Maple Mixtape - Side 3

Volume 01 | Featuring Daye Boyko

Side 3 is the chance for MusicStackers to add three tracks of their own to the Mixtape.

Any artist. Any era. Any genre. But… it must be Canadian and it must be from the 20th Century.

So tell us three CanCon tracks you can’t live without, and why, and I’ll do the rest!

Like me, Dave lives and works in Calgary. He’s an IT genius by day, and an aspiring writer the rest of the time.

I’m happy to have him feature in the inaugural Side 3 - and not just because he’s one of my first paid subscribers!

He may have set a land speed record in replying to my call for contributors, as he says his “brain can’t resist a prompt”. Respect.

In addition to replying promptly, he brought the big lumber to his picks - none bigger than The Tragically Hip.

Track 1

Reminds me of my wilder days with friends, the "Oh I know that one" when the cover band started playing and at least one of my friends crashing the stage to sing along... despite not knowing more than the chorus.

And it was always a popular request when visiting Texas and one of my newfound best friends for the night would say, "Get the DJ to play something Canadian!"

The Tragically Hip - New Orleans Is Sinking | peaked #70, 1989

The second of three singles from the diamond-selling Hip album Up To Here. Don’t let that chart position fool you, the vast majority of Canadians know every word of this song.

The Tragically Hip - New Orleans Is Sinking - Killer Whale Tank

If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing The Hip live [just the three times for me], you know that the show is different every night. And I’m not talking about just the setlist.

The late, great, Gord Downie was known for a manic sort of stage energy - at least before he saw video of himself and decided to anchor his performances with an acoustic guitar. This energy often came out as improv during New Orleans Is Sinking. Hip fans have recorded more than three dozen different story breaks during this song alone.

Killer Whale Tank is likely the most popular of these magical trips.

Often rambling, or sometimes used to play with new song ideas, these middle sections are legendary among fans. The combo of fantastic jams and Gord’s stream of consciousness stories are cherished by fans.

Track 2

It's like the Canadian "The Living Years" or "Cat’s in the Cradle". One of those songs that are hard to listen to, but you still do. And the "Can't you drive me down to the big league" gets me every time.

Tom Cochrane - Tom Cochrane and Red Rider | peaked #4, 1988

Hockey has been a part of our national identity for decades. And more than a few of our artists have written about it.

Tom Cochrane starts us off with a nice song about growing up in a small Canadian town with hockey as the escape route.

Not many ways out of this cold northern town
You work in the mill and get laid in the ground
And if you're going to jump it will be with the game
Real fast and tough is the only clear lane to the big league

Then the rug pull in the next verse. Out of nowhere. Like life, I suppose.

All the right moves when he turned eighteen
Scholarship and school on a big U.S. team
Out with his girl near Lake McClean
Hit a truck doing seventy in the wrong lane
To the big league

As Dave pointed out, there’s more emotion to come. The aftermath.

Sometimes at night I can hear the ice crack
It sounds like thunder and it rips through my back
Sometimes in the morning I still hear the sound
Ice meets metal
"Can't you drive me down to the big league?"

I’m not crying, you’re crying…

Sadly, this song is also now tied with a tragedy from 2018 when the Humboldt Broncos hockey team bus was struck in Saskatchewan, claiming 16 lives.

Track 3

Just a constant reminder that our "state of mind" is so important. It got a lot of play when I was teaching in the States and things were exceptionally rough - but every day, as I cleaned my classroom, I would play the song to lift my spirits before I went home. Some of the other teachers would join me dancing around like fools.... my classroom was over the principal's office, by some odd coincidence...

Great Big Sea - Ordinary Day | peaked #30, 1997

Great Big Sea here, representing Newfoundland & Labrador as that province’s biggest ever musical export.

You’ve never seen a better live band. They once played our NHL arena here in Calgary with the stage turned the long way to accommodate a bigger ‘jig pit’. Mayhem.

Anyway, the b’ys had a good run in the mid-90s with their upbeat tunes, ferocious playing of traditional Irish/Newfoundland instruments, and stunning harmonies.

This track is an original from their album Play, which launched two other singles that were covers - Oysterband’s When I’m Up (I Can’t Get Down) and R.E.M.’s End Of The World, which is somehow faster than the original!

Fun fact - Morse Code fans will know that the beeps throughout this track spell out ‘G B S’ for Great Big Sea.

Thanks for being a pioneer Dave, I appreciate your support as well as your great picks! Please go and give the man a follow.