Copyright 2005 Sharon Crawford

It’s 9 a.m., her two children, ages 8 and 11, are at school and Lynn Harrison, 41, heads for work – underground on the Toronto subway system. She’s not a subway driver or maintenance worker. For the past year, the singer-songwriter with two CDs under her belt and a third, Broadview, on the way, has hit the subway stations to busk. Money’s not the motive – she’s a freelance editor and copywriter and her husband works for the Ontario government. She’s had exposure performing above ground – folk festivals and other gigs in New York and across Canada, including hosting women songwriters at Toronto Winterfest 2004 and 2005.

For Harrison, busking is personal and a natural progression for her singing and songwriting.“I wanted a way to connect to people everyday,” she says from her Riverdale home studio and “an opportunity to tour without touring.”Harrison, who was born in Dallas, Texas and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, began writing songs at age 12. Life, however, veered slightly. She wrote for TV, including songs for Sesame Street Canada, moved to Toronto in 1981 and married 14 years ago.

In 1998, she decided her “music should become front and centre.” After performing at Toronto venues such as Freetimes, Harrison cold-called composer and CD producer, David Woodhead. The two met and it was instant music Karma – he became her CD producer.

Harrison writes about “everyday events, ordinary challenges.

Before my friends come over I rush around and clean. I stash away my dirty clothes and stack my magazines.
Throw the dishes in the sink, put on a pot of tea
Why don’t you come and live in my messy house with me.

“My Messy House,” From lynoleum © 2001 Lynn Harrison, used with songwriter’s permission

“I did not want to clean my house that day. I just sat down and started talking about that with my guitar.”

Sometimes a melody, phrase or title arrives first and she’ll grab her guitar and “start noodling away.”

Another lynoleum cut, “Einstein’s Brain” won in the 2001 Songs by Literature Contest and was included in a Bruce Springsteen/Aimee Mann CD compilation. 

CD number two, Learning Curve (2003), featured more road-to-life songs. The road connection appeared at the CD launch, a free family barbeque in her children’s schoolyard. Harrison and Woodhead stood atop a vintage fire engine and performed. Afterwards, Harrison’s songs reverberated from parked classic cars.

Harrison’s opened for Tamarack and Jesse Winchester. Last year, back from touring Eastern Canada, she wanted to play regularly but without compromising family time. She applied for subway busking.

On a hot August day in 2004, Harrison, wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt, chocolate-brown slacks, beaded necklace and fake leather boots, anxiously toted her guitar onstage behind the CNE Food Building. She sang the required seven-minute medley of three songs. “It doesn’t feel like a cattle call; it’s a positive experience,” she says. The three judges wanted “stage presence, musical talent and entertainment value.”

September 9 she learned she’d made it. The tiny auburn-haired Harrison climbed below the city streets, parked against a subway station wall, strapped on her guitar and let loose. “You’re very exposed. You feel vulnerable. Some people will smile, give you money. Some people actually buy CDs. Some say ‘good job.’ It’s really affirming when people say ‘thank you’ in a definite way. I’ve learned any rejections are really navigable.”

She figures she makes $20 for a couple hours’ work. Her children thinks that’s cool and her husband supports her artistic endeavours. She plays three, maybe four days a week, three hours each. Longer sessions bring burnout.

Busking also brings heart-warmers while she belts out songs at eight of the 25 designated busking stations. At Osgoode, a favourite (the others are Pape, Dundas, Queens Park and Bay), “A man was coming down the corridor toward me. He appeared to be visually impaired. He was shuffling along. He looked like a homeless person. I saw him go into his pockets. To turn his donation away would be disrespectful to him.” Harrison faced him with her blue eyes and sang directly to him. “It’s really about human connections and about what are we here to do.”

Busking is “a very organic experience. My writing has changed and then I go and perform the songs, too, so it’s a cycle.”

She blogs her daily busking and rewrote it into a self-published book, Song of the Subway: One Artist's Journey Underground, due out by Christmas. Her new CD, Broadview, is a collection of powerful melodies and strong words. The title refers to the subway station and her “broad’s view” of life and death. “Overcoming loneliness is a huge theme in human writing. Confronting that experience of being a subway busker is hard. It’s (subway) not a place of comfort, so the songs became grittier.” The CD is available in November, but the launch is in January at Hugh’s Room.

This August “I came right down to the wire whether or not to audition because I got so much out of it in one year.” However, she did, feeling both comfortable and nervous. She auditioned strongly and it paid off. Again, on September 9, she learned she’ll sing down below for another year. This time she“feels better about the smaller audience.”

See Harrison on tour at a subway station nearby. Check www.lynnharrison.ca for CD and book launches.