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Bruce McCulloch - “When You’re Fat”
From the ex-Kid In The Hall’s excellent 1996 solo album. His backing band includes members of The Odds and Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet.
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Demics “New York City” (from Talk’s Cheap 1979)
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He’s a Keeper of the Fire - Buffy Sainte-Marie (1969)
‘Let’s go to the Mall’ - Robin Sparkles
Whatever happened to Canada’s ’90s Teen Sensation?
The Theme is Canada
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Langley Schools Music Project - “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft”
Another two-fer: a chorus of Canadian schoolchildren singing a song by Klaatu, the Canadian band most famous for not being the Beatles in disguise no matter how much the music press wanted them to be. The Carpenters went on to have a hit with the song, but for my money, this is the version we should be greeting the aliens with.
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The British North-American Act “Baby Jane Days and Nights” (from In the Beginning… 1969)
Mecca Normal - Man Thinks Woman
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Sloan - Everything You’ve Done Wrong
Do your time, to pay the price
For everything you’ve done wrong, baby
In your life, you get so high
There’s nowhere left to go but down
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Thrush Hermit - Oh My Soul!
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“St. Leonard’s Song (Leonard Cohen Parody)” - National Lampoon Radio Hour
Not TECHNICALLY a Canadian artist, but way too good not to share. This gem is from the National Lampoon Radio Hour’s “Canadian Show” episode from May 11, 1974, and to my knowledge has never been officially released. The writer/performer is the late, Boston-based singer-songwriter Tony Scheuren, formerly of Chamaeleon Church (with Chevy Chase!) and Ultimate Spinach. Along with Christopher Guest, Scheuren was one of the Lampoon’s in-house musical parodists; he also contributed the Canadian Show’s killer Neil Young parody “Southern California Brings Me Down,” as well as takes on Cat Stevens, James Taylor, The Grateful Dead and others.
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Eric’s Trip “Behind the Garage” (from Love Tara 1993)
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Slow “Against the Glass” (from Against the Glass 1986)
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Rush - Working Man
Can’t get much more “Canada” than this.
(Note: Searching the “Rush” tag on tumblr produces an odd mix of cheery sorority girls and long-haired progressive rockers.)