Most Canadian song

Mon pays ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver.

Faites votre choix.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-t8W4X8Obo

funny, I came here to post this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofChsLBfBp0

http://youtu.be/kS138NuLRzU

I think 'This Is The Ice Age' by Martha & The Muffins has played a large role in determining what comes to my mind when I think of Canada, but I don't know much about Canada and have never been there

I don't think I've ever heard that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga9UPYNfpqM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY_bhVSGKEg

www.youtube.com/watch?v=IokkPlY2HOY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCPYO-qzLTs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BFPt001PYU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k4cFMVfnCE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxlEqO_MA04

Kroll's Canadian accent is p. classic.

Neil Young's "Journey Through the Past"
Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind"
Ian & Sylvia's "Four Strong Winds"
Bruce Cockburn's "Goin' Down the Road"

There are Lightfoot songs more specifically Canadian. But they're not as good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxJvrD80nJ4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f389hIxZAOc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upsZZ2s3xv8

Good an excuse as any to post this from SCTV.

https://youtu.be/kZlrrwUIwcE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qvNk52mXiU

Re: Lightfoot on SCTV... is that really Rick Moranis? That's up there with Jim Carry as Clint Eastwood. Spooky.

northwest passage

Rheostatics - Northern Wish

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkcqGxtbBtQ

I thought it was "Helpless," but what do I know?

Sorry to hijack your thread, but it is kind of on-topic.

Does anyone remember a song by a popular (Canadian) band that references IGA? I thought it might've been Rheostatics, but I don't recall.

Anyway, when I first heard it, that sounded like the most Canadian thing to me at that time, even though I now realise IGA is not really Canadian.

Can't find a more suitable thread...Coming back from Toronto tonight, I was listening to one of those "'70s at seven" shows and they played something I hadn't heard for almost 50 years: "Linda, Put the Coffee On." The DJ didn't say who it was, so I was very impressed with myself for retrieving Ray Materick's name from some synapse up there. Wasn't in the Doors--checked Wikipedia and he's from Brantford (still alive), which I passed on the way home.

I don't think I hated it in 1974; I was 13, so more likely it was a complete blank. It wasn't K-Tel or Alice Cooper or the Guess Who or anything else that caught my ear back then. Sounded pretty good tonight: kind of a rough-hewn vocal falling somewhere between singer-songwriter and country crossover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzTRyD5k8t0

Something about his particular vocal timbre (plus the era, of course) makes me think that this sounds like something that could've been on Tumbleweed Connection.

The most Canadian song is bilingual, obv.:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm622tnjmjM

(xpost) Canadians sometimes blatantly imitated stateside artists (cf. Joey Gregorash's CCR imitation, "Jodie"), so that's as good a guess as any as to what he may have been aiming for.

This is really puzzling: no listing for him in the The CHUM Chart Book. That's the only possible way I would know the song. It was definitely played on there, but evidently not enough to make their Top 30.

"Johnny Go" is trilingual if you count "amigos"!

I came up with an argument once for why Lawrence Gowan is the most Canadian artist: born in the UK, currently working for Americans, bilingual with an accent, overeducated and moderately progressive but blatantly commercial

successful but a bit player in international terms

He's a strange...never mind.

That's what I know.

You almost convinced me, Sund4r.

As is widely known, however, the real answer is Céline Dion.

I thought this thread was going to be about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQF5xuLrjpY

No offense if you're a fan, Sund4r, but long ago, when I was writing for Nerve in Toronto, the editor--a punk, Jesus & Mary Chain-type guy--interviewed Gowan for another publication, one that paid, after which Gowan and awakening the giant became a long-standing inside joke.

Just makes him all the more Canadian

(I do have an affection for bubblegum prog and loved his hits when I was in elementary school but wouldn't describe myself as a big fan.)

Moses Znaimer's Zoomer (ugh)station is a repository of minor Canadian hits I haven't heard for almost 50 years (see above). Coming home tonight, two back-to-back:

"Dunrobin's Gone," Brave Belt
"Passing Time," Bearfoo

Came up with the title of the first, but not the artist (I might have with some more time--it was a post-Guess Who, pre-BTO Randy Bachman band); drew a complete blank on the second (started thinking it was Elvin Bishop for some reason).

The fact that these songs got onto CHUM and other Canadian Top 40 stations, and hung around for a few weeks on their playlists and charts, precludes calling them obscure--they were a little more visible than some buried track on a Pebbles compilation. But they sure are forgotten.

Bearfoot...

When I was a kid, my mom always had CFRB AM radio on (70s MOR). The only Randy Bachman associated songs I remember them playing were the Brave Belt song you mention and Looking Out for No 1 by BTO, it gave me a distorted soft-rock picture of Randy's oeuvre.

Never heard or even heard of Bearfoot, this song might as well be from 1873 for all the current resonance it (doesn't) have.

Another old Canadian, alright...Another one from that moment I associate with the Guess Who/BTO/Brave Belt is Scrubbalo Caine's "Feelin' Good on Sunday"--the Guess Who's Jim Kale was in the band, and I saw them open for the GW at Exhibition Stadium circa 1974.

