The holiday countdown continues and the memories keep coming back with them.
The friends you have when you can first start going out in the city on your own hold a special place in your heart for the rest of your life. The friends who call you up when they see those important two words before any show: “all ages”.
Coming into my musical own in Toronto in the mid 90s introduced me to so many things that went beyond the music… venues, after parties, places in the city I had never been to before.
Life is very good right now, but I find myself thinking the same three words every day when I post my song… “Take me back…”
Day 6 – Headstones – Cubically Contained
I’m a little older for this one and at res in University. We have an unwritten door open policy on the floor, which means your room door should only be closed if you are seriously studying (hardly ever happened) or sleeping.
It’s close to the end of the school year and money is TIGHT. I am even watching the balance on my meal card. But still, we want to go out so getting the cheapest beer we can off campus and drinking in the res will save us those dollar bills needed for the one or two drinks we’ll need at the bar.
I remember sitting around our room, a couple of people on the Sega Genesis, a guitar strumming out in the hall and this song on the radio. No drama, no stress, everyone just ready to have a good time on a Wednesday night.
It seems like such a simple time, looking back, full of simple pleasures.
When did life get so hard?
Day 7 – Weeping Tile – In The Road
On the way to my girlfriend’s family cottage in the Ottawa valley there’s a long road before you hit the dirt entryway and there’s a bend in the road with a huge maple.
This song comes on and I’m hearing it for the first time and it’s so beautiful that I want to hear it again, but don’t have time before we get back to the cottage so I pull over and rewind the tape she’s made for me.
It’s fall and the leaves are changing colour and the maple is a dark, amazing red, and it dominates my view as we sit there, listening to the song again, taking it all in.
Day 8 – Eric’s Trip – Allergic To Love
Another song off that same mixtape and an instant favourite. Quickly learned it and added it to my campfire repertoire on the guitar as well.
Day 9 – Emm Gryner – Acid
I am at a Spirit of the West concert and Emm Gryner is opening for them. I had never heard of her before and, from the reaction she was getting from the drunken crowd, neither had anyone else. They did not come here to see her and they were letting her know it.
Diminutive, with a quiet demeanour, she sat there, playing piano solo on the big stage where SOTW were going to come out with a far bigger sound fairly soon.
She played a couple of tunes and was visibly put off by the comments and calls coming from the crowd.
“Acid” is a song that starts out quietly but has some very strong notes in it later on where she gets the chance to sing with all her heart.
The crowd hated it and continued to call her out, but she pressed through and sang it with such forceful emotion she was able to drown them out.
It is one of the strongest musical performances I have ever seen and I was an instant fan. I bought her album the next day.
Day 10 – The Doughboys – Melt
Crush is a perfect album so it wasn’t a question of if it would make this list, but when and which song.
Not knocking the amazing tune “Shine” (RIP The Wedge on MuchMusic which adopted the song as their theme), but “Melt” has always been my favourite song on the album.
This one takes me back to riding in my friend’s car with his CD/car-adapter on my lap because the holder is broken. I’m holding the whole thing carefully so as not to make the CD skip when we hit the bumps in the road.
The sunroof is open and this song is just blasting as we head out for the night for food, parties and just good summer fun.
The #30DaysofCDN90sSongs challenge on Twitter started by the Rave and Drool podcast has been a fun trip down memory lane so far this month. It’s been a lot of fun connecting with others who have the same appreciation for that particular era of music, but I’ve been finding myself limited by the Twitter character count to properly share my memories and thoughts around my song choices.
Then I remembered, oh yeah, I also have a blog that I keep ignoring, and as the basic notion behind this site is to track and reminisce about the soundtrack of my life, it’s a perfect opportunity to expand on those choices here and get back into the habit of writing a bit more regularly.
I’m a 1977 kid, which means that my teen years coincided right alongside an explosion of talent in Canadian alternative music. Being able to buy my own music with my own money (and not from Columbia House) as well as being able to attend all ages shows with my friends meant that my access to this talent explosion came at a time when I was also the most impressionable.
A lot of the songs in this advent calendar are still played regularly around the house today and they bring me right back to those teen years and the mishaps, misadventures and misplaced emotions that came along with them.
