Yours, Affectionately

Most people familiar with Winnipeg’s music scene already know about Rusty Matyas. At 30 years old, the prolific singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has played in Novillero, The Waking Eyes and, most recently, released a CD with his new band, the soul-pop combo Imaginary Cities.

He’s also a touring member of The Weakerthans, and he played drums for Greg MacPherson on G.Mac’s recent European tour.

But people who were at the West End Cultural Centre last night got to see Matyas perform his first-ever solo set.

Before playing, “Yours, Affectionately,” the last song of his set, Matyas related the romantic and poignant story behind the song.

Matyas also shared the story when I interviewed him last May along with fellow musicians Marti Sarbit, Alexa Dirks and Matt Schellenberg for a joint article about Imaginary Cities and Courier News.

I’m not big on Valentine’s Day, but it’s a sweet love story, so in honour of today, I thought I’d share it here, in Matyas’s own words:

“My grandpa, in like the ‘60s, or the ‘50s even, there was something where you send lyrics or a poem, and they send you back a 7-inch record [with music written and recorded by studio musicians] with the song on it, with those lyrics. And he wrote it for my grandma.”

Matyas wanted to hear the song, but his grandparents couldn’t find the 7-inch. All his grandpa could remember about it was the lyric, “Yours affectionately, I will always be / I will always be, yours affectionately.”

“And he said the [music] was just fucking shit—he hated it. So I wrote a song just using those lyrics. And after my grandpa died, I recorded it for my grandma as a Christmas present.

“It was, like, the sweetest thing I’ve ever done,” Matyas added with a laugh. “I was the hero of my family.”

Listen to “Yours, Affectionately” on Matyas’s Facebook page here.

Rusty Matyas, left, with his Imaginary Cities band mate, Marti Sarbit.