“Released in 1969, ‘One Tin Soldier’ became a popular song during the Vietnam War and was often heard as an anti-war anthem,” (CountryThangDaily). “It was first recorded by the Canadian pop group The Original Caste and was later on recorded by various artists,” including the band Coven.
“Interestingly, the song charted every year from 1969 to 1974 on various charts, not only in the United States but also in Canada. It went to #6 on the RPM Magazine charts … and peaked at #34 on the American pop charts in early 1970. The song was even a bigger Adult Contemporary hit, reaching #25 in the United States and #5 in Canada.”
The story-based song features a gentle start and a gradual build which is eventually led by a rich winds section in addition to the traditional rock instrumentation. A half-step modulation kicks in at 1:39. Many thanks to our regular contributor Rob P. for this submission!
“Christmas Time,” written originally by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance, is the ninth track on Canadian singer Tyler Shaw’s 2021 holiday album A Tyler Shaw Christmas.
The tune begins in Bb and modulates up to B at 2:37.
Written by Milton Delugg and Willie Stein in 1950, “Orange Colored Sky” has been covered by Nat King Cole, Natalie Cole, Lady Gaga, Doris Day and others. Michael Bible included the song as a bonus track on his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible.
The track begins in Bb with a slow intro before moving into double time. There is a subtle key change up to C at 2:42.
“Nicholas Ma (b. 2001) is a pianist-composer living in Oakville, Ontario, Canada,” (Charleston International Music Competition). “He is in his third year as an undergraduate at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music and is pursuing a double major in Piano Performance and Composition … Starting piano at the age of 4, Nicholas has also obtained the ATCL Performance Diploma with the highest accolade, Distinction, from Trinity College London. More recently, Nicholas was the recipient of a Gold award from the 2021 Grand Maestro International Music Competition.”
When he’s not writing assignments for Counterpoint classes, Ma is working on his piano studies (see his interpretation of Sonetto 104 Del Petrarca, by Franz Liszt, below). Ma’s fugue, “How Do You (Not) Write a Fugue” (2023) traverses various keys of the moment, but one particularly clear modulation is actually announced in the lyrics. We won’t spoil the surprise with a timestamp! From Ma’s notes in the Youtube video description:
“In my first semester of tonal counterpoint class, our final assignment was to write a 4-voice fugue… so I said YOLO and wrote this meme fugue as the final assignment – with the lyrics being my revision notes from class haha. Huge shoutout to Prof. Nicole Biamonte for accepting this fugue as a valid assignment and not instantly dunking on my grades, especially with the “intentional parallel fifths” section. I later gathered four singers (with me playing the piano part) and played through this … It was incredible – the singers learnt and sung this fugue at this level with only two hours of rehearsal! I also have to shoutout my two inspirations for this fugue: the first being my favorite fugue to this day, Glenn Gould’s parodistic ‘So You Want to Write a Fugue?’ and Freddy Wickham’s self-explanatory ‘Ontological Fugue.’
I decided to go in the direction of these two pieces, but take a step further by adding theatrics, intentional “counterpoint error” sections, and slipping in familiar quotations (Art of Fugue, Double Violin Concerto, Christmas tunes). The piece can be summarized in three sections – The exposition (which introduces basic fugal techniques), the middle/”development” (where errors/fugal parodies are gradually introduced in a tongue-in-cheek manner), and the “recapitulation” (where the singers break the 4th wall, address the listener, and question the philosophy of compositional aesthetics and rules… yep it gets pretty off-the-rails haha).
Overall, I wanted a piece that could be appreciated by all levels – those that do not have much familiarity with fugal writing will gain something from it, and those that are experts in fugues will enjoy the humorous parodistic subversion of counterpoint expectations. (And of course the main reason, I needed to write a fugue for a tonal counterpoint class assignment).”
“I Surrender,” written by Louis Biancaniello and Sam Watters, is included on Canadian singer Celine Dion’s 2002 album A New Day Has Come. The album has sold over 12 million copies worldwide and debuted at #1 in 13 countries. The track begins in G minor and dramatically modulates up a half step to G# minor at 3:21.
In 2017, as a celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary, Toronto-based singer Eleanor McCain released her sixth studio album, True North: The Canadian Songbook, a collection of 32 songs on CD, along with a stylish, bilingual coffee-table book. Each song was written by a Canadian, and ten different Canadian orchestras provided the lush musical accompaniment. The songs run the gamut of Canadian popular music, including covers of tunes by Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, k.d. lang, and The Guess Who. McCain’s classical training is evident throughout the performances.
