It's Dan MacRae

(/puts on speculation hat)

Your Canada Day playlist is great. It probably has loads of amazing tracks on it from loads of amazing Canadian bands. Odds are you’ve painstakingly researched the right moment for Sloan or Homosexual Cops or These Estates or…(“We get it, you like Canadian bands, on with it.” - internal ed.) to kick in. But there’s something to be said about having hosery, kinda ridiculously Canadian songs on your Canada Day playlist too. These songs are also great but may have been slept on during the bag o’ wine chugging playlist curating process. Of course you have “Steal My Sunshine” and “The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism” on it, but maybe you missed one of these winning slices of Canadiana.

1) David Wilcox - Do The Bearcat

If I were David Wilcox, I’d try my damndest to be elected into the House of Commons. Once elected, I’d respond to everything during question period with a hard bit of “Bearcat” guitar:

“You’re proposing major funding cuts for afterschool programs? Well let’s see what my guitar thinks about that? (/plays “Do The Bearcat”) Yeah, I think we oppose this proposed program funding slash. (/cracks open a Labatt 50 and kicks the Finance Minister in the face)”

DO THE BEARCAT!!! DADS DANCING FUCKING EVERYWHERE UP ON YOUR LAWN!!!

2) Rascalz f Kardinal Offishall, Checkmate, Thrust & Choclair - Northern Touch

I admire Choclair’s assertion that he enjoys watching Monday Night Raw live when it’s convenient for him. When rappers in Canada brag, the things they brag about are mostly things that can also be bragged about by high ranking accountants. (Full disclosure: Drake has since ruined this dynamic.) If your friends made you be Checkmate when you played “Northern Touch”, it meant they didn’t like you.

I was a big Thrust fan, by the way. 

3) Ashley MacIssac - Brenda Stubbart

Holy shit did we as a nation have Ashley MacIssac Fever or what? He filled the gap in the “fiddle stuff for grandmothers and people abusing pills” market. Sadly, I didn’t own Hi, How Are You Today? I owned the “traditional” album Fine, Thank You Very Much. Media outlets made MacIssac out to be the cause of the country’s many savage fiddle beatings of the late 90s (young people clubbed to death by fiddle-wielding marauders), but there were really countless factors at work behind the madness.

4) Love Inc. - Broken Bones

I’m starting to suspect that Chris Sheppard wasn’t a real pirate.

(Surprise Canada Day Pirate Transmission: Astroplane Which was just BKS having their singer list a bunch of nonsense things in a Hokey Pokey sort of way. BKS did some tracks for a Body Break album because they are fucking awesome.)

5) Chuggo - Ah C’mon

I have a Stockholm Syndrome type relationship with Chuggo. At first, I enjoyed this song ironically but now I genuinely love it. I would take a bullet for it. It’s the most authentically Canadian thing I’ve ever heard. What chorus can beat “awww c’mon fucking guy”. Chuggo speaks more to my Canadian identity than Silken Laumann and Mackenzie King combined.

6) FM - Just Like You

The video for “Just Like You” is absolute madness. I have nothing but wonderful things to say about the clip and this song. A rich sap losing his pants because of electricity? Fantastic!

7) Doug & The Slugs - Too Bad

Oh yeah, the video highlights the part of the song where the lead singer shoots himself in the head. That could put a bit of a damper on the Annual Canadian Cooler 2 Litre Drinking Challenge. Or it could be the thing that kicks the party up a notch.

Note: “Too Bad” is top fucking shelf. You can’t fuck with it. I was considering putting Boomtang Boys in this slot, but have you heard “Squeeze Toy” lately? It’s dreadful. Just unforgivably awful.

8) Mitsou - Bye Bye Mon Cowboy

Somewhere in the country a professor if pitching his “Mitsou Explains Anglophone/Francophone Relations” course for the twentieth time. He’s not getting rejected because it’s not a good idea for a course, he keeps getting rejected because he insists on having his class act out the Mitsou erotic fan-fiction he’s prepared. “How are they going to understand the ADQ if they don’t do this?” he bellows everytime.

9) Silla and the Smoke Frees - Changing Ways

Probably not the best addition to your Canada Day Playlist, but it never hurts to bask in the glow of the best spacebear frontman of all time.

Five Additional Tracks Worth Adding To Your Canada Day Playlist

1) Andrew Vincent & The Pirates - Good Time

2) Homosexual Cops - So What? (I’m A Homosexual Cop)

3) Henri Fabrege & The Adorables - Ventriloquist Love

4) Andrew Neville and The Poor Choices - Molson Dry

5) The Black Halos - Some Things Never Fall

What’s on your Canada Day Playlist?