Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Forty of the fifty tracks were chosen by panels of musicians, broadcasters and music writers. Every week, the panelists would pitch ten songs from their given era, of which five would be chosen to go on the list of fifty. Since there was no Canadian music industry to speak of before 1960, the first week's panel chose songs from 1900 to 1959.
Here are some lyrics from the song rated number two from that period. Can you name the artist who wrote them, and made the song the first big hit of his long career?
"That big eight-wheeler rollin' down the track
Means your true-lovin' daddy ain't comin' back
'Cause I'm movin' on, I'll soon be gone
You were flyin' too high, for my little old sky
So I'm movin' on"
2. Things heated up a bit for the second week, as five songs were chosen from the 60s.
Complete the lyric for the following song, which ended up as the number one song overall - the most Essential Canadian song.
"Think I'll go out to Alberta,
Weather's good there in the fall.
I got some friends that I can go to working for,
Still I wish you'd ____________"
3. 1972 brought in the Cancon rules, where 30% of Canadian radio playlists must be Canadian. The Canadian recording industry exploded, and the number of eligible songs increased by leaps and bounds. From this point on in the contest, each decade was given two weeks to come up with ten songs for the list.
Which international hit from 1970 do these lyrics come from?
"Coloured lights can hypnotize
Sparkle someone else's eyes"
and
"I don't need your war machines
I don't need your ghetto scenes"
4. From the second week of songs from the 70s, I have another big hit from 1970.
Can you tell me who wrote and recorded this song?
"They took all the trees
Put 'em in a tree museum
And they charged the people
A dollar and a half just to see 'em"
5. The number one panelists' choice for the first week of selections from the 1980s was never a big commercial hit - indeed it got hardly any commercial radio play at all. There was never any doubt that this song would end up on the list, though. Whose strong a cappella voice sang these words?
"Ah, for just one time I would take the Northwest Passage
To find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort Sea;
Tracing one warm line through a land so wild and savage
And make a Northwest Passage to the sea"
6. The next song really WAS a huge commercial hit. Complete the lyrics to this song from 1984.
"Standin' on your mama's porch
You told me that you'd wait forever
Oh and when you held my hand
I knew _____________ "
7. Halfway through the quiz, it's time to talk about what the panelists were looking for in an 'essential" song. The criteria were:
"- Does it woo you with words?
- Does it move you with melody?
- Does it have you from the hook?
- Does it define a generation?
- Did it create a musical revolution?"
I'll leave it to you to decide if the songs picked lived up to those standards.
The next song, from the first week of selections from the 90s, is from a band that has never really gained (or sought, for that matter) international stardom. They're popular here at home, though! What song are these lyrics from?
"So there's no simple explanation
for anything important any of us do
and yea the human tragedy
consists in the necessity
of living with the consequences
under pressure, under pressure"
8. The last two weeks of panelists' choices were for songs from 1990 to the present. This was not, as you might imagine, too popular with some of the younger listeners, who felt that their music was being disregarded. There were, in fact, only two songs from the new millennium on the final list - "Crabbuckit" by K-OS, and "Brother Down" by Sam Roberts, both from the second week.
The song I want to talk about, however, is from 1992. This was the first hit for a bunch of boys from Scarborough - can you finish the lyric?
"We wouldn't have to eat Kraft Dinner.
(But we would eat Kraft Dinner. Of course we would, we'd just eat more.
And buy really expensive ketchup with it.
That's right, all the fanciest__________)"
9. Throughout the weeks, while the panels were arguing and picking their songs, Jian Ghomeshi, the host of the contest, had been receiving listener mail. Most of it started off something like this: "I can't believe you've forgotten..." or "It's a scandal that you've neglected..." Now these letters were collected and counted, and the ten songs that had been asked for most by listeners were added to the list.
Here are some lyrics from one of the most requested songs. Can you tell who wrote them?
"There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run.
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun.
Long before the white man and long before the wheel.
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real"
10. This next song, again a listeners' choice, had been originally proposed by a panel member for the 60s but voted off by fellow panelists. Name the song that these lyrics belong to:
"And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover"
11. Another song category that some listeners thought had been neglected in this contest were songs from French Canada. There was some talk about a possible '50 Essential French Tracks' for some time in the future - that would be fun.
One French song did make it on the list, though, as a listeners' pick. This song was "Mon Pays" by Gilles Vigneault. I'm not going to ask any hard lyrical questions for this one; instead, just tell me what "Mon Pays" means in English.
12. Another song that had been proposed by a panelist, this time for the 70s, was the number one song on the listeners' choice list. The Canadian public obviously has no interest in letting so-called 'experts' make all the choices. Please complete the lyric for this song.
"When I was young my heart was young then, too.
And anything that it would tell me, ___________"
13. The next song, another listeners' pick, was written by the son of a bush pilot who was born in northern Manitoba. Can you name the song?
"From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
The Khyber Pass to Vancouver's lights
Knock me down get back up again
You're in my blood I'm not a lonely man"
14. Not all songs proposed by panelists were voted onto the list- every week, ten songs would be nominated, and only five would make it.
One song that did not make the final list was "Having an Average Weekend" by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. This instrumental piece got most of its exposure from being the theme song to a television show. Which show was that?
15. Now, fifty tracks doesn't even begin to cover all the good music made in this country in the last 105 years. Personally, I would have liked to see the Stampeders' "Sweet City Woman" and Foot in Cold Water's "Make Me Do Anything You Want" as contenders, even if they didn't make the final list. What about Chilliwack? The Five Man Electrical Band? The Rankins, for heaven's sake?
Anyway, I'd like to end this quiz with a piece of music that was not even considered, so far as I know, for the list, but which every Canadian is familiar with. "Define a generation"? Heck, this music, in its way, defines a nation. It's the theme music for a television show which has been on the air for the whole lives of most of us, a show which, for much of the year, owns Saturday night on CBC. The 'hosts' of the show have been, over the years, such luminaries as Foster Hewitt, Danny Gallivan, Dave Hodge, and Ron MacLean.
This is an instrumental piece, so I'll have to hum it for you.
Which TV show is the following the theme music of?
"Dum dum da dum
Dum dum da dum
Dum dum da dum da
Da da da da dut dah
Da da da da dut DAH DA"
Note - as of 2008, the CBC no longer owns the rights to this piece of music. I'm still asking for the name of the TV show it was associated with for so many years.
Source: Author
agony
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
Bruyere before going online.
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