That song and band I only know because it was the theme song for Psychedelic Psunday on Q107. CFRB and Q107 are the two poles of my knowledge of pre-1980 Canrock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhEA4vGbvBs

Come on you all, it's obviously "The Rodeo Song"

Heard this the other day for the first time in ages: Steel River, Toronto band circa 1970, better known for "Ten Pound Note" and "Southbound Train." I thought at first it was Bob McBride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kW0OfXdSVI

I know the two songs you mentioned, but never heard this one. It does indeed sound most Canadian.

Dunno, the obvious missing artist here would be the Hip: I don’t love either song, but “Ahead by a Century” or “Bobcaygeon” seem like obvious picks.....

those are great and everything but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9wW9ENBPlQ

because "You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey/And I never saw someone say that before" is the most Canadian thing I've ever heard.

We could certainly pick one that would piss off the entire nation evenly.

(eventually expands to the whole country except Alberta)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRjurRdep_Q

Has anyone already made a definitive playlist of "[this Canadian city/province] sucks" songs?

You should @ Amir Attaran on Twitter, he’ll post it in a jiffy.

How many of those are there? I can only think of "Winnipeg Is A Frozen Shithole"

'one great city!' (but not really)

Joel Plaskett dumps on Kelowna in “I Love This Town”

The Music Canada top 20 albums chart is ... something this week: https://musiccanada.com/charts/#albums . Pom will be glad to know that 5 of the top 10, including the top 3, are Quebecois, but the composition of it seems random. #1 is trad country singer Irvin Blais, whom I know from a UOttawa radio programme, with a single. #2 is Angèle Dubeau, a violinist I was unfamiliar with, with an album that apparently includes Philip Glass, Michael Nyman, Jonny Greenwood, and Olafur Arnolds compositions. #3 is Les Cowboys Fringants. Then Rob Zombie and Taylor Swift appear, below these, and just ahead of two albums by Lynda Lemay. I'm tbh wondering how these charts are compiled. (The tracks chart just looks like an American Billboard chart.) Or do French speakers just buy more albums??

Heh, I too would be very curious to know what the exact criteria are here. Angèle Dubeau is *the* classical crossover act par excellence in Quebec btw, or so it seems to me. A massive step up from the likes of André Rieu in Europe. Irvin Blais does not ring a bell, but that’s to be expected given my usual blind spots.

Has anyone already made a definitive playlist of "[this Canadian city/province] sucks" songs?

― intern at pepe le pew research (Simon H.), Saturday, March 27, 2021 4:22 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i can get into this, ha!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_r5zXOnKio

My man Stan Rogers:

Ontario, y’know I’ve seen a place I’d rather be
Your scummy lakes and the city of Toronto don’t do a damn thing for me
I’d rather live by the sea.

In "Thoughts on a Rainy Afternoon", Bruce Cockburn asks "Jesus don't let Toronto take my song away".

Joel Plaskett dumps on Kelowna in “I Love This Town”

― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Saturday, March 27, 2021 4:45 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

isn't grapes of wrath's backward town also about kelowna?

this all reminds me that the arrogant worms must have a few contenders for the thread concept

also, it seems like most songs about vancouver being crap are about e hastings, so my vote goes to hot hot heat's yvr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOeTRurNG6E

Weakerthans One Great City seems almost insincere in its hate, but it still fits the sub theme here I think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLlsjEP7L-k

Main topic - Besides Mitsou, there was also The Box with a few hits that bridged the language border.

One Great City is obviously a love letter disguised as a hate letter. Def still fits the sub theme.

Similar conflicted hate vein from Spookey Ruben - Leave The City. I assume it’s about Toronto.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoPSk92DiwU

Some days this one feels most Ontarian - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97CtEReZEaQ

it definitely would not be a french song!

Glad one of the Three Dead Trolls could join us.

Come on you all, it's obviously "The Rodeo Song"

― Lee626, Thursday, October 29, 2020 11:16 PM (five months ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree with this one

alternatively log driver's waltz

"Log Driver's Waltz" ("La valse du maître draveur") might actually satisfy both pom and my Albertan friend!

If we’re going animated, “Black Fly”.

xp And girls. It pleases them completely.

OTM

I'm definitely out of my league here, but for me, this one that Kim posted must be the Most Canadian song.

https://i.imgur.com/isvPOwC.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOJemHKzRQY

Questionable track really but it's got some poetic moments, kudos to its songwriter:

Mississauga people
Carry the weight of common evil
And go about their lives with a whisper and a whine
About Mississauga goddam

C'est the season:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri0r0_urwo8

I think we found it.

powerful stuff

+1 we're done here!

holy shit

absolutely voting for this in the 77, come back and fp me if I don't

i didn't think the perfect song existed.

Was Northwest Passage posted?

Because it is Northwest Passage.

Did you watch 'Income Tax' tho?

Because it is 'Income Tax'.

absolutely voting for this in the 77, come back and fp me if I don't

I never vote for tracks in the 77 but next year I will post a ballot containing only this song, come back and FP me if I don't.

Yeah it's Income Tax

Lol

Sublime guitar solo, to boot.

this is like if bill wurtz wrote a good song

Friggen A

I think the song is from 2020, unfortunately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSffz_bl6zo

year of impact! xp

acadian boy summer

Jesus that song is amazing