By Dave Babbitt – Special to the Sydenham Current
I’m pretty content living here in Canada, and we have so much to be grateful for.
However, nowhere on Earth is perfect, and in my opinion, some places do certain things better than others.
Living so close to the US border, we are inundated with American news and culture.
Just like Canada, the US has its flaws, but one thing I think they do far better than us is celebrate themselves.
Clare and I just returned from a trip to Kentucky and Tennessee, and while I’ve always been aware of how much Americans celebrate their homeland, our trip really amplified just how much America celebrates America.
You might be wondering, what does this have to do with the arts? Stick with me.
We had barely entered Tennessee when we saw a sign for “Rocky Top,” and who hasn’t heard the song “Rocky Top Tennessee”?
It’s one of the official state songs of Tennessee.
As soon as we exited highway I-75, we found ourselves on Highway 40, and the old Ricky Skaggs hit “Highway 40 Blues” instantly came to mind.
We pulled into Gatlinburg, and all I could think of was the line from Johnny Cash’s hit “A Boy Named Sue”…
“Well, it was Gatlinburg in mid-July, and I just hit town and my throat was dry, I thought I’d stop and have myself a brew.”
The next thing I knew, I was recalling all kinds of songs that have immortalized place names from all across the USA.
While it’s not possible to provide an extensive list, surely everyone has heard of places like Winslow, Arizona; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Luckenbach; Laredo; El Paso; Amarillo; Houston; and Fort Worth, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Wichita, Kansas; Jackson, Mississippi; New York, New York; Chicago; Kansas City; West Virginia; the Blue Ridge Mountains; the Shenandoah River; and the states of Alabama, Oklahoma, Montana, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee, all mentioned in songs.
And let’s not forget all the bands whose names are derived from places, such as Chicago, Alabama, Boston, Nazareth, The Oak Ridge Boys, Miami Sound Machine, The Manhattan Transfer, Orleans, The Detroit Wheels, and the Atlanta Rhythm Section, among others.
Each of these songs and bands has brought great attention to places in the USA.
I started thinking about our own country and how few places I’m aware of that have been immortalized in similar ways.
Of course, there’s “Running Back to Saskatoon” by The Guess Who, “Bobcaygeon” by The Tragically Hip, “Christian Island” and “Alberta Bound” by Gordon Lightfoot, and “Sudbury Saturday Night” by Stompin’ Tom, but that’s where my personal list ends.
I can certainly stand corrected, but even digging around on Google only provided a few more names that I hadn’t heard of.
It makes me wonder why our great songwriters haven’t written more about our home and native land.
I’ve been straining my brain trying to come up with a Canadian band named after a Canadian location, but I was stumped until Google provided me with the band “Toronto.”
Unbeknownst to me, Toronto was a rock band that existed from the late ’70s until about 1985, but the band never really went anywhere.
On the other hand, Chicago has released 38 albums and sold over 40 million copies in the USA alone!
Of course, the band isn’t the reason we all know about the city of Chicago, but it sure has kept it in our consciousness.
Canada has produced music artists who are among the biggest stars in the music business.
Think of names like Shania Twain, Celine Dion, and Michael Bublé.
Have any of them written or produced a song that celebrates our country in any way?
Not that I can recall.
Shania and Michael Bublé are both great songwriters, but their place of birth has never made it into a song, and I’m curious as to why.
Surely, they read my column and will get back to me.
Now don’t think for a moment that I lay the blame solely at their feet, as there are thousands of great songwriters across our great nation.
We’ve got some pretty good songwriters and producers right here in Wallaceburg, so I think they should start the ball rolling.
Jeff?
Personally, I’m incapable of writing a song romanticizing Wallaceburg, but not because I don’t want to.
I can only play a few chords on the guitar, and I think I mentioned before that I’ve only written one song in my life, and shamefully, I must admit that it was about dog poop.
It’s a stinking funny song, though, and my friend Wayne and I recorded it years ago (I still have it), but sadly it will never be released.
While I’m being a bit silly here, just like the Americans, we have so much to be proud of that could and should be immortalized in the music of our land.
Right now, however, I’ve got an earworm.
I can’t get the song “Rocky Top Tennessee” out of my mind.
The Americans are so good at celebrating America and making the smallest of places famous that they’ve got this Canadian singing their songs.
Tomorrow, as I head to Chatham, it will be Ricky Skaggs’ “The Highway 40 Blues.”
They’ve got me again!
