Okay but the instrumentals on this cover are gorgeous, particularly the violin reprise of the chorus with the added fiddly bits. And as an American, I didn't really understand what a celebration of Canadian geography the lyrics were until I looked them up...which was after listening to Into the North.
Also, fucking thank you. I was convinced it was "wide and savage" and I've heard several bands do "wild and savage" and it made me irrationally annoyed for reasons I'll never understand.
Aw man, this dropped into my inbox about the same time I saw the Millais painting* at the Tate – might be thousands of miles away but Canada Day will come and find me, I guess. Thank you. I don't know why you despair of the singing; there's so much precision in here that I hadn't noticed when there were instruments sweetening the deal. Who needs autotune!!
Maybe it's just the company I keep, but I'm forever correcting people that it isn't a song about the actual Northwest Passage, but about a road trip across the Canadian mainland. Do you run into this at all, or is it just a polar people thing?
Well I suppose it is about the NW passage and the road trip... and the funny thing is that the road trip along HWY1 looks like it's literally about 1500-2000 km SOUTH of the passage itself, noone was anywhere near any damn Fraser river, that's for sure. My grampa sailed it a couple of times and always made fun of the Stan song for that.
Wow, cool grandpa! Mine just drove Hwy 1 ... a lot ... But yeah, the refrain is about the Passage, or maybe the place of the Passage in the Canadian imagination, however the meat of the song describes crossing the Prairies and the Rockies and down the Fraser and ... nothing anywhere near the Arctic. Not even Edmonton!
Okay but the instrumentals on this cover are gorgeous, particularly the violin reprise of the chorus with the added fiddly bits. And as an American, I didn't really understand what a celebration of Canadian geography the lyrics were until I looked them up...which was after listening to Into the North.
Also, fucking thank you. I was convinced it was "wide and savage" and I've heard several bands do "wild and savage" and it made me irrationally annoyed for reasons I'll never understand.
Thanks! As a pal pointed out, "wild and savage" would be redundant.
Aw man, this dropped into my inbox about the same time I saw the Millais painting* at the Tate – might be thousands of miles away but Canada Day will come and find me, I guess. Thank you. I don't know why you despair of the singing; there's so much precision in here that I hadn't noticed when there were instruments sweetening the deal. Who needs autotune!!
Maybe it's just the company I keep, but I'm forever correcting people that it isn't a song about the actual Northwest Passage, but about a road trip across the Canadian mainland. Do you run into this at all, or is it just a polar people thing?
*this one: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Millais_-_Überfahrt_nach_Nordwest.jpg ... which seeing up close, I suspect the landmass at the bottom of the map is labelled 'Africa'
Well I suppose it is about the NW passage and the road trip... and the funny thing is that the road trip along HWY1 looks like it's literally about 1500-2000 km SOUTH of the passage itself, noone was anywhere near any damn Fraser river, that's for sure. My grampa sailed it a couple of times and always made fun of the Stan song for that.
Wow, cool grandpa! Mine just drove Hwy 1 ... a lot ... But yeah, the refrain is about the Passage, or maybe the place of the Passage in the Canadian imagination, however the meat of the song describes crossing the Prairies and the Rockies and down the Fraser and ... nothing anywhere near the Arctic. Not even Edmonton!