Margaret Atwood Pens New Song, “Zodiac Driver,” for Toronto Musician Thomas Kovacs

After publishing more than 50 books of fiction, poetry, critical essays and graphic novels — not to mention overseeing and even making a cameo in a television adaptation of her iconic The Handmaid’s Tale — Margaret Atwood has brought her writing prowess to the Canadian music scene.

The 83-year-old author, known as Canada’s Queen of Letters, has partnered with Toronto musician Thomas Kovacs, 64, on his brand new single, “Zodiac Driver.”

Atwood penned the song after bonding with the folk singer on a number of Arctic expeditions through Adventure Canada, where Kovacs serves as both the musician on board and a zodiac driver for the Canadian-owned travel experience company.

 

 

Zodiac drivers transport passengers from the cruise ship to remote landing sites such as beaches, river banks, rocky outcrops, coral reef flats and ice floes.

“Graeme Gibson and I started travelling with Adventure Canada in 2001,” Atwood, who’s frequently filled one of the guest staff positions for the travel company over the years, explains in a press release for the new track. “We went on a number of Arctic adventures with Tom, and among the things we used to do were various sorts of skits and sing-songs. And for Tom, I wrote the lyrics to a song about the Zodiac drivers.”

The new tune was released on Wednesday with a music video, featuring a spoken introduction from Atwood as well as breathtaking video and snaps of the Arctic landscapes the pair share a love for.

“At some point during the trip, she approached me with a piece of paper with the lyrics to a song that paid tribute to Zodiac drivers,” Kovacs recalls of the memorable 2004 voyage. “She asked me to put music to it, and the song was born.”

The chorus of the song calls for “three cheers for the zodiac driver,” while one verse praises them for their role in keeping tourists safe:

Zodiac drivers are nimble of foot

They’re keeping us all safe from harm

As they leap here and there on the slippery rocks

With a tourist tucked under each arm

In between arctic adventures, Kovacs — who left his 9-to-5 job as a computer programmer to pursue music full time in 2010 — performs live gigs across his home province of Ontario.

During the COVID-19 lockdown, he created The Thomas Kovacs Show, a weekly Sunday night Facebook Live event where he chatted with viewers, performed, took musical requests and introduced an original song for each episode. After a brief pause to make room for his return to live gigs in 2022, the show made its return with a new name, I Sing There4 I am, and a slightly less ambitious promise of debuting a new song for each monthly episode.

“It’s a high-pressure way to sharpen my songwriting skills,” Kovacs muses.

Meanwhile, the new song isn’t Margaret Atwood’s first brush with Canada’s dynamic music scene.

 

 

Just this year, Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins partnered with her on Songs for Murdered Sisters, a deeply personal collection of songs dedicated to his older sister — who was murdered by her ex-partner along with two other women in 2015 in Hopkins’ hometown of Renfrew County, Ont., — and other victims of gender-based violence.

Atwood penned eight evocative poems for the song cycle, which debuted at Ottawa’s National Arts Centre in February and was released as both a film and a Juno-nominated digital album.

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