Roy Forbes

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Can't Catch Me

Can’t Catch Me was written in the late summer/fall of ’71. I was eighteen and fresh out of high school, living in an East Vancouver party/hippie house at 3rd and Clark Drive with several other Dawson Creek expatriates. It was an exciting time. I was writing a song or two a day, putting them down on the little Sanyo cassette recorder that I’d purchased with my winnings from the 1971 BC Search for Talent. (I had won the Peace River Country regional finals back in May of that year). As I recall, I had the idea for Can’t Catch Me in the middle of one of our continual parties. I ran upstairs, wrote it, threw it on my cassette recorder and returned to the rockin’ festivities, discovering the tune a few days later. The song most likely had its live debut at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre that November when I opened for Rita Coolidge.

OK, I’ll admit, the lyrics are a tad obscure but, when I look back, they aren’t all that different than the ‘deep hippie’ lyrics being written by some of my heroes of the day. The tune completely reflects the music I was listening to at that time: Beatles, Traffic, Stones, Van Morrison’s ‘Band & Street Choir’ LP, McCartney’s ‘Ram’ album, the good old Creedence Clearwater Revival chug chug groove, Hendrix, Neil Young, etc.

CCM became my ‘show starter’ at that late ’71 Queen Elizabeth show and kept that spot in my live shows for years. Whether it was a 1974 show for the Regina Folk Guild, downstairs at Sammy’s Pizza or a sold out Maple Leaf Gardens show, opening for Supertramp, in 1976, I most likely started things off with Can’t Catch Me.

When it finally came time to record Kid Full Of Dreams in 1975, there was no question about Can’t Catch Me. It was on the list from the start and kept its ‘show starter’ spot as the opening cut for my first LP. The song was the second single from the album and although it wasn’t a national hit, it did chart in several Canadian cities. For instance, if my memory serves me well, CCM hit the top ten in Ottawa sometime in 1976. The song won a BMI award later that year and, as well, Kid Full Of Dreams was nominated for a Juno. I well remember my first BMI cheque when the airplay was tallied. I was amazed that one of my songs could actually go out there and make me a bit of cash. It still amazes me.

Although I liked the tune and grooved on Claire Lawrence’s full production (I played the electric guitar parts on my beloved salmon coloured ’62 Strat, a guitar that was stolen from me in late 1979) I was also busy being a young folk singer in a mid-seventies folk scene where ‘commercial’ was a dirty word. Imagine my embarrassment, then, when the record company informed me that CCM had been included on a dreaded K Tel compilation LP! (It slices! It dices!) The album was called Canada’s Finest – 20 Original Hits and Original Stars and there I was, in garish K Tel glory, keeping company with BT0, Guess Who, Pagliaro, Brutus, Ken Tobias, Myles & Lenny, Wednesday, April Wine, Ian Thomas, The Stampeders etc. Although it was something I kept mighty quiet about at the time, I treasure that album now- tickled to have been included with that legendary batch of mid 70s ‘Can Con’ pioneers.

Although it’s been a while since I started a show with CCM, I’ll still pull it out occasionally, especially when I sense that I have a bunch of fans of the first LP in the audience. I have been playing the tune with my excellent band recently, with me back on electric guitar. Big loud fun.