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Best tunes of 1990: #4 Spirit of the West “Home for a rest”

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Happy Friday! At spot number four on this list, we’ve got the perfect song to end off the week: “Home for a rest”, easily Spirit of the West’s best known song. And though it missed out by one song to “Political” when I ranked my top 5 songs by the band back in the spring, I’m willing to concede it’s a very, very, very close second.

I’m sure it’s funny to the band now, after its massive popularity growth over the years and the accolades heaped upon it by Canadian music media, that it was never released as a proper single and the producer for “Save this house” even had to convince its writers, John Mann and Geoffrey Kelly, to record it for inclusion on the album. Imagine if he had failed? The Vancouver-based, Celtic folk rock band might have never gotten as big as they did. They would have had to find another track to close out all their shows since the early 90s. Canadian Saint Patrick’s day ceremonies across the country over the last three decades would have had a big gaping hole in their evening play lists. I would have had to have found another favourite drinking song, a song to request and dance to at weddings. And just maybe, I might not even be married to my wife Victoria, given that we got together at one of Spirit of the West’s concerts in the late 90s.

“Home for a rest” really is a rollicking good tune, regaling the stories, whether true or not, of the band’s first tour in England and their many visits to pubs across the country. It warns of the perils of too much drink and bemoans being away the comforts of home but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming so well-known as a drinking song. Indeed, the chorus is shouted along with like a badge of honour:

“You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best
I’ve been gone for a week (month), I’ve been drunk since I left
These so called vacations will soon be my death
I’m so sick from the drink, I need home for a rest…”

The band incorporates the melodies of traditional folk reels into the song, fleshing out the vehemently played acoustic guitar with accordion flourishes and head-spinning flute solos. It begs to be jigged to with abandon on any dance floor anywhere and I’ve done so many times. I had gotten so proficient at it that I had proper dancers thinking I had the jig mastered and asking where I’d learnt it. It wasn’t skill, I assured everyone. It was just plain earnestness and plenty of beer.

So raise a glass with me to this iconic Canadian song, the now-defunct band who wrote and performed it so many times over the years, and to John Mann, the lead singer, who is now courageously battling early onset Alzheimer’s disease. Cheers!

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1990 list, click here.

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Tunes

100 best covers: #92 Crash Vegas “Pocahontas”

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I did things a little backwards as it pertains to my university years’ accommodations. I won’t go into why I lived off campus for my first two years and then, moved into residence during my third year, but in hindsight, am very glad that was the way things turned out. My grades definitely suffered that year but I made countless memories and met some amazing people. One of these was Bahar, who everyone simply called ‘Boo’, and who lived just a few doors down the residence hall from me and over the course of the year, became my ‘little sister’.

I mention Boo in connection with this cover of “Pocahontas” by Crash Vegas, since it’s likely because of her that it is on this list. I half remember hanging out in her room one afternoon and my mentioning that I had seen the video and how it had stuck with me, despite never really having heard anything else in their catalogue. She immediately pulled a CD copy of “Aurora” off her massive CD shelf and replaced the Beastie Boys disc in the player to put it on. I later borrowed the disc when I was making a mixed tape, pulling this track and “Scarborough” for the mix. And a couple of years later, when I bought a used copy of the album for myself, it was on basis of these two songs.

I’m not terribly familiar with Neil Young’s original and only really knew that the song was a cover because Boo told me so that day. I know he’s done a few versions, ranging from electric to acoustic, and if you’re one of his fans, I’m sure you prefer his original. Crash Vegas, a Canadian alternative rock band that saw some success in the 90s, doesn’t do anything spectacularly different with the song, an acoustic backbone and a spiritual edge, but I do prefer Michelle McAdorey’s soft vocals to the whines of Young. I’ve always appreciated his talent. What makes “Pocahontas” such a great tune is his songwriting, the imagery evoked through astral plane time travel and the connection of cultural figures not immediately plausible, but I could never get past his voice enough to explore his original. I could play this cover on end though, and remember back to 1995 with fondness whenever I do.

The cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

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Tunes

100 best covers: #94 Rheostatics “The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”

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Here’s a cover that took many many years to appreciate and it’s because the original is oh so deeply ingrained in me.

Canadian icon Gordon Lightfoot’s original is a romantic commemoration of the sinking of the American freighter, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior in 1975. The disaster is one of the best known to happen on the Great Lakes, resulting in the deaths of all of its crewmen and improvements to shipping regulations. The song was released just over a year after the actual disaster, instantly becoming one of Lightfoot’s biggest commercial successes. These days, it is his most easily recognizable track and one of his own personal favourites. His is a haunting piece, but not because of the music. It’s a pretty straightforward if not sorrowful composition but the words really stay with you, able to easily conjure teardrops out of the corners of Canada’s collective eyes.

Rheostatics are iconic (some might say iconoclastic) in their own right and unleashed their cover as the penultimate track on the CD version of their now classic 1991 album, “Melville”. I don’t think it as widely known as the original but it is definitely accepted as part of the Canadian alt-rock canon. Yet still, it drove this particular writer/blogger nuts for years, always wanting to hear Lightfoot to sing those words: “The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald”.

Once I accepted that Rheostatics’ cover is a different beast from the original, however, I grew to love it. They extended it from the original six minutes to well over eight, adding plenty of simmering guitars, wailing solos, and some wonderful cymbal washes, reflecting the wildness of those turbulent Lake Superior waters. And all those heartfelt words are still there but sung in a different tone, perhaps with a bit more anger than sadness.

Have a listen to both versions below (though if you’re Canadian, I’m sure you’re quite familiar with the original) and let me know what you think in the comments section.

The cover:

The original:

(And if you’re up for a third option, I can offer up the deadpan delivered drone of the Dandy Warhols rendition here.)

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.