{"id":63334,"date":"2019-05-14T19:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-05-14T23:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=63334"},"modified":"2025-08-19T09:37:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:37:29","slug":"canadian-summer-playlist","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/canadian-summer-playlist\/","title":{"rendered":"Songs for your Canadian summer playlist"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Songs for your Canadian summer playlist\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

We were thinking of Canada\u2019s first summer long weekend when we came up with this playlist of significant Canadian songs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any list of socially important songs will be incomplete because of the subjective nature of musical experience. All songs are significant to someone, otherwise they wouldn\u2019t exist. But some Canadian songs attain broader social significance by taking on special meanings and resonances \u2014 about culture, identity and politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We put out a call to faculty and graduate students at Carleton University\u2019s music program, where we teach, to come up with a playlist of songs that spans different time periods and musical genres. The range of the responses reflects our diverse musical interests and social commitments. Although it is highly selective, this short list traces shifting concerns in Canadian society from the 1960s to today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Music is fun, joyful and entertaining. When you\u2019re listening to music this long weekend, why not turn your ear to its social messages. Canadian songs have a lot of important things to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Hockey Song\u2019 (1972)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n Stompin\u2019 Tom Connor, \u2018Stompin\u2019 Tom and the Hockey Song,\u2018 1972.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Hockey Song\u201d on Stompin\u2019 Tom and the Hockey Song<\/em> (Boot Records, 1972) has been associated with Canada\u2019s national sport almost since its composition. Stompin\u2019 Tom Connor\u2019s three-verse sports anthem is even structured like the three-period format of the game. The song became so strongly tied to Canadian identity and hockey fandom that it became the theme song for CTV\u2019s sports drama Power Play<\/em> (1998-2000). \u201cThe Hockey Song\u2019s\u201d enduring popularity and iconicity led to its induction in 2018 into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 James Deaville, musicologist<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018New York City\u2019 (1976)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n The Demics, \u2018Talks Cheap,\u2019 1976.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1976, Toronto was in the throes of a vibrant punk moment parallel to scenes in New York City and London. Toronto was distinct for its particularly intense involvement with the art world<\/a>, queer-friendly sensibility<\/a> and minimal courtship from record labels<\/a>. \u201cNew York City\u201d on Talk\u2019s Cheap<\/em> (Ready, 1979) touches on the pain of alienation from mainstream society, contrasted with the grass-is-always-greener thought that New York City is the \u201cplace for me.\u201d There\u2019s something typically Canadian about this feeling that the action is forever going on elsewhere. In 1996, Chart<\/em> magazine nominated \u201cNew York City\u201d as the greatest Canadian song of all time.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Jakub Marshall, graduate student researcher<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018High School Confidential\u2019 (1980)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n Rough Trade, \u2018Avoid Freud,\u2019 1980.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Rough Trade\u2019s \u201cHigh School Confidential\u201d on Avoid Freud<\/em> (True North\/MCA, 1980) was one of the earliest hit singles with an explicitly LGBTQ perspective. It was also one of the singles that helped establish Canadian artists as leaders in 1980s new wave. The art direction of the associated LP was a high point in the band\u2019s relationship with artist collective General Idea,<\/a> drawing attention to the close symbiosis during that era between visual arts communities and punk\/new wave communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 William Echard, musicologist<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Ils s\u2019aiment\u2019 (1983)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n Daniel Lavoie, \u2018Tension Attention,\u2019 1983.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In 1983, Franco-Manitoban songwriter Daniel Lavoie<\/a> saw a disturbing television image of a teenaged couple walking hand in hand among the rubble of war-torn Beirut after the invasion of Lebanon. The 1982 Lebanon War tore apart the lives of hundreds of thousands of youth who were left poor, hungry and morally bereft in the wake of destruction<\/a>. This haunting image inspired Lavoie and Daniel DeShaime\u2019s song \u201cIls s\u2019aiment\u201d translated as \u201cThey Love One Another\u201d from Tension Attention<\/em> (K\u00e9bec-Disc 1983), about the ways in which young people struggle to maintain hope in the face of the tragedy of war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 James Wright, musicologist and composer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Northern Touch\u2019 (1998)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n Rascalz, \u2018Northern Touch,\u2019 1998.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The 1998 rap anthem \u201cNorthern Touch\u201d by Rascalz and collaborators Thrust, Checkmate, Choclair and Kardinal Offishall is one of the most important songs in the canon of Canadian hip hop. The award-winning single established a sound and identity that distinguished Canada as the North coast of the hip hop industry. More than 20 years after its initial release, the song still holds significant social importance. Kardinal Offishall released a remix of the track as the Sportsnet theme<\/a> for Toronto Raptors\u2019 2018 NBA Playoff run (it was subsequently released on Sony) connecting with the franchise\u2019s \u201cWe the North\u201d mantra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Ty Hall, graduate student researcher<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Soobax\u2019 (2005)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n K\u2019naan, \u2018The Dusty Foot Philosopher,\u2019 2005.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSoobax,\u201d by K\u2019naan on The Dusty Foot Philosopher<\/em> (BMG Music, 2005) is a defiant talk-back to the gunmen of Somalia who have inflicted untold suffering on their own people during the country\u2019s long civil war. K\u2019naan, a Somali-Canadian who survived conflicts in Somalia and arrived in Canada as a refugee, gives voice to the thousands forced to flee their homes. Sung in both Somali and English, \u201cSoobax\u201d draws attention away from both the official discourses of multiculturalism and the insular themes of hip hop to highlight the more problematic status \u2014 and the resilience \u2014 of refugees living in difficult conditions in neighbourhoods as far flung as Nairobi and Toronto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Paul Th\u00e9berge, media and cultural theorist<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Carry it On\u2019 (2015)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n Buffy Sainte-Marie, \u2018Power in the Blood,\u2019 2015.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Having written and recorded such influential protest songs as \u201cNow That the Buffalo\u2019s Gone\u201d and \u201cUniversal Soldier\u201d in the 1960s on It\u2019s My Way!<\/em> (Vanguard, 1962), Buffy Sainte-Marie has continued to create hugely compelling songs for more than 50 years, including many that epitomize the idea of socially significant song. \u201cCarry it On\u201d from her 2015 Polaris-prize winning album<\/a> Power in the Blood<\/em> (True North 2015), is an incisive environmental call-to-action: <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cLift your heart to your own home planet \u2026What do you see? What is your attitude? Are you here to improve or damn it?\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u2014 Jesse Stewart, composer and musicologist<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Retribution\u2019 (2016)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\n Tanya Tagaq, \u2018Retribution,\u2019 2016.<\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Tanya Tagaq\u2019s title track on her 2016 album Retribution<\/em> (Six Shooter) is another potent example of music\u2019s power to promote environmental activism<\/a>, an important trend in popular music. It\u2019s the musical equivalent of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: a raging, howling warning of the dire consequences we are already experiencing from wanton resource extraction and human greed. Canada\u2019s Inuit experimental pop diva pulls no punches in this extended length track with a powerful shamanic video featuring mask dancer Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Ellen Waterman, ethnomusicologist<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Songs for your Canadian summer long playlist:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n