Barbara Frum had a distinguished guest to interview on As It Happens on this date in 1975. She had a nice talk with former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker one day after the Stringband song – one of my favourites! – Dief Will Be the Chief Again debuted on the flagship CBC Radio show.
Dief was very pleased to hear the song. Here’s the chorus:
I still play the song each and every Canada Day and also on Dief’s September 18 birthday.
Here’s a link to Barbara Frum’s interview with the Dief, in which she also plays the song for him.
caption id="attachment_538455" align="alignleft" width="480"Dief is the Chief, Dief is the Chief, Dief will be the Chief again, Everybody's happy back in '57, And nobody's happy since then, There's a famine in the land, a mortgage on the home, And strikes without any end, But I know in my heart, that Dief will be the Chief, And a dollar worth a dollar again.
John Diefenbaker/caption
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.