The one rule is that we can’t repeat an artist or band so, with that in mind, let’s check out the first 5 days of 90s CanRock.
Day 1 – The Killjoys – Someplace
My high school girlfriend had really strict Italian parents. Missing curfew could lead to a restriction on how many nights a week she could go out, or potentially not go out at all.
We are down on the Lakeshore in the West End of Toronto, parked, having just got back from a walk along the boardwalk where we saw swans. Swans! Romantic!
We turn the radio on and start listening to one of my mix tapes while we do what teenagers do while parked listening to mix tapes.
It’s soon time to head home and I go to start my car but running the radio has drained the battery and my car won’t start!
We start freaking out. This is it. We will never be allowed to see each other ever again. We will grow old and each die alone. I hope the make-out session was worth it, because it will be our last one.
I get out of the car and pop the hood, completely delusional that I would even know what to do with anything under there.
It turns out that this was a good move as a man from further down the parking lot gets out of his car and approaches us and asks us if we’re having car trouble.
I blurt it all out, how we were making out, the battery drained and if we don’t get her home by 11, I will never be allowed to see her again. She may even be forced to move schools to ensure it.
He chuckles and says, don’t worry, I can help. He gives me his CAA card and points over at the phone booth.
“Call them and tell them you’re me and they’ll come and give you a boost. I’m just passing through town and resting my eyes in my car before driving all night, so I’ll be just over there if they give you any trouble.”
I thank him profusely, call them and we wait, trying not to imagine her father having a heart attack. It’s an agonizing wait while it’s happening but they actually show up super quickly. We get our boost, no further questions asked, and before we drive away, the man gives us a thumbs up from his car, then we are on our way, speeding home.
We make it home in time. We will live to see another date. Our love is intact.
At least until the following year when I go away to University and we break up on Valentine’s Day, but that’s a story for another time.
This song always reminds me of that night.
Day 2 – The Waltons – Truth And Beauty
Now, not as much of a story to this song, but it was on the mix tape we were listening to in the car and the sweetness and heart in it always brings me back to that relationship as well.
Day 3 – Skydiggers – Slow Burning Fire
That girlfriend of mine at the end of high school LOVED this song, but that’s not why it’s on this advent calendar. This part of the list is like Valentine’s Day, 1997: we’re now moving on past her.
I’m 16 and it’s Friday night and we are all out drinking down at the pit, and we’re happy to be at the pit, having gotten there first and thus claiming the campfire. If your group didn’t get to the pit first, you’d have to settle for the bridge, and if the bridge was taken, you’d have to go all the way to the second bridge, and nobody liked going to the second bridge.
The pit was the place to be.
Our group was joined by another group not too long after we settled in and had a fire going, having used our 2-4 cases as kindling. They were a bunch of kids from another school who we didn’t know but seemed cool enough, and we had more people than they did, so it was still our fire and they were our guests.
One of the girls in the group was named Delaney and she sat down on the log next to me and as we all laughed and told jokes, music playing in the background, the hormone-filled tension in the space between us on that log was so thick it almost prevented us from moving closer together. Almost prevented us.
As our shoulders touched she giggled and my heart leapt.
We kept chatting and eventually she said she had to go to the bathroom and asked where she could go. It was her first time at the pit.
I pointed at the path that led up the hill and into the trees, guys on the left, girls on the right, those were the rules, and she looked nervous.
“Want me to go up there with you?” I asked.
She nodded and I followed her up the hill, into the trees and gave her her privacy as she walked off to the right.
When she came back out onto the path, she kissed me on my cheek and thanked me, and headed back down to the fire.
WHERE HER FRIENDS WERE GETTING READY TO LEAVE.
I can still feel the hug around my neck that she gave me to say goodbye and then they left and I never saw her again.
I honestly don’t know if this song was playing that night on the cassette player, but there’s a good chance that it might have been.
Regardless, this song always reminds me of sitting on that log and the slowness with which the space between us disappeared.
Day 4 – Sloan – Coax Me
The twins had the greatest party house and parents who were often away on weekends, a potent combination when you’re 16 and part of the tighter inner circle.
Frozen burgers and Diana sauce were on the menu. Ah, Diana Sauce… the perfect combination of affordability and class, at least in our eyes.
