25 March 2025 - Cœur de Pirate ft. Loud - Dans la nuit

I thought about not posting any Cœur de Pirate this year.  

Then I remembered that I LITERALLY OPENED the first Maple Leaf March with three of her songs. 

And one of those posts was quite unusual, and for the rest of this post, I am going to ATTEMPT to replicate what I did in that post.  

Plongeons dans l'univers envoûtant de "Dans la nuit", une pièce maîtresse de l'album En cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé de Cœur de Pirate. Cette chanson, fruit d'une collaboration inattendue avec le rappeur montréalais Loud, nous offre un mélange captivant de pop mélancolique et de rap introspectif.

Les paroles de "Dans la nuit" nous transportent dans un monde de relations complexes, où l'apparence et la réalité s'entrechoquent. Cœur de Pirate explore avec finesse les nuances de l'amour et de la solitude, évoquant ces moments où l'on se sent à la fois utilisé et utilisateur. Cette dualité se reflète dans la musique elle-même, où la mélodie hantée de Cœur de Pirate se marie parfaitement avec le flow incisif de Loud.

Musicalement, la chanson crée une atmosphère réflexive, presque onirique. Les notes de piano caractéristiques de Cœur de Pirate s'entrelacent avec des beats plus urbains, créant un paysage sonore qui oscille entre douceur et tension. Cette fusion des genres souligne parfaitement les thèmes de la chanson, incarnant cette danse constante entre connexion et déconnexion.

"Dans la nuit" marque une évolution dans le style de Cœur de Pirate, tout en restant fidèle à son talent pour capturer les émotions les plus intimes. C'est une invitation à plonger dans les profondeurs de nos relations, à explorer ces moments d'ombre et de lumière qui définissent nos connexions humaines. Une œuvre qui résonne longtemps après la dernière note, nous laissant contempler nos propres expériences dans le miroir de ses paroles poignantes.

Les deux sont montés sur scène lors des Juno Awards 2019 pour interpréter la chanson ensemble.

Au final, c'est SA chanson, et elle peut l'interpréter toute seule. Elle le fait ici, au piano.

Merci beaucoups, Google Translate.

24 March 2025 - Frank Mills - Music Box Dancer

I told you this month was gonna be huge. 

I bet you didn't know this song was Canadian.  But yes, it is. 

This Montreal pianist had a #3 hit in the US in 1979 with his instumental classic.  And it came with a very clear mistake - a few notes are missing in that third repeated introduction.  However, Mills could not afford to rerecord it, so the mistake stayed.

By the way, he recorded it in 1974.  It took that long to get it released. 

The song is recorded in C# Major so it would sound like a music box - specifically, his daughter's broken music box.   

Oh yes, Frank Mills is still with us and still performs this song.  It still sounds like it always did. 

23 March 2025 - Mitsou - Bye bye mon cowboy

This is a woman who did it all.   

Actress.

Cooking show hostess.

And, of course, musician.   This was her debut single, in 1988.  It ended up being a hit ACROSS Canada, which is a rare feat for a francophone song..... probably because it contained a few English words in the title.  

It's a pretty racy song, to be honest - she ends up breaking up witht he cowboy even though he makes love like a god.   This is not my intepretation.  It is literally what she says.   Well, also, he cheats on her, so she says... bye bye to her..... cowboy. 

It's catchy as hell and you should hear it. 

The song got a remix and a US release in 1990, and, well, Canadians love it.  Americans just don't listen to French songs, even great ones. Still, it's a French song that got worldwide exposure, and that's great.  

22 March 2025 - Wave - California

CBC Music has been a great resource for this blog for several years.   Just this week, they released a list of songs that were hits ONLY in Canada.

ONLY in Canada.

Yes, there is a rule in Canada that a certain percentage of radio-broadcasted music has to be by Canadian artists, which makes Canada unique in promoting home-grown artists - and also makes a whole bunch of artists that are known ONLY in Canada.

This 2001 single - the debut by this Niagara Falls, Ontario pop-rock duo - was, indeed, a top 10 hit in Canada.   It did get the song a Juno nomination (losing to Nickelback) and also a nomination for best new group, which it also lost. 

The band broke up in 2003 to pursue other things, but they did reunite once, in 2016, at a Niagara Falls beer festival, and of course they performed their biggest hit. 

21 March 2025 - Great Big Sea - Ordinary Day

This folk group from Newfoundland and Labrador had a few hits in the 1990s - hits that you wouldn't know if you didn't live in Canada.   

Some of them were covers, to be sure, but they did original music, too.  This song, from 1997, was among their biggest hits and it was written by members of the group.   According to co-author Alan Doyle, it was inspired by a Vancouver street musician who had gotten beaten up and robbed, and then went right back to performing in the same place.  

That musician?  Jann Arden.  

The song was co-opted by Conservative Party politicians in the 2000s, but the band filed a copyright claim to stop that.  Because they don't need their song politicized.

It may not be so clear from the official video that they were a folk group, but this live performance should make that clear. 

Also, the audience knows the words. 

20 March 2025 - Maestro Fresh Wes - Let Your Backbone Slide

Let's talk a little about Wesley Williams.  

In 1989, he released his debut album, Symphony In Effect.  He would release this classic as his first single, ever.   

It hit the US top 40 chart and was a top 15 US rap hit.  It is the first time a Canadian rap artist ever did either of those things.  

In Canada, he sold more than 50,000 copies of this - which is their gold certification.  He was the Canadian rap artist to do this. 

But also, the song kicks some old-school ass.  It's a great song, and even though he proudly declares he's not American, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter.  

It is, of course his biggest hit, so it makes sense that he's still performing it all these years later.  Here is the Canadian Music Hall of Famer performing the song last year as part of the coast-to-coast Canada Day celebrations. 

He's still got the mad rhymes.

I mentioned he was a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and that's great.   He was inducted in 2024 at the Juno Award ceremony and, yes, of course he closed with this song. 

19 March 2025 - Barenaked Ladies - If I Had $1000000

THIS might be the biggest oversight of this page so far.  This song, when I first heard it on CFNY in the early 1990s, changed my life.  It was lighthearted, fun, and lyrically clever.  And you KNOW this post is going to be a doozy!!!

It also changed the way I looked at green dresses.  

Written by Steven Page and Ed Robertson - the two vocalists - which should suprise no one - it takes a call-and response style and adds a lot of eccentric romantic purchases, many of them references to REAL purchases that Michael Jackson made.   You never connected that set of dots, did you?  But yeah, he bought Joseph Merrick's remains and a monkey.  Haven't you always wanted a monkey?

The dialog pieces are different in every live performance because, no joke, they're made up as they go along. It's just banter.

The song was never released as a single, but became a HUGE HUGE hit anyway.   

I can't even justify a studio version of this song for this post.  I start with this 1996 live performance, where they react to the rides around them.  

In 2000, the band performed the song at Farm Aid and were complementary to fine organic foods. 

Then there's this Page/Robertson performance where they pick on the TV host in a stripped-down manner.

Then there is this 2008 performance where they have a special guest star on accordion.

Of course, Steven Page left the group and it's never been the same, but there's still a lot of banter. The whole band gets into it now.  This show happened to be in Cincinatti, Ohio.  If this concert happened today, it would probably cost 25% more. 

But really, it was their reunion at the 2018 Juno Awards that got me.  The shoutout to Maestro Fresh-Wes was a nice touch.