Well, hello there, Canada. Another birthday, eh? Dominion Day is my favourite holiday of the year, a time for us all to set aside those petty differences over just about everything the you-know-who gang does in Ottawa, and celebrate being Canadian. My Canada includes a Prime Minister who loves hockey and gets excited about finding Franklin’s ships up north. It doesn’t include an ugly monument to “victims of communism” beside the Supreme Court of Canada, nor a massive Mother Canada statue scarring Cape Breton’s beautiful Highlands National Park, nor…(fill in 50 blanks here)….but never mind. Happy Dominion Day! What’s that? It’s now called Canada Day, you say? Pity!
I usually celebrate Canada Day with a list of good old songs that best exemplify the spirit, history, beauty and character of this grand land of ours. The usual suspects are always at the top: The Great Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Northwest Passage, Four Strong Winds, Sudbury Saturday Night, Let’s Go Bowling, Ontario-ari-ari-o, and so on.
This year, I’m opting for something different. Being the kind of obscure guy I am, herewith my list of 10 fine songs about Canada that you may not know. They are compiled from my own collection of vinyl, CDs and cassettes (alas, no 8-tracks). So you will notice there are no relatively recent songs evoking where we live, such as Sam Roberts’ fierce Canadian Dream or Joel Plaskett’s bittersweet True Patriot Love. Folk, of course, looms large. Apologies for not being more tragically hip, and additions gratefully acknowledged. But it’s my list, and I’m sticking to it.
- Stan Rogers: Free in the Harbour. A lovely, evocative song about the heartbreak of having to leave the fading outports of Newfoundland for the “riches” of Alberta. A way of life gone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbjEmEifZp4
- The Band: Acadian Driftwood. The timing of the expulsion of the Acadians is a bit off (history is hard), but there are references by the boys from southwestern Ontario to the Plains of Abraham, cold fronts and the lure of winter. A terrific Canadian version of The Band’s big hit, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te7KW4K-00E
- Spirit of the West: The Crawl. Could there be a more Canadian song than this rollicking combination of sea shanty and drinking song? Become an expert on the geography and pubs of West and North Vancouver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N37oQmdlrU
- James Keelaghan: Stonecutter. A powerful tale of the stonemasons called out of retirement to help rebuild the Parliament Buildings, after they burned down in 1916. The fledgling young apprentices had all been called to war. No video, but here are the lyrics. Well worth the iTune purchase. http://lyrics.wikia.com/James_Keelaghan:Stonecutter
- Barra MacNeils: The Island. Anthemic tribute to the history and enduring lure of Cape Breton. I guess it is pretty well known back east, but not out here in this parched part of the country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apD1IuE5Lwo
- Stringband: Dief Will Be The Chief Again. Written by my good friend Bob Bossin, this is certainly the best song ever written about John Diefenbaker, and maybe about any Canadian politician. “Everyone’s happy back in ’57, and nobody’s happy since then.” Available right at the end of this Bossin jukebox compilation. http://www3.telus.net/oldfolk/jukebox.htm#dief
- The Byrds: Blue Canadian Rockies. Yes, by the Byrds, but from their best and one of my most-loved albums, Sweetheart of the Rodeo. It doesn’t get any better than this. Sorry, Wilf Carter, but Gram Parsons kills on this country classic, written by the legendary Cindy Walker. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJkXkvLNs6U
- Grievous Angels: Crossing the Causeway. There’s no sadder Canadian tradition than Maritimers leaving “the folks back home” for Toronto in search of work. Few have captured the poignancy better than this song by Charlie Angus (now an MP) and his band. “I wipe my tears on the kitchen wall.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN_dZB55wg
- Sadly, besides suggesting anything from my numerous La Bottine Souriante casssettes, I have little to offer in this list category from Quebec. Robert Charlebois’ Québec Love talks about taking up guns. Yikes. And so on. So I include, instead, by far the best known song about La Belle Province, it’s unofficial anthem, Mon Pays C’est L’Hiver by Gilles Vigeneault. It’s wonderful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CH_R6D7mU7M
- Finally, no Canada Day list would be complete without Stompin’ Tom Connors, even if The Hockey Song and Sudbury Saturday Night are too well known. Of course, he has a myriad other Canadian classics. I’ve opted, appropriately for his great Cross Canada. Sing it loud. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=012Bo_iihpI
Happy CA – NA -DA Day!
(As a bonus, here’s the Travellers’ maple syrup version of Woody Guthrie’s famous song, This Land is Your Land. We have our own identity, after all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwLyVl11iV4 )
Mickleblog 
I can’t believe you left out Lightfoot’s Canadian Railroad Trilogy.
That’s on the A-list!
you’re not paying attention, Mike… 🙂
It’s a B-list! 🙂
A most excellent B-list – thanks Mr. M.
So…
Which list would Bobby Gimby make?
.
How about
Todd Butler: “Home”
David and (Astronaut) Chris Hadfield :
“In Canada” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuVsHt3rBnc
But not your buddy Bob Bossin’s “It’s so nice not to be in Nanaimo” http://www3.telus.net/oldfolk/websongs/Nanaimo.mp3
Fine suggestions, Brother Shipley…..but I confined my choices to “records” i have at home…as for Bossin’s Nanaimo song, I actually listened to it a bit earlier…quite funny….but i’m on your side…i like Nanaimo….enjoyed a fine dinner there last Friday night at that Greek restaurant in a house….and of course, its wonderful record store….
