A Musical History of Canada

 

In the spirit of the stage play “Oh, What a Lovely War,” Here is a musical tour through Canada’s military history:

Begin with the Seven Years War. “Evangeline,” tells the story of the Acadiens:

An English soldier’s song from the same period: “The Girl I Left Behind Me”:

The Girl I Left Behind Me

“I'm lonesome since I crossed the hill,

And o'er the moor and valley,

Such grievous thoughts my heart do fill,

Since parting with my Sally.

I seek no more the fine or gay,

For each does but remind me,

How swift the hours did pass away,

With the girl I left behind me.

Oh, ne'er shall I forget the night

The stars were bright above me,

And gently lent their silvery light,

When first she vowed to love me.

But now I'm bound to Brighton Camp

Kind heaven, then, pray guide me,

And send me safely back again

To the girl I left behind me.”

Then “Brave Wolfe” for the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. 

A chorus of “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” and the flag of the incipient USA.

“The Rebels,” a Loyalist song of the time.

Ye brave honest subjects who dare to be loyal,

And have stood the brunt of every trial,

Of hunting shirts and rifle guns;

Come listen awhile and I'll tell you a song;

I'll show you those Yankees are all in the wrong,

Who, with blustering look and most awkward gait,

'Gainst their lawful sovereign dare for to prate,

With their hunting shirts and rifle guns…

Cut the triumphalism with a round of “Barrett’s Privateers.”

Guns are heard. The voice of Thomas Jefferson: 

“The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching; & will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, & the final expulsion of England from the American continent.”

Segue to the War of 1812: “Come All Ye Bold Canadians,” 

and “The Lower Canadian Militia Song.” Can’t find the music.

Le matin, des le point du jour,

On entend ce maudit tambour,

Maudit tambour et maudit exercice,

Toi, pauvr' soldat, tu en as d'la fatigue.

Ils nous font mettre dans les rangs,

Les officiers et les sergents,

L'un dit: recule et l'autre dit: avance!

Toi, pauvr' soldat, t'en faut de la patience.

Nos sergents et nos officiers

Sont bien traites dan leurs quartiers,

Nos capitain' boiv' le vin et la biere

Toi, pauvr' soldat, va boire a la riviere.

Qu'en a compose la chanson

C'est un tambour du bataillon

C'est un tambour en battant sa retraite

Toujours regrettant sa joli' maitresse

“Over the Hills and Far Away” for the British Regulars:

The lyrics might be modified to fit Canada—instead of “Flanders, Portugal and Spain,” “Queenston, Montreal, and Maine.”

Here's one for Laura Secord:

Next, the rebellions of 1837. A few good songs came out of that rebellion. “I’ll be a Tory,” 

then “Up and War Them All, Willie!” Second song here.

Then “Un Canadien Errant.” 

“The Battle of the Windmill” was a popular folk song around Prescott for a century. 

Next, the Fenian Raids. For context, “The Bold Fenian Men.” 

A Fenian Song:

An Anti-Fenian song:

The Riel Rebellion: “C’est au Champs de Bataille.” Lyrics supposedly written by Riel himself. 

https://books.google.fr/books?id=ntkFn3f3OC8C&pg=PA467&lpg=PA467&dq=C%27est+au+champ+de+bataille,++louis+riel&source=bl&ots=XlhmfRl6Ka&sig=acdm4DFvI3Y2GednKtYrtmTaPPw&hl=fr&sa=X&ei=DqH4UvqMGMua0AXUz4C4DA#v=onepage&q=C'est%20au%20champ%20de%20bataille%2C%20%20louis%20riel&f=false

First World War: we have an embarrassment of riches. “Vive la Canadienne,” definitely. 

“Why Can’t a Girl be a Soldier” for the feminists. 

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/915511363578/

"The Recruiting Sergeant":

"The Princess Pat.”

And here’s an authentic 1915 war song from a Canadian collection that would be nicely multiculti. No idea of the tune, though.

“They Say that in the Army.” Verses can be inserted to reflect the Indian soldiers who were present, if not in the Canadian regiments. For example, “You ask for a biryani, and they give you intes-tine.”

Balance it out with “Wo alle Strassen enden” for the Germans.

Second World War: there’s a nice bit by the Happy Gang, to the tune of Colonel Bogey’s March: “Good Luck—And the Same to You.”

https://wartimecanada.ca/sites/default/files/documents/Good%20Luck_0.pdf

The D-Day Dodgers:

“North Atlantic Squadron,”

Stompin Tom had a clean version:

Afghanistan: Bryan Adams’ “Ric-A-Dam-Do”

And end with “Highway of Heroes”

The Best Canadian Lyricists

It has been said, and it is true, that the best Canadian lyricists are the best lyricists in the language. It seems to be a peculiarly Canadian art form. The one great name that we anomalously miss up north is Nobel laureate Bob Dylan. But perhaps his talent springs from a similar source. He grew up on Minnesota’s Iron Range. The wind, it sure blows cold way up there. Those long cold winters may foster the meditative state needed for poetry.

