Most Canadian song

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.

Sounds like he should’ve spend more time among immigrants.

I was listening to Love Junk by The Pursuit of Happiness in preparation for the Todd Rundgren poll (he produced it). I hadn't heard the whole album, but the four singles were all over MuchMusic at the time. I was imagining an alternate reality where Moe Berg became a Gord Downiesque Canadian hero.

*spent

xp

thread made me remember how funny it was that Sloan's "Twice Removed" topped "best Canadian album of all time" list(s?) around 2000. I looked up this song and it turns out they put out a video on the occasion of the reissue. What a cute time.

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

"To me you seem giant" i bet that's about Canada

xp I just kinda dig that song's vibe and how he clearly meant Heard someone say, not Saw. It's just yknow, Canadian or whatever

Love “Penpals”! “Underwhelmed” might be my vote for most Canadian Sloan track though....

I dig it too, and my response was mostly in jest, but it did get me thinking about how the only people I know who follow hockey are, to quote Stephen Harper, ‘old stock Canadians’.

It's definitely the most Sloan Sloan track

I was listening to Love Junk by The Pursuit of Happiness in preparation for the Todd Rundgren poll (he produced it). I hadn't heard the whole album, but the four singles were all over MuchMusic at the time. I was imagining an alternate reality where Moe Berg became a Gord Downiesque Canadian hero.

I really didn't get what he meant by "had her hands around him and she's been giving it a beating" in Grade 6. I realized when watching recently that Berg even mimed it in the video.

https://i.imgur.com/bfgB4G9.png

a part of me died when they stopped making this in 09

the only "malt liquor" product sold in Nfld

I may or may not have had one of those without realizing it.

do tell

(i realized i also got married that year...hmm)

Tbf, watching now, he may just be shaking his fist for emphasis.xps

Nothing exciting, but I’m pretty sure it made its way into one of my teenage binges and I only took stock of it the morning after.

It's true, though, that Moe was pushing sexual boundaries in 80s CanRock.

Isn't part of the point in "Fireworks" that the protagonist's worldview was limited and provincial before meeting the love interest?

You held my hand and we walked home the long way
You were loosening my grip on Bobby Orr...

...Isn't it amazing what you can accomplish
When you don't let the nation get in your way...

i have only ever shouted along to this song holding Extra Old Stock, you're blowing my mind

Gord Downie singing about his "grip" on Bobby Orr has different connotations than The Pursuit of Happiness.

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

P'tit Belliveau record is p good!

I couldn't figure out where the best place to post this, but somehow I did not know until today that the Canadian supermarket chain No Frills put out a rap album late last year:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDipchuzGnI

I did know about this, wish I didn't

Someone at head office is trying to take advantage of having to buy public performance licences for their stores. I've never heard this while I've been shopping there, though; grocery shopping is basically my only exposure to the music that most people listen to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV3ubZ6fu3I

I don’t think it’s going to be a title winner in this thread, but kinda want to give a shout out to the multiple songs by Maestro Fresh Wes that incorporate/sample specifically Canadian rock hits (Haywire, Guess Who, Gowan, maybe more?)

i try to avoid no frills - crap produce, the local one is owned by an infamous slumlord family - although it is the closest grocery store to me and my immediate neighbourhood is a slight food desert, but i do end up going there for necessaries once in a while, toilet roll or that sort of thing. have definitely never heard this music before.

I spoke too soon, I heard "Bag It Up" at No Frills this morning, and I realized I had heard it there before.

I never realized that Maestro's "Drop the Needle" samples "Dance Desire" by Haywire. Though I am not and never have been a Haywire fan, I always thought that it was neat the way the guitar riff and bassline play off of each other in the intro of that song.