Thanks, Rod. Some of my favourite singers and singer-songwriters. You’re a little thin on women though. How about a Connie Kaldor song like “Maria’s Place Batoche” at http://www.conniekaldor.com/about/moonlight-grocery/ or Wood River at http://www.conniekaldor.com/about/wood-river/?
Yes, could use some songs by women…but in my collection, only serious contenders were Saskatchewan Moon by the great Connie Kaldor….A Case of You by Joni Mitchell is A-list….thought of a Nancy White song about a moose, but opted against….don’t have that Kaldor Batoche song….otherwise, yep 🙂
What? Buffy Sainte-Marie isn’t a serious contender?
NQ Arbuckle – Canada Day Off/Toronto ‘All the stores are closed/maybe I’ll stay sober/while everyone gets hosed…’
Tom Russell – Winnipeg
Carolyn Mark – Edmonton
Shred Kelly – Jewel of the North
No Arcade Fire or New Pornographers on this list… or what about that great First Nations compilation that Ward wrote about in The Tyee? There’s a shitload of awesome Canadian music out there, as we know. Current Swell, Jon & Roy, Bahamas, Besnard Lakes, Patrick Watson, Owen Pallett, Blackie and the Rodeo Kings, Bob Egan, Broken Social Scene/Kevin Drew, Caribou, Chad van Gaalen, Chili Gonzalez, Destroyer, Dan Mangan, Doug Paisley, list goes on, and on, and…
Pingback: Sing it loud, Canada
Something to Sing About (This Land of Ours) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHt1DgeRwuo&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2NIzYcNhp0n27BEegHG1Cb5I-F0CNnsFeRlCa-3my-7LSV3PqV0mG-iCo
Thanks Mr Rod
and how about this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFOPZX3U7CQ
… a Stompin’ Tom fan for half a century.
Did you see my tribute from a years ago:
One evening in 1969 or 1970, a workmate and I escaped the then-dry town of Newmarket for a brew or two up the highway at the Village Inn in Bradford, Ontario. In his autobiography, *Before the Fame*, Stompin’ Tom mentions playing there a couple of years before, but he was unknown to us until that night. However the show he put on that night will never be forgotten. It was more intoxicating than the beer we had come for. My buddy, Barry, was from PEI and he asked Tom to sing “Prince Edward Island is Heaven to Me”. Although not a stompin’ song he graciously obliged. Stompin’ Tom may not have lived the life of an angel, but I am sure that he must be in Prince Edward Island now.
Newmarket was dry? Until when?
Yes, great story….going up to Bradford for a brew or two or nine led to a lot of highway carnage on the drive back to Newmarket….when i went there, it was only a sad sack of a stripper bar…..after her show, one stripper came out to the bar in a sheer something or other for a beer with her friends….then, for her next show, she had to go back stage and get dressed, so she could take her clothes off again….
Luckily when I saw Stompin’ Tom he kept all his clothes on 😊
oops, entered the reply in the wrong place…this for Knox: in the old days, municipalities controlled their own liquor policies….Newmarket was a “dry” town….to change it, there had to be a referendum, and voters had to approve the change to “wet” by a two-thirds margin….Newmarket had a formidable Women’s Temperance Movement, led by a Mrs. Commissiong, I believe, and the two referendums i can remember both fell short of the needed two-thirds margin….finally, Ontario scrapped the archaic law, and we no longer had to go to Bradford to drink…..of course, before that, everyone drank at “the Legion”, which had a private liquor licence….as a kid, i always wondered what was so special about the Legion that all the dads (not mine….haha) wanted to go there…..ah, the good old days of Blue Ontario….
The senior member of our household was the President of the Newmarket Legion who managed to get the licence for the Legion. Their hero forever !
It’s a good B-list, Rod, with lots of my favourites. Thanks for doing it.
Like others, just saying would be nice to have more women and some voices from Indigenous and racialised people. Understand it’s from your record collection, which reflects a certain time, etc. No Nancy White “Civil Service Writer”? Maybe next year?
You did point to the Travellers on YouTube. I try to avoid that song these days, given Indigenous land issues on both sides of the border, much as I like the original and the Canadian versions for other things. The APHA health and safety section ends its conference lunch each year singing the US version; a few years ago I persuaded the singer of the day to add a Canadian refrain at some point.
Finally, on the Newmarket dryness, wonder if that contributed to my mother’s abstinence, and where her parents stood on the question. Should ask the cousin you know.
Keep up the wonderful columns, my friend.
thanks for your kind words, Dorothy…..i agree there should have a better representation of women, despite my restricting it to albums i have…surely at least a Ferron song….oh well, next time…as for the Travellers, their song was their quite wonderful Canadian version of Woody’s classic….and we can bet Woody would have been on the side of the Indigenous people…so there’s that…..it is, of course, a song reflective of its time….the great Mary Gauthier sang it at the Vancouver Folk Fest a while ago, and was surprised when I told her there was a Canadian version….hope you’re well…
BTW, not everyone in Nanaimo shares your enthusiasm for Bob Bossin: http://www3.telus.net/oldfolk/websongs/Nanaimo.mp3