Twitter's wrong: 'I'm alive," says Ron Hynes
Newfoundland songwriter says tweets reporting his death are greatly exaggerated
Songwriter Ron Hynes is having a good chuckle over a social media reports Friday night suggesting he had died.
"My brother just came banging on my door and said there’s a message on …Twitter? I don’t have Twitter. I know nothing about it…He said there’s a rumour on twitter that I’m dead," said Hynes Saturday.
Hynes, 61, said not only is the rumour wrong but it also appears the tweeter who started it all also had the origin of the lyric attributed to Hynes wrong.
The tweet said: "Lay down on the sidewalk and kick off and die", nothin’ like Ron Hynes…"
Hynes said those words from the song No Change in Me were written by Murray McLauchlan.
"We disagreed over that line. I didn’t like it. I said, you know, Newfoundlanders wouldn’t do that Murray. They wouldn’t lay down on a sidewalk and kick off and die, they’d get home – that’s what Newfoundlanders do – they get home."
Hynes' work is known across North America. His song Sonny's Dream – a folk classic written in 1976 – has been recorded and performed internationally by the likes of Emmylou Harris and Mary Black.
Hynes said if people want more proof that he is still alive they can watch him sing and play in St. John’s at The Ship Pub on March 22 or The Fat Cat Blues Bar on George Street, April 27-28.
He's due to play in Ontario and Alberta later this spring.