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While I was a student at the Ontario College of Art, I got
a job one summer at a paint and wallpaper factory. Whenever
the huge wallpaper presses made errors in the printing run,
it was my job to separate the good
wallpaper from the stuff that had been damaged or misprinted.
It was the kind of job where your head didn't have to know
what your hands were doing, which allowed me to think and
daydream for hours at a time. I often
thought of places I had been or would like to be - anywhere
but there! It was there that the germ of the song was born.
Since the idea of a wallpaper quality control checker was
too obscure for the lyrics, I used an
office clerk which seemed more universal.
Most of the second verse was inspired by a summer's evening
spent at Sunnyside Beach on the shoreline of Lake Ontario
in Toronto. The lake and beach could have been in the middle
of nowhere while the city behind
became a "surrealistic sight".
While Echo Beach did not exist for me as a real location,
I used it as a symbol of the place everyone wants to escape
to when they're not where they want to be.
Mark Gane
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