Growing up – and, really, still pretty much to this day – I never found Canadian history to be all that interesting, and certainly not in comparison to our neighbours directly to the south. The American Revolution was a lot more dramatic than our polite – and oh so Canadian – advance to nationhood. Their Civil War had much higher stakes than our endless battles over Quebecois sovereignty, and the Quiet Revolution was a tempest in a teapot when compared to the horrors inflicted on Blacks before and during the civil rights movement. (Hopefully, today’s students are being educated in a way that I wasn’t about the awful shit we did to Indigenous peoples.) American history was “Roots”, while Canadian history was “The Last Spike”: definitely important, but not very dramatic.
I don’t know much about Craig Baird, but he is doing God’s work over at Canadian History Ehx in promoting our country and its vast and fascinating history. I haven’t checked out his podcast yet, but he is a prodigious tweeter, and I have learned a lot about Canada and Canadians from following him.
In recent months, Baird ran a poll over at Twitter (no, I will not use the current name) to pick Canada’s Greatest Song. It started out covering a remarkably broad swath of CanCon. In addition to all the names you would expect to see, there were multiple tracks from Indigenous and Québécois artists, children’s entertainers like Raffi went up against rock icons, and our nation’s hip hop community was well (if incompletely) represented. Delights from bands that many barely remember, like The Kings, were put up for a vote, as was at least one act I didn’t know were Canadian (The Four Lads). “I’m Just Ken” made the cut, and even Bieber got a (begrudgingly deserved) shot.
Where we ended up was, unfortunately, kind of sad. The final 16 tunes included four tracks each from the Tragically Hip and Neil Young and three from Gordon Lightfoot. Worthies all, but not exactly a true reflection of our cultural mosaic. They were joined by (almost) exclusively other white men: Bryan Adams, Leonard Cohen, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Barenaked Ladies and Spirit of the West. Only Connors and Spirit of the West (with its one female member) could be considered surprises. Where were the women? No Joni, Celine or Shania. How about people of colour? No Drake or The Weeknd. What about someone under 30 years old, like Shawn Mendes or Alessia Cara? Nope, none of them either.
It got even less diverse by the semi-finals, where two Lightfoot tunes defeated a pair of tracks from the Hip. And then came the final, where Gordon’s “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” took down his “If You Could Read My Mind” to take the crown. I can’t argue with the final result: outside of his own “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”, there may not be a more Canadian song than Lightfoot’s ballad of remembrance of the crew of the ill-fated Great Lakes bulk carrier. But it would have been a lot more satisfying to see him take down some sort of popular dreck, like “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You”, or an unexpected wild card, like 54-40’s “I Go Blind”, Stan Rogers’ “Barrett’s Privateers” or Maestro Fresh Wes’ “Let Your Backbone Slide”. Alas, it was not to be.
Despite the result – which seemed pretty much guaranteed early in the process – it was fun to follow along and vote every day. And while many of my favourites fell away early, it was great to see them included. It was also a delight to see the surprising (to me at least) support for tunes like Stompin’ Tom’s “The Hockey Song” and “The Last Saskatchewan Pirate” by Arrogant Worms, as well as some of my favourite homegrown acts like Hot Hot Heat, Matthew Good Band and Carly Rae Jepson. So, while what we ended up with was rather narrow – Craig’s following is definitely a lot of folks who look like me, even if our musical tastes don’t line up very well – the overall field of songs that began the process shows how much great and diverse music has been produced by this country’s artists. (You can check for yourself on this playlist.) I hope Craig does this again in a few years – with some tweaks to the voting process that will create a more diverse final field, as he has acknowledged is necessary. I will definitely be nominating “Jealous of Your Cigarette” by Hawksley Workman or Rich Aucoin’s “It” (or both if permitted) – and probably still rooting for “I’m Just Ken” to triumph.
PopNotes 