there and during a break between sets she talked to me. I might have even told her about Fat Albert’s. It was the 80s, I don’t recall too many details though every time I saw her at Fat Albert’s I remembered the first time at the odd U of T gig.
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More than once I toured with Bob Snider in the 90s. We had some great dates even though I wouldn’t let him drive. He would get pouty and twisted up inside about my reign of control. I was sorry but couldn’t help it. He was a very committed pot-head. I needed to feel secure about the highway. Once or twice I let him try but found his instincts behind the wheel too paranoid. He wrote many interesting songs, many which are very funny. People requested his funny songs like “dog” or “what an idiot he is”. After Babette’s death he wrote a striking song about her. It was called Words and Pictures and Bob, who could rhyme orange, designed it without obvious sound alike ends of sentences. The first few times I heard it I didn’t know then suddenly realized he might be talking about her and asked, and he said yes. The narrator keeps returning to the statement, “pictures of someone I used to know” delivered unemotionally not elaborating that the someone he used to know jumped off the Bloor viaduct.
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I saw her last night in my dream. She wanted to know what my PhD was about. I wanted to know if she still lived in the apartment on Arlington and if she knew Bob wrote a song about her. I liked that part the most, that I was asking her about a song written about her death without realizing I had this excellent clue to put together that this was a dream.

She can be as insecure
as the rail she walks along.
Beside the old abandoned track she found
in some run down part of town
she wanted me to see.
Pictures of someone I used to know.

She can light up like a child,
full of wild, unlikely theories that she’s heard.
She can tell me
things for which they haven’t yet invented
any words.
Pictures of someone I used to know.

Running through a sudden rain
daring me to follow her, she makes me laugh.
She reminds me of a crane
or some exotic water bird,
or maybe a giraffe.
Pictures of someone I used to know.

Down her street.
Up her stair.
See her sitting in her chair.
Puts her cup down in her careful way.

We are coming from a walk.
Last night we might have stayed a little too long
out underneath the moon.
I am free ‘til ten o’clock,
she has plans for something
later on this afternoon.
Pictures of someone I used to know.

Love is mad, love is sane.
The direction signals they don’t always ring out like a bell.
Words and pictures stay the same
we all know love is not like that
Oh well…
Pictures of someone I used to know.