This album was played constantly on many a backyard barbecue night, when the evenings turned from ridiculous dancing to those quiet, late-night talks about life, our future and our place in the universe.
Up until that point in our lives, it was the best our lives had ever been…
Day 5 – The Hardship Post – Garbage Truck
Have you been to Toronto’s newest, hottest club?
Located in Yorkdale Mall, you haven’t been clubbing until you’ve been to Club HMV.
Yep, totally lame, but we used to use the listening stations at the HMV at Yorkdale to hear new music before buying anything; headphones attached to the wall and buttons you could press to change between the newest CDs.
We would ROCK OUT on these things, motioning to each other from down the aisle trying to guess which CD the other person was listening to. The first silent disco parties.
I heard this song and didn’t even finish it. I wanted to grab the tape before it sold out.
I bought it and didn’t hear the end of the song until I was in the car on the way home.
Absolutely fantastic song and band.
And, in case I wasn’t totally clear, I absolutely understand how lame Club HMV was in hindsight.
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You can catch the advent calendar daily on my Twitter, days 6 to 10 will get posted next week!
And, to that stranger passing through town with his CAA membership and Delaney, should either of you be reading this, thanks for those memorable nights…
From the wheeze of the steam piano and the off-notes-played-on-purpose to Wait’s whiskey-dripped growl, this song is one of the most magical songs I’ve heard in my life and one I could listen to on repeat, over and over.
Siri pulled it out of the ether on me in the car this morning and it had been years since I heard it; listened to it six times in a row, the whole way home.
There’s something both familiar and other-worldly in the lyrics, as if we are listening to a song composed and sung from the very edges of consciousness Waits is singing about. It’s a lullaby and a lament, a sleeper’s waltz at the end of a drunken evening.
I had hoped to learn more about it to be able to post something with more substance, but I should have known. This is Tom Waits, and nothing is out there in the open and obvious with him. The Wikipedia entry for the song is two sentences long.
The song has been used to accompany a Banksy art installation and has been covered a number of times, but I could not find any production notes, stories or inspirations for the song. In his intro on this video of a live performance of the song, Waits tells us a number of places where the song did not originate, including learning it from his dad, some children in the alley behind the theatre as well as learning it from Gregory Peck.
I want to sit with him, pour a drink and talk about the world this song lives in, because it is only visiting ours.
“Say it loud, say it clear. You can listen as well as you hear.”
The epic chorus from this power ballad by Mike + The Mechanics still hits after all these years.
Not a lot of subtext to uncover in this one, nor is there any huge backstory of which I was previously unaware. You can’t tell your dad the things you’ve wanted to tell him if he’s already passed on.
I grew up believing this. This song has always hit me right in the feels and I remember it being number one on the radio.
Maybe Mike Rutherford knows something I don’t. Maybe the messaging we are always fed through popular culture, that family is with you right to the end, and in the end, that’s all you have… that you need to treasure your family because regret will seep in when it’s too late… maybe these messages are true and real and maybe there are people who shake their heads at those who just won’t listen.
But I have developed another narrative, one that has made my life infinitely better over the past decade or so and, so far, zero regrets.
Maybe there is a line with family, and maybe, once crossed, you can never go back.
Maybe forgiving, even if you are not forgetting, opens a door behind which lies more hurt and disappointment.
Maybe instead of mourning the family you’ve lost, you make your own family out of the people who are actually positive influences in your life. Who you know will be there for you, thick or thin.
This song still hits me hard because I’m a sucker for a story steeped in nostalgia and the idea of a son living with that kind of regret is truly heart-breaking, but I no longer personally identify with the song, nor believe in its core message.
Sometimes, family goes too far and you are better off without them.
As it turns out, you can choose your family.
Let’s normalize that message.
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Okay, whoa, touched a nerve there and that was not what I was really intending to write when I came to this song on my list, I was prepared to dig into the story behind the song as I usually do, but this is what came out.
Hard to lighten the mood of this post, it’s not a light song.
So let’s keep on emoting, shall we.
Check out these two reacting to all of the feels when they hear the song for the first time.
Pause at 2:32 when they both realize exactly what the song is about.
