Since the July 1st / July 4th weekend is SO busy we’ve decided to host a small Canada Day get together with some of our Canadian friends.
In preparation for it I needed to find the Canadian National Anthem (the official lyrics for which can be found here).
It is amazing to me how many truly lackluster the renditions of the Canadian National Anthem are out there. Most of them easily transport you back to those days in grade school where the old (even then) upright pianos were clanging away the songs in the midst of a cacophony of kids’ voices shrilling out the songs imprinted on ditto paper.
I finally found a pretty good version by, of all people, Céline Dion. I’m not her hugest fan but she does a great job with the both O Canada and The Star Spangled Banner. Appropriate for this weekend. For the songs you’ll need to jump to about the 3 minute mark as there is a brief interview that preceeds her singing.
Before a Raptors basketball game an a cappella group named The Essentials (www.essentialsmusic.com) performed what I thought was a great arrangement of O Canada. Unfortunately the links on their website to the sample appear to be obsolete, but perhaps you can find a copy of their song elsewhere.
That was a really neat picture of the paprika-like maple leaf on top of that bowl of pudding-like substance. Mmm, paprika and pudding. Is that some southern delight?
Good eye that. In fact it *is* paprika on a hot cheese dip. You can still see the remains of my first attempt where I held the stencil *just* a little too high…
Paprika and cheese dip … much better combo. You could try passing off that first attempt as a tribute to the Japanese flag.
And about finding good versions of the national anthems … perhaps it’s just warm childhood memories but I used to enjoyd Roget Doucet’s performance before Montreal Canadiens’ home games. It was “lusterful”, even if I couldn’t understand half the words. For the other side of the border, well, if you avoid Roseanne Barr’s Star Spangled Banner, you’re already on the right track.