Leonard Cohen

The best new poet to emerge in English since Dylan Thomas and his body of work is more important. He is and will be remembered as Canada’s national poet. He sometimes gets a word wrong, but everything is polished like diamonds. In this, he differs from Dylan. A large proportion of what Dylan does is drek, although when he is good he seems to open doors on entire spiritual worlds. Cohen is consistent quality. That being so, it is hard to choose a sample. Everything is magnificent. One of his greatest talents is simplicity. He can say more in fewer words than anyone this side of Li Bai.

The sea so deep and blind
The sun, the wild regret
The club, the wheel, the mind,
O love, aren't you tired yet?

Joni Mitchell

She is, along with Cohen, one of the very few lyricists anywhere ever whose lyrics can stand alone as great poetry without the music. Leonard Cohen demonstrates by reciting “Jungle Line” as a poem in the clip shown. It is actually better without the music, which is a bit grating and conceals some of the words. Not that she isn’t great at the music as well—and at visual art. Graham Nash remarked that living with her was like living with Beethoven. She is a force of nature. I imagine she finds it difficult living in the world, because it really is all so beneath her.

Stan Rogers

His contribution was cut sadly short by a plane crash. But he was great at simple folk lyrics.

But I told that kid a hundred times "Don't take the Lakes for granted.
They go from calm to a hundred knots so fast they seem enchanted. "
And tonight some red-eyed Wiarton girl lies staring at the wall
And her lover’s gone into a white squall.

Ian Tyson

Everybody knows “Four Strong Winds.” But he has written gems almost past counting, almost always worth many listenings: “Four Rode By.” Magnificent understatement in “Irving Berlin is a Hundred Years Old Today.” “Summer Wages.” Like Rogers, he seems to capture real life.

In all the beer parlors
All down along Main Street
The dreams of the season
Are spilled down on the floor
All the big stands of timber
Wait there just for falling
The hookers standing watchfully
Waiting by the door…

Gordon Lightfoot

Lightfoot sometimes came up with lyrics that were painfully bad. It is hard to forgive

“John loves Mary; does anyone love me?”

But when he was paying attention, he was the best.

If I could read your mind love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind the drugstore sells
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just to hard to take.

Neil Young

Young gives the impression of stream of consciousness writing, with a lot of heart laid bare. No craftsmanship, but it works. Like a wolf in the night howling at the moon.

There is a town in North Ontario
Dream comfort memory to spare
And in my mind I still need a place to go
All my changes were there.

Robbie Robertson

Lyricist for The Band. Pretty good at narrative and atmosphere. He would be appreciated more in Canada if the atmosphere he evokes were not so classically American rather than Canadian.

I picked up my bags, I went looking for a place to hide
When I saw old Carmen and the Devil, walking side by side
I said, "Hey, Carmen, c'mon, let's go downtown"
She said, "I gotta go, but my friend can stick around"

“Somewhere Down This Crazy River” is pure beat poetry:

I followed the sound of a jukebox coming from up the levee
All of a sudden, I could hear somebody whistling from right behind me
I turned around, and she said
"Why do you always end up down at Nick's Cafe?"
I said, "Uh, I don't know, the wind just kinda pushed me this way"
She said, "Hang the rich"

Buffy Ste. Marie
She can do anything. What comes across to me most strongly is her amazing sense of taste, of “just right.” Rarely any kind of misstep. Her voice is like that too.

Guess who I saw in Paris
Standing in the street with his thumbs hooked in his belt
Standing with his thumbs hooked in his belt
Standing in the street with his thumbs hooked in his belt
Looking all of seventeen

Guess who invited him up to her room
Guess who made him some tea
Guess who got spaced with him, played his guitar
Guess who fell asleep on his arm.

Stompin’ Tom Connors

His muse is the comic muse, which generally does not get the respect that more solemn muses get. But comedy too knows truth. And it is an essentially Canadian genre, stretching from Thomas Chandler Haliburton through Leacock and Robert W. Service to Michael Myers, Lorne Michaels, and the lot. Lots of funny, clever rhymes.

Not PC, but one of his earliest songs is still one of his most memorable:

She came a long, long way from Frobisher Bay
People, don’cha know now what I mean
She had the boys all cryin' on the Distant Early Warning Line
Old Muk-Tuk Annie could really make the scene.