The selection here, “Up Where We Belong”, was composed by songwriter, singer, and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie, along with Americans Jack Nitschke and Will Jennings.
We’ve featured the original version of the song, by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes, from the An Officer and a Gentleman soundtrack. The original version features one modulation towards the end; Joe Cocker’s gruff vocals couldn’t be more different than McCain’s polished delivery. In this version, McCain is supported by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. There’s a whole-step modulation from D major to E major for the chorus at 1:32, followed by a reversion to D major for the next verse at 2:07. The pattern holds for the second verse and chorus. 3:24 sees a shift to G major for the bridge, then another transition into F major for an instrumental chorus at 3:39 before settling into Ab major for the duration at 3:23.
The Moffats are a Canadian pop/rock country band comprised of 4 brothers: three triplets — Bob, Clint, and Dave — and Scott, who is a year older. In 1994, they became the youngest band to ever sing a major label recording contracts, and went on to release five studio albums.
“Miss You Like Crazy” is featured on their 1998 album Chapter I: A New Beginning. “Chapter 1 shows a lot of promise,” Allmusic wrote in their review of the record. “And the Moffatts give the term teen idol some credibility.”
The track begins in G and modulates up to A leading into the instrumental bridge at 2:22.
“lang was an androgyne from rural Canada who considered herself to be the reincarnation of Patsy Cline, convinced she was born to be a country star,” (Pitchfork). “Even in outlaw terms, she was a long shot in conservative Nashville, a city nonetheless seduced by her punky verve and saucy rambunctiousness, a hay-bale alternative to the genre’s burgeoning cosmopolitanism. She was accepted, to a degree—her vegetarianism and PETA allegiance notwithstanding—but lang knew that acceptance was creative death. By the early ’90s, she felt that she had exploited country’s full creative potential. Now was time to develop her own romantic language.” Her 1992 release, Ingénue, was the embodiment of that effort.
“Miss Chatelaine” was the album’s second single (after the #38 US/#8 Canadian hit “Constant Craving,” for which lang is generally best known). The track “earned its high camp credentials even before lang accompanied it with a video where she wore the high-bouffanted, ballgown-clad drag of femininity, the lesbian Liberace … ‘Miss Chatelaine’ is a towering millefeuille of accordion, frisky percussion and strings, a succession of audible exclamation points—a song with so many ornate moving parts that it’s easier to imagine its blueprint as a cuckoo clock than a black and white musical staff.”
“Miss Chatelaine” is built in E major overall, its relatively languid harmonic rhythm taking a back seat to the rangy melody, lang’s crystalline vocal, and her distinctive phrasing. A new dance partner, an instrumental bridge which jumps up a minor third to G major, cordially cuts in between 1:59 and 2:20, but then the tune reverts to its original key.
*This is the third installment of a weeklong series featuring covers of the 1956 song “You Don’t Know Me”*
Michael Bible covered “You Don’t Know Me” for his 2005 album It’s Time, featuring arrangements by David Foster. The track begins in C and modulates up to Db at 3:08.
“Canadian art-pop chanteuse Jane Siberry stands outside the traditional boundaries of folk and pop music, creating ethereal, unconventional songs that draw from a deep wellspring of creativity,” (AllMusic). “Emerging in the early ’80s, Siberry courted mainstream success with left-of-center hits like “Mimi on the Beach,” “I Muse Aloud,” “One More Colour,” and “Calling All Angels.” As the decades progressed, she began weaving elements of jazz and Celtic music into her cosmopolitan sound — which evokes names like Laura Nyro, Kate Bush, Toyah Willcox, Suzanne Vega, and Laurie Anderson — while remaining fiercely independent and releasing her material via her own label, Sheeba Records.
… “No Borders Here(is an) assured, cinematic collection highlighted by ‘Mimi on the Beach,’ an underground Canadian hit,” which the 1984 album’s liner notes describe as a ‘7.5 minute art-rock single.'”
Built in G major overall, the tune takes a turn after the second verse, when the pre-chorus arrives at 2:35. The previously relentless 8th-note accompaniment is suspended as the melody shifts to short upgoing segments. At 2:42, the melody starts (but doesn’t complete) an E whole-tone scale, further unmooring the listener. At 2:51, the chorus lands in B minor.
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