When Bucksport resident Chris Soper heard the news in October that the Verso Paper mill in Bucksport would close by the end of the year, he had the same reaction that most people had: shock, anger and sadness.
“I was angry, of course,” said Soper, who is a lobster fisherman based out of Stonington. “My father worked there, and some uncles and aunts, and my grandfather, and really, my entire family. Everybody around here is connected in some way. It’s depressing and sad.”
This week, when news broke that Verso agreed to sell the mill and its assets to the Montreal-based American Iron & Metal for about $60 million, many of those same feelings came flooding back. Soper, a singer and guitarist who in the mid-2000s played in local roots rock band the Gilpin Railroad Incident, got inspired.
“I just picked up my guitar, and I wrote a song. The words just started flowing. It was 4 a.m. Wednesday morning. It took me about 15 minutes,” said Soper. “At 10 a.m. I did a little … video and I posted it on the Bucksport millworkers Facebook page. Two days later it’s gotten over 17,000 hits [on Facebook].”
The song, titled “Small Town America,” speaks to Soper’s feelings about the way he and his family and friends in the Bucksport area were treated by the company that owns the mill. It has understandably struck a chord not just with folks in Bucksport, but people nationwide who have felt the pinch as manufacturing and industrial jobs dry up and are shipped overseas. In the song he sings that “We have our freedoms / but we can’t speak our minds / in a world of deceit honesty’s so hard to find / just like this mill town / everything will sell / rich keep getting richer on the way to hell.”
“I think people struggle through life, and every day they see the big dog win every time, and the little guy gets pushed aside,” said Soper. “They make $60 million off scrap metal they send to China, and we’re sitting here trying to figure out how to feed our kids.”
Already Soper’s song has been featured on radio and TV. He’s glad the song is raising awareness about the tough road ahead that his community faces, and the resiliency of his coastal town. He has been a little overwhelmed with all the attention.
“It’s been great to have people really listen to the song,” he said. “It’s amazing that it’s gone this far so quickly.”
Soper says that since his band, the Gilpin Railroad Incident, disbanded in 2008, he has mostly retired from playing music publicly, though he’s certainly been known to jam in the comfort of his own home.
“I’ll jam with friends, but I just don’t have time to be in a band or play out. I get up at 2:30 a.m. and lobster all day and then raise kids all night,” said Soper, who lives in Bucksport with his son and his girlfriend and her two children. “I guess I was just waiting for the right opportunity to write something. And I guess this was it, sad as it is.”