I’m not saying the message and the warning of future regret is not something people should hear… this is a powerful message and a powerful song delivering it.
All I’m saying is if that is not your story, that’s completely fine as well.
If pressed for my top three favourite Queen songs, which seems like a very strange thing to press someone about, I would have put ’39 somewhere in the top three for sure. It’s a beautiful little song that is easy to sing along to and gets in my head for a while every time I hear it.
We put on A Night at the Opera this morning as we were relaxing in the living room and it had been some time since I had heard the whole album. When “’39” came on, for the first time in my life I found myself really wondering about the lyrics.
Because of the jangly nature of the folk tune, and despite the Queen-being-Queen over the top choir bits, my ears had always just assumed the song told a story of pioneers traveling back in 1939. Reading up on it now, the song has become even more interesting to me.
First, before we go into the meaning, here is the song if you’re not immediately familiar with it:
The song has been described as “sci-fi skiffle”, so my first port of call is to learn what the hell “skiffle” is and, knowing now, I’m embarrassed I didn’t know the term earlier.
“Skiffle is a musical genre that draws from American folk, blues, country, bluegrass, jazz, and jug bands. In the early-to-mid twentieth century, skiffle bands originated in different parts of the United States and were often tied to working-class, Black American blues and jazz scenes—such as those of New Orleans.” (quote source and further history).
So, the skiffle part I get now and the sci-fi immediately makes sense. The over the top choir bits I mentioned a moment ago definitely resonate as being other-worldly in that camp, 70’s sci-fi way that makes you think of robots that are clearly made up of painted cardboard.
Now that my brain was firing along the sci-fi range, I was very confused about what I thought the song was about.
I’m a terrible lyric-listener and have no shame in admitting that; a good and catchy tune can wash over any lyrics for me and I’ll sing along happily, sometimes not really paying attention to what the words are saying.
The song is about an astronaut and his crew who go on what is, for them, a year long journey to find a new home, with Earth dying. They return only to find that 100 years have passed on Earth and everyone they knew, including the astronaut’s love, is long gone and the crew are roughly the same age as their grandchildren.
I knew Brian May (who wrote the song and performs the lead vocals on the album) had studied astrophysics; I had no idea he’d ever written a song that told a story about time dilation. This morning the scope and scale of this song for me went from covered wagons on dusty trails to the sweeping cosmic dust of the universe that has separated two lovers. May does an excellent introduction to the song in this live performance here from 2014.
Now that we all know this together (even if I am late to the party), have a listen again, this time live with Freddie Mercury singing lead in Houston in 1977. I LOVE the over the top choir bits in this performance.
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Tape The Night YouTube Cover Battle
I love someone who does a good cover and there are no shortage of covers for this song. I watch them all so you don’t have to and here are a few hits and misses in our first Tape The Night YouTube Cover Battle:
The Foo Fighters, with Brian May and Roger Taylor, surprisingly disappoint in this version of the song. While I’m sure it would have been cool to have been there live, recorded, the grandiose possibilities of where the song’s range can take you are just not reached.
Some good production value here and excellent instrumentation but there’s a passion and spark missing from the performance, especially around the choir, although I always like it when an artist represents their own harmonizing visually across the screen
Last in the also-rans, musically not the best, passion is not the best, but I want to give these three brothers a shout-out because I love the idea of kids this age recording a song like this in their bedroom and just doing the best they can with it..
The sci-fi is not shied away from, her twang, especially towards the end is pitch perfect and I always love a female artist who takes the lower part in the harmonies and it’s just overall beautifully done.
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Last but not least, for no particular reason than because I love a good audio/visual mashup, here is “’39′” laced over clips from Interstellar.
Now that I know what this song is about and I can appreciate the unique artistic blend of the musical genres even more, this is not only, in my view, the best song on the album (yes, even beating out “You’re My Best Friend” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”) but it’s officially at the top of the list as best Queen song of them all.
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Further Reading:
I read an article, no longer online, that makes an interesting point about the relevance of the song in today’s modern world.
“The ideological gulf between generations has likely never been wider. The news is inescapable; faced with the constant drumbeat of the internet and the 24-hour news cycle, after just a year, one feels 100 years older.”
