Best tunes of 1993

The year 1993 was actually a big and pivotal one for yours truly. I started things off by performing in a local community theatre production of the hilarious play “Noises off”. A few months after that, I finally got the job that had previously eluded me and it wasn’t just the one. About a month after I started part-time work as a short order cook at the King Street Bar and Grill, I got a full-time position at the town’s only 7-11 store. I tried to manage both jobs for a while but eventually, ended up being canned from the cook job. And though the free food and pints were nice perks at the Bar and Grill, the 7-11 job had better legs in the long run and of course, it was there that I met three amazing young ladies (I’m looking at you, Tori, Heather, and Michelle) that started around the same time as myself and made that particular summer a lot of fun.

It was these two jobs that afforded me the possibility that I couldn’t fathom the previous fall, which was to attend university. I enrolled at York University in Toronto and planned to commute in from Bowmanville. I scheduled my classes so that they fell on only three days each week and arranged to continue working at the 7-11 over the weekends. I finally got my driver’s licence that autumn, in part to be ease my commute in to university but also to beat the graduated licensing rules that were being implemented the following January. I also saw my first real concert in June of that year when my friend Tim “dragged me” to see New Model Army at the legendary Lee’s Palace in Toronto. But most importantly, I met this beautiful and intelligent young woman named Victoria in my first year English class at York, that would eventually steal my heart and even more eventually, agree to marry me.

Outside of my own personal bubble, it was also the year that Czechoslovakia split apart into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Bill Clinton was sworn in for his term as US president, and Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia. Waco, Texas (and the name David Koresh) became forever tied to a standoff between the police and a sect of the Branch Davidians. “Jurassic Park” was released in movie theatres, becoming an internal phenomenon, reminding people that dinosaurs were a thing and as a result, a Toronto NBA basketball team received a pretty bizarre moniker. The infamous Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was gunned down and the infamous first-person shooter game, “Doom” was released. In Canadian politics, a certain Brian Mulroney stepped down and Canada got its first female prime minister in Kim Campbell. However, her term was a short one because the Conservatives lost the next election five months later and Jean Chrétien began his run that would continue on for ten years. It was also the year we lost Dizzy Gillespie (musician), Audrey Hepburn (actress), André the Giant (legendary wrestler), Brandon Lee (The Crow), Fred Gwynn (Herman Munster), Vincent Price (actor), and River Phoenix (actor) but gained Larry Nance Jr (baseball), Chance the rapper (duh, rapper), Norman Powell (Toronto Raptor), Ariana Grande (singer), and Olivia Cooke (actress).

Musically, there was plenty released in 1993 that I fell in love with and because I spent a good couple of months commuting by bus to post-secondary education, I listened to a lot of stuff on my CD Walkman that fall. And of course, with the jobs, I had more money to actually buy some CDs and some of these songs were on those.

#30 Doughboys “Shine” (from Crush)

#29 KMFDM “Light” (from Angst)

#28 Buffalo Tom “Soda jerk” (from Big red letter day)

#27 Frank Black “Hang onto your ego” (from Frank Black)

#26 The Waterboys “Glastonbury song” (from Dream harder)

#25 Primus “My name is mud” (from Pork soda)

#24 Suede “The drowners” (from Suede)

#23 The Cranberries “Dreams” (from Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?)

#22 Slowdive “Alison” (from Souvlaki)

#21 New Model Army “Bad old world” (from The love of hopeless causes)

#20 Spirit Of The West “And if Venice is sinking” (from Faithlift)

#19 The Mighty Mighty Bosstones “Someday I suppose” (from Don’t know how to party)