Both Sides Now

Well, something's lost but something's gained,
In living every day.
"Both Sides Now" - Joni Mitchell

The CBC did one of those polls to choose the best Canadian song and the results are out.  I guess the list is a bit skewed because most CBC listeners are older, but the top five are good songs (although I'd be hard pressed to say they're "the best".  Tom Petty said, in an interview with Jian Gomeshi the other day, that it is ridiculous to compare pieces of art -- how is one better than another?)  This is what made the top five.  If you haven't heard these songs, give them a listen.  If they're not "the best", they're iconic and express something essential about being Canadian.

#1.  Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
#2.  Helpless - Neil Young (I believe I tried to sing this in class last semester.  Neil Young and I have comparable voices!)
#3.  Wheat Kings - The Tragically Hip
#4.  The Weight - The Band
#5.  Wake Up - Arcade Fire

I'm not familiar with the music of Arcade Fire.  Of course, I've heard of them, but I haven't really listened to them.  That's why these lists can be good, because they can encourage you to discover artists that you haven't paid attention to before.

I think there are a couple of oversights, but I didn't look at the whole list, so I imagine that these songs are further down, because they could not have been left off. Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" is an epic song that I think really expresses the origins of Canada and how those origins help create the Canadian identity.  The same can be said for Stan Rogers' "Northwest Passage".   (I have looked at the whole list now and they WERE.  Stan Rogers and Gordo have songs on the list but not these songs.  Unbelievable!)   (I'm reading The Last Place on Earth by Roland Huntsford about the race to be 1st to the South Pole.  The Norwegian, Roald Amundsen, learned a lot about dealing with killing cold and remote treks through snowy conditions from an earlier venture to sail through the Northwest Passage, which he did.)

There's another list on the CBC site of "essential Canadian books" which is interesting to look at, but also doesn't include some of my favourites (like Anne of Green Gables, Lives of Girls and Women, all of Margaret Laurence's books, just to name a few, but then these are classics, I guess and the list I saw seemed like it was listing books you might not have read and encouraging you to try them over the summer).  I guess the idea of these lists is to get people talking and it works in that respect.

I'm off to listen to Arcade Fire!