Long Live Stompin' Tom and other Northern Ontario Music references

Stompin' Tom took a stand on defending Canadian Music and for that he is perhaps Canada's greatest musician.

This is far from a complete list but here are a few songs that talk about Northern Ontario or have images from it that I have encountered.


Stompin' Tom - Sudbury Saturday Night
Pretty self explanatory



Stompin' Tom - I've Been Everywhere Man
This is a great song originally done by Hank Snow. At 2:50 into the song Stompin' Tom changes the lyrics and goes on a run of northern Ontario cities. Later in the song he also does a run on Maritime and Newfoundland towns. LONG LIVE STOMPIN' TOM



Now this truck driver again turned around to me
And said "Look it here buddy, I'm kinda gettin' sick and tired
Of you talkin' about all these United States cities and towns. I'm a Canadian
Truck driver and I want to here alittle bit of the North Country for a change."

Well I said there's always North Bay and headin' up to Northern Ontario
To places like
Temogami, New New Liskeard, Haileybury, Cobalt, Timmins
Ansonville, Kirkland Lake, Cochrane, Kapuskasing
Hearst, Geralton, Beardmore and the Lake Head
And headin' form Nipigon down 17
Into Scriber, Marathon, White River, Wawa and Sault. St. Marie
Headin' east from the Sault on 17
To Thessalon, Blind River, Elliot Lake, Manitoulin Island
Espanola, Sudbury, Cache Bay, Sturgeon Falls
And Back to North Bay

Headin' down south now number 11
To Huntsville, Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, Orillia, Barrie
Aurora, Newmarket, and ever Stoffville
And even that other town we all know well called Toronto

[...]

An' the run of the towns in the Maritimes goes like this buddy,
There's Moncton, Chatam, Saint John, Camalton
Grand Falls, Sacland, New Castle, Fredricton
Charlottetown, Summerside, Glasby, Annapolis
Springhill, Sydney, New Glasgow, Antigonist
Windsor, Torrold, Gander, Bona Vista, Saint John's
Quartervast and Minster

Blue Rodeo - Mattawa
The song starts leaving Sudbury and heading towards Mattawa.



Neil Young - Helpless
Although the town he is likely referring to in the song is Omemee, Ontario which is not in northern Ontario the lyrics suggest it is. Neil Young also suggests that the song isn't about one town in particular but about a feeling.



Brigitte Lebel - The View
Although I don't remember this song actually mentioning northern Ontario, it is a singer from North Bay and most of the video is shot in North Bay.



Murder Murder - Moving on

http://murdermurder.bandcamp.com/track/movin-on

"I got friends in Brown and Hardy
And a brother down in Carling
I got family up north in Sudbury
Everybody knows
that I can't set foot back in Mowat "

That Blue Rodeo song was good but that video of a spotless, dry, freshly paved, pothole-free, well-lit multi-laned highway That's like Heaven's Own Highway!

Just this year Sudbury put up a Stompin' Tom statue


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/stompin-tom-connors-statue-1.3305888

People often think of Sudbury Saturday Night as a ode to alcoholism - but it's an ode to alcoholism AND working-class ethnic solidarity. Irish, Scots, Nordics, Germans, French, 'Gypsy' all raising a glass and a middle-finger to INCO. I'm going to play that song on a loop while I type in a paragraph from a public speech given to the 'Sudbury & District Historical Society' in 1979:

Jim Tester wrote: In Sudbury today, we have perhaps the least discriminatory city in North America. Racial tensions are minimal. An easy-going racial tolerance is evident. I beleive this came about precisely because of what the union did in the work-place. The fact is that if discrimination is largely eliminated at the place of work; if practical conditions against discrimination are created, in terms that guarantee equality, then those on-the-job relations have a positive effect of the whole community"

The Shaping of Sudbury - A Labour View (1979)

A decade ago I used to go to a bar called Zig's to hang out with some students. It was Sudbury's gay bar and so it also functioned as a meeting place for other misfits. There were three crowds on the nights I was there: the arty-goth crowd, the really overweight crowd and the queer regulars. It was pretty good scene but a shocking part came when the bar began closing, after a night of 1980s and dance music, a final folk song would be played and everyone would raise their glasses and sing along. After a few weeks of going (and staying till the bar closed) I was soon singing along too. I would eventually track the song down on the net and found it was Newfoundland's Great Big Sea and their Chemical Worker' Song. I still start singing when I hear the beginning of "Go, Boys, Go...."


[and props to 'madeincanada29' for the great photos to accompany the video]

I was thinking that Blue Rodeo's 'It hasn't hit me yet' had an Ontario reference however it was just to "the middle of Lake Ontario".

Here is a northern Ontario reference I came across- Sam Robert's "An American Draft Dodger In Thunder Bay".  While it is an okay song I really enjoyed the lyrics:

Awesome find! That is another one on the list!

This song was from the documentary "The Hole Story" and I think it belongs here.

I keep recommending that documentary in my classes - and a few students have seen it (I think in their labour studies classes).

Another mining town ballad from Grievous Angels's 1996 'Waiting for the Cage'



There ain't alot of choice in a company town - its away been that way.
You send your kids to college and they never come home again.

Saturday night at the Legion, we'll be drinking and singing songs
Let the cold wind blow tonight 'cause the fire is burning strong!

wikipedia wrote:Grievous Angels are a Canadian alternative country band, active since 1986.[1] The band's name is a reference to the Gram Parsons album Grievous Angel. Their primary leader is singer-songwriter Charlie Angus, who entered electoral politics in 2004 as the New Democratic Party Member of Parliament for Timmins—James Bay. In 1996, Grievous Angels released Waiting for the Cage, a concept album about life in Northern Ontario mining towns which also included an interactive CD-ROM feature.

A quest for an obscure mining/labour 1996 cd-rom?  I couldn't even find lyrics to this song on-line so it might take some non-virtual legwork.

https://www.discogs.com/Grievous-Angels-Waiting-For-The-Cage/release/12270729

[Sidenote: 1996 was the same year Skinny Puppy released their 2-cd cd-rom enhanced 'BRAP' compilation.... https://www.discogs.com/Skinny-Puppy-Brap-Back-Forth-Vol-3-4/master/21358]

Nothing at LU but a copy at the Public Library: https://gspl.bibliocommons.com/item/show/2426234096