And one of the most famous rhymes in Canadian history:

The girls are out to Bingo and the boys are gettin' stinko,
And we think no more of Inco on a Sudbury Saturday night.

Gord Downie

Meh. So I’m told. I’ve mostly missed the Tragically Hip phenomenon, being out of the country for most of it. Tragically Hip is unknown outside of Canada. I have not seen lyrics of his that I like that much, but I am a tyro here.

There are other great Canadian lyricists: too many, actually, to mention. You have to love “Superman’s Song,” for example, or some of the lyrics to Rita McNeil’s “Working Man.

And there are other great Canadian songwriters. Randy Bachmann, for example, with and without Burton Cummings, or Bryan Adams. But these guys are more in the Tin Pan Alley mold: they can crank out great pop songs with great hooks, well-composed confections. But not poetry, as lyrics, and more craft than art. You do not feel them in your gut. And some of Cummings’ lyrics are unforgivably awful: “Talisman, grace my hand.” “American Woman.”

It is also worth noting that Canadian lyrical excellence extends also to the French. Robert Charlebois and Gilles Villeneuve belong in the same rank as our English examples.

Omissions from the List of Essential Canadian Music

If you have not yet listened to my personal compilation of the essential Canadian music, it's at http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLteYFTJPq94DmDUuG2d08U5-vRs-skASU. If you have listened, there are a few new additions. And there may continue to be, as my memory keeps getting jogged.

A Canadian friend has written pointing out an obvious omission: The Guess Who.

But to tell you the truth, I did not forget them. It was an intentional omission.

My position is that they are not really Canadian.

True, they are from Winnipeg. True, they are very popular in Canada. I’ll also concede the Burton Cummings is a great singer, and Randy Bachmann comes up with great riffs.

But there are two kinds of culture in Canada. There is real Canadian culture, and there are Canadian imitations of foreign culture. All countries have the latter, but Canada is probably more prone to this than most. A lot of movies filmed in Canada, for example, are indistinguishable from Hollywood films. The Guess Who is the latter--a Canadian imitation of foreign culture.

Their first hit, "Shakin’ All Over," was a cover of an American song. Their original name, Chad Allen and the Reflections, was in imitation of the name of a British band. Their first recording was called "Tribute to Buddy Holly." They were named “Guess Who” later in hopes they would be mistaken for some established American or British band performing incognito. They first became financially solvent, and well known, when they were hired by the CBC to regularly do cover versions of current (foreign) hits; the idea was to imitate the originals as closely as possible.

In other words, the whole idea behind the Guess Who was to imitate foreign styles. So what’s Canadian about them?

"American Woman," their best-known song, is irredeemably un-Canadian in tone. Canadians are notably polite. Yet what could be more rude than insulting the womanhood of a neighbouring country? It is also arrogant, assuming that American women as a group are just dying to make out with the singer; what is less Canadian than arrogance? 

More generally, the Guess Who seem to me to be consistently pretentious, and being pretentious is as un-Canadian as you can be. Ask Avril Lavigne; that's the point of "Complicated."

So although they were born in Canada, they seem somehow not to have been brought up with traditional Canadian values and cultural sensitivities. I think a lot of Canadians can legitimately enjoy them, but because they are good at what they do, not because of their Canadianness.

A few more deliberate omissions, for similar reasons: Rush, Bachmann-Turner Overdrive, Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild,” Leon Redbone, Loreena McKennitt, Murray McLaughlin, Valdy, Nelly Furtado, The Band. Not Canadian in spirit; imitations of foreign styles.

The Essential Canadian Songs

Recently, an Irish friend of mine has been regaling me with his favourite music. I was inspired to  try to put together, from what is available on YouTube, a complilation of songs that would introduce him to what Canadian traditional music has to offer.

I offer this for the enjoyment of fellow Canadians, to introduce others to the essence of Canadian culture, and most of all as a fiercely felt rebuttal to those who do not believe Canada has a distinct and unified culture. I challenge those, especially Canadians, who pathetically ignore or deride Canadian culture in favour of an imported "multiculturalism."

For if you listen to these songs, you find that they hang together as one vast work. Themes are repeated:  the pain of going away, movement across great distances, growing up, the family, the seasons turning, the ordinary life of ordinary people. Most of all, as I see it, there is a distinct Canadian theme of the ordinary man trying to survive in the face of vast forces that always threaten to overwhelm him. Just as Margaret Atwood has said: the Canadian theme is Survival. It is the heroism of everyday life.

No pretension for Canadians, and no faith in the possibility of changing the world. It is the little way, with little, personal, transcendences.

As a Canadian, listening to it, I nurse the suspicion that, on this, of all the world's people, only Canadians are truly sane.

Let's buiild on what we have.

Here's the playlist. Be sure to select "shuffle."