Ottawa

It’s here! The CBC Radio 2 Obama Playlist!

And much of it won’t make you cringe. Some will. It’s here. Back-seat driving:

  • Tunes that were always going to be on this playlist, because they are the national anthems of Canadians wishing Americans would pay attention to them: American Woman, Democracy, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, The Hockey Song.
  • Tunes that were always going to be on this playlist because they really are at the dead centre of Canadian culture, like it or not: Both Sides Now, Four Strong Winds, Goldberg Variations (he gets the whole thing?), If I Had $1,000,000, La complainte du phoque en Alaska, Mon pays, Quand les hommes vivront d’amour, Swinging Shepherd Blues, Suzanne, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
  • Actual good tunes: A Case of You, Departure Bay (note to Diana: Go ahead and write more tunes! The ones on that album were good), Ordinary Day, Place St. Henri, Rebellion (Lies), Wondering Where the Lions Are.

Odds of the new President listening to maybe 10 of these tunes: high. Odds of him learning to love all 49: zero.

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