Song In AS A KODEN: TALKING STORY—WHO IS YOUR NAME? — kihcihkaw askî (Saulteaux: Sacred Earth)

 IN LOVING MEMORY OF DANIELLE PRUSKI
Returned home to the Creator on November 9, 2015

“Danielle’s Hello Goodbye Medley” is dedicated to my son’s late mother, Danielle Pruski.

I originally wrote and recorded this song on Hi-8 tape around February 1994. At that time, Danielle was living at Sherbrook Nursing Home, where she remained for a number of years before eventually returning home to the Creator.

It was a very sad and difficult period. I wrote this song out of love, concern, prayer and hope—a way of offering Danielle comfort through music.

Although Danielle and I were separated, we remained devoted to our son and worked together to care for him. Danielle was an incredibly hard-working woman, and we both loved our son dearly.

The medley brings together two of my original songs: “Hello Goodbye” and “Are You Satisfied?”

“Hello Goodbye” reaches back to one of my earliest experiences in filmmaking. When I was approximately 24 or 25 years old, I worked as an extra on a film called *Hello Goodbye*, made by filmmaker Robert Boyd and featuring actor Stephen Miller.

I played a Zorro-like character carrying a guitar, complete with a pencil moustache. Robert even recorded my guitar playing. It was one of those imaginative experiences from my youth that remained with me and eventually found its way into the song.

During that period, I was living in a small bachelor apartment at 1750 Davie Street, Suite 604, in Vancouver’s West End.

“Are You Satisfied?” originated in an episodic, archetypal play I wrote in early 1986 called *Slow Down Orders*. The play concerned a Red Queen who wanted to take control of society. Somewhere among my papers, the original typewritten play and lyrics are still waiting to be rediscovered.

The two songs eventually became this medley—a reflection on love, separation, faith, colonialism, consumer society and the ways we sometimes pass one another without genuinely connecting.

With everything modern life allows us to possess, are we truly satisfied?

We can buy our water at Safeway and purchase almost anything from the marketplace—but can we buy love? Can we buy happiness?

Perhaps love and happiness begin when we slow down, remain present and take the time to know our neighbours, our friends and one another.

Many years after making the original recording, I submitted my song to the Sono music system. This new full-band interpretation is what the system produced from the material I provided. The original words, melodies, stories and emotional meaning come from my own life and creative work.

For this video, I returned to visual material from the opening cinematic world of my dramatic feature film:

AS A KODEN: TALKING STORY—WHO IS YOUR NAME? — kihcihkaw askî (Saulteaux: Sacred Earth)

These images are not intended to present a literal biography of Danielle. They form a cinematic meditation on memory, love, faith, colonial violence, social disconnection, spiritual survival, healing and the Creator’s light.

The video begins within dark waters, blood-red imagery and fragmented memory. It then travels through images of land, ceremony, institutional power, surveillance, conflict, human relationships and prayer before arriving at the complete title of the film.

Placed together with Danielle’s song, the images become a journey from darkness toward remembrance, compassion and hope.

The final passage of the song returns directly to Danielle:

“Take care, sweetheart. No more crying. Be at peace with yourself, and know the Creator will be with you.”

This is a deeply personal song from another time in my life. I am grateful that its new full-band interpretation is finding listeners. During the week ending August 18, 2026, my ReverbNation profile reached Number One on the Edmonton Blues chart.

I am especially happy for Danielle. Her memory continues through our son, through the people who loved her and now through this music.

This song is for Danielle, for our son and for all the memories that music continues to carry.

May the Creator’s love remain with us, and may things come around in their proper time.

Donald Alfred Morin
Singer-Songwriter • Musician • Actor • Filmmaker
Saulteaux/Cree/Métis Interdisciplinary Artist
Treaty 6 Territory
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Have songs, will travel. Give me a guitar—I’ll sing you a story.

Miigweech—all my relations.

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