Canadian Songs -
http://www.vancouversun.com/entertai...057/story.html - photo at link.
O Canada! Singing the praises of our home and native land
By Mike Devlin, Times Colonist June 29, 2010 •Story•Photos ( 1 )
The Great White North has produced an impressive roster of musicians who have taken their acts to the international stage including the Tragically Hip.Photograph by: Steve Bosch, Vancouver Sun fileThe Great White North has produced an impressive roster of musicians who have taken their acts to the international stage, among them Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Paul Anka, Anne Murray, Alanis Morrisette, Bryan Adams, Shania Twain, the Guess Who, Celine Dion, Sarah McLachlan, and Gordon Lightfoot.
In honour of our country’s birthday, the easy thing would have been to compile a list of the best of the best and leave it at that.
I chose a much more difficult route: a list of the best songs about Canada. The quality of material left off this compilation was staggering, given the decades of homage paid to Canada by the stars of tomorrow and yesterday. The volume of I hate mail I am likely to receive will be worth it. I can take it. After all, I’m a Canadian.
• The Hockey Song, Stompin’ Tom Connors (1973)
Q: What is the good oil’ hockey game? A: It’s the best game you can name. Q: And what is the best game you can name? A:Well, shoot — it’s the good oil’ hockey game, of course. Explain this to someone who isn’t a Canadian, and you’ll get a glazed-over look in return. But repeat even a portion of Connors’ lyrics to a Canadian, let alone a diehard hockey fan, and you’re in for a long night of hard-drinking bonhomie. Bud the Spud would drink to that.
• Wheat Kings, The Tragically Hip (1992)
O Canada is our national anthem, but there’s an entire generation of hosers who worship at the altar of Wheat Kings, a rousing singalong with an often overlooked political undercurrent. Written as a paean to Winnipeg’s wrongly imprisoned David Milgaard, whose conviction was overturned in 1994 after 20 years in prison, Wheat Kings sits nicely amid a quartet of Canadiana that also includes Courage, At the Hundredth Meridian and Fifty-Mission Cap — songs that form the inspirational rock at the heart of the Hip’s masterpiece, Fully Completely.
• Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Gordon Lightfoot (1967)
Good ol’ Gord is an essayist of the highest calibre on this seven-minute song, a virtual history of the Canadian Pacific Railway as seen through the eyes of those who built it. Lightfoot was commissioned by the CBC to pen this tune (how more Canadian can you get?), but that didn’t stop him from inserting the occasional potshot into the storyline. Gord gave us gold with this one.
• Helpless, Neil Young (1970)
After the almighty Neil Young opens with “There is a town in North Ontario,” everything that follows is window dressing. This is a valentine to the province that spawned him, and a beautiful one at that. Young has said the song is more concerned with the feeling one gets while in Canada, than with a specific place. Either way, Helpless leaves you feeling hopeful.
• Four Strong Winds, Ian and Sylvia (1964)
One of the most identifiable Canadian songs to infiltrate the U.S. folk boom of the early 1960s, Four Strong Winds is ensconced among the greatest Canadian songs in history. Both Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash covered this sensational original by Ian Tyson, a Victoria native writing about Alberta with all the back-porch beauty he could muster.
• Northwest Passage, Stan Rogers (1981)
Released two years before his death, this a cappella gem is not simply this folk troubadour’s most beloved song; it also ranks as one of the giants in the Canadian songbook. Rogers, a big bear of a man, used a boomy delivery and a chorus of friends to weave a tale that touches on the geography, emotion and history of this country. It never leaves a dry eye in the house.
• Bobcaygeon, The Tragically Hip (1998)
Although frontman Gord Downie has said Bobcaygeon is about “a cop from the city in love with a girl from the country,” the song (named after a small village in Ontario) is as much about the Canadian condition as anything else. Gordo and Co. have rarely sounded this poignant, bleary-eyed or beautiful. It remains one of the band’s most beloved singles.
• Running Back to Saskatoon, the Guess Who (1972)
Gas stations and grain elevators are part of Running Back to Saskatoon’s Everyman appeal; so are Moose Jaw and Moosomin, Saskatchewan cities known as much for their involvement in this song as their location on a map. That’s the timeless power of music:Anywhere in the world could sound like the only place you need to be.
• Love This Town, Joel Plaskett (2005) / One Great City! the Weakerthans (2003)
Many musicians have a love/hate relationship with Canada, but few have dissected their inner battle better than in these two diatribes. Plaskett writes specifically about his life on the East Coast — save for a gut-punch thrown Kelowna’s way — while John K. Samson is focused on his hometown of Winnipeg. The best part? Both do so with razor-sharp vision and lump-in-throat emotion.
• The Canadian Dream, Sam Roberts (2003)
Those who have seen Sam Roberts in concert know of the patriotic bent to his music, especially when he sings of “the Canadian Highway.” It always gets a big reaction from the audience, no matter where he’s playing. The Canadian Dream is much more complex, as it suggests that socialism is the only way to achieve the Canadian dream. Roberts smartly shrouds his message with slow-boiling sonics, the perfect accompaniment for a big-picture topic.
Victoria Times Colonist
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Oh Canada - July 1, 2010
