I love my country: Canada turns 150!

Today Canada turns 150, and though I couldn't get into it at all for the longest time, today I suddenly feel myself almost overcome with emotion. I trawled YouTube to find a decent version of O Canada, and unexpectedly (though why was it so unexpected, at this time in our history?) found ZILLIONS of versions, most of them not very good. A very well-known animated one that used to be shown when TV stations signed off for the night seemed like the obvious choice, but it just didn't work for me. There were some very abstract ones that misfired, very sentimental ones, and many that just weren't sentimental enough. When I began to watch this one, I realized I was crying. I wasn't expecting this at all. Something to do with the images that are so bang-on, and the choir that does not sing in words, but only sings "Ahhhhhhhhhh. . ."

Some say the Canadian identity formed as a sort of allergic reaction to the U. S., and there may be some truth in that. It's hard to love our neighbor right now, and I have to say I hate the things that they're doing, which cannot help but affect us. We feel crushed by that great elephant the first Trudeau talked about. But the fact that we're on our second Trudeau seems strange and miraculous to me. I remember when Justin Trudeau was born on Christmas day (which seemed significant for some reason), and everyone in my family went around snidely singing, "For unto us a child is born. . . " from Handel's Messiah. The next line of it, which no one sang, is, "And the government shall be upon his shoulders." It did cross my mind, back then, that some day it might be true.

More weird things are happening now. I compared notes with my husband the other day: "Are you having flashbacks from Expo '67?" To my surprise, he said yes. All sorts of stuff from the Centennial year is coming back to me now, most of it pretty cheesy, even hideous, but we thought it was wonderful then. Man and His World. The Geodesic Dome. The Monorail. The Canadian Pavilion. The Musical Ride.

And La Ronde, with rides that would probably seem pretty tame today. Going down the Flume ride and getting soaked, and going down the Flume ride again and getting more soaked. And again, until the sky opened up in a huge thunderstorm and made "soaked" seem redundant. I remember I was wearing a white cowboy hat that literally melted under the rain.

But it was all so exhilarating. Hell! A world's fair, for US! Canada was an incredible 100 years old, and for once we were going to fling down our usual reserve and CELEBRATE! I cannot post the Bobby Gimby song "Ca-na-da" (one little, two little, three Canadians) because when I listened to it again I felt nauseated, but back then we couldn't get enough of it. It quickly became the theme song of the Centennial.

Then there were all the patriotic songs we sang in school, pulled out of somewhere, then put away and never sung again. (I could not find good versions of Land of the Silver Birch or Something to Sing About, or I would have posted them.) 

It's a junk drawer, like most events you haven't even looked at in, oh, 50 years or so. My brother Arthur is all caught up in it. We were close then, he was 18 and I was 13, and I had no way of knowing he wouldn't live a normal life, or a normal span. He was funny and weird and he didn't last long, sort of like Expo.

There was a song called A Place to Stand which could get to me, all about "Ontari-ari-ario" where I grew up. Mostly it was sung in the usual cheesy way, but sometimes it was used on CBC as a sort of animated filler, and it had no singing, just a couple of violins. It used to knock me right over.

I want to make something, to DO something about the 150th, not just sit here posting videos and rambling. I want to make something move, but not in the ridiculous way that I make a goose or a moose or a ham loaf move. It's really too bad I have no artistic ability, can't draw or paint to save my life, for it might be a comfort to me now that I seem to have reached the end of my creativity.

I was trying to figure out what that horrific Habitat structure reminded me of (and unless I am mistaken, it's still standing and people still live in it in Montreal). It's that godawful UFO pod village in Taiwain:

I had one more thought in this ramble. This isn't done much any more - it's an old-school Canadian kind of thing, to wonder who the "greatest Canadian" is - I mean of all time, and invariably it's some stodgy old white guy with lots of money. Perhaps a Prime Minister from the early 1900s.

I have a candidate, for the simple reason that his influence echoes on in the most potent, living-and-breathing way, and will go on that way for untold generations.

Northern Dancer wins the Queen's Plate by 7 1/2 lengths, 1964.

And now. . . for our National Anthem

Ô Canada!

Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits.

O Canada!
Land of our forefathers
your brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers.
Because your arm can wield the sword,
and it is ready to carry the cross.
your history is an epic
Of the most brilliant exploits.
Your valour steeped in faith

Will protect our homes and our rights
Will protect our homes and our rights.

The Canadian National Anthem may be many things, but one thing it ain't is colorful.

It's all those endless "stand on guard"s. And that stolid bit about "true patriot love/in all thy sons command", which people don't understand at all and want to eliminate altogether because it includes the poisonous word "sons".

For those who've never encountered it before, here it is, the one we use now,  sung at sports events by people who generally forget the words:

O Canada

Our home and native land

True patriot love in all our sons command

With glowing hearts we see thee rise

The True North strong and free

From far and wide, O Canada

We stand on guard for thee

God keep our land glorious and free

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee

That's three "stand on guards", but in an earlier version there were, I think, five.

Most Canadians are only vaguely aware that our national anthem was originally written in French. We "took" French in school - it was mandatory to "take" French, and one of the things we took was O Canada. We even had to sing it in French once in a while, as an exercise, but not once was it ever translated into English. Now that strikes me as completely bizarre. Didn't they want us to know?

Just from my sadly-limited French vocabulary, I had some idea the English words didn't match up, but this - this is a Grand Canyon of difference. Because you can't translate an anthem word-for-word and have it make sense, and because a more naturalistic translation won't scan properly and fit within the tune, the original lyric was basically scrapped. In English-speaking Canada, it has been virtually lost, though bits of it poke through when it's sung before hockey games.

Since Callixa Lavallee ( who wrote the original tune in 1880 to celebrate St. Jean de Baptiste Day) wasn't around any more, O Canada could be rewritten any way the minions of dullness wanted. Thus it was replaced by something about as glorious as a bowl of Cream of Wheat. To fit our stereotypical national character, it's kind of dull. Non-violent, of course! No hint of battles, of "the rocket's red glare", "bombs bursting in air" and all that stuff we say we hate in the American anthem. But ah, go back to the original and you'll find a bit of 19th century European poetry celebrating epic battles and glorious victories.

All that "true patriot love" stuff was originally "your brow is wreathed with a glorious garland of flowers". I'd say that's a shade of difference. Giving the lie to the usual Canadian boast that OUR anthem isn't "violent like the one in the States", we have "your arm can wield the sword" (and, even more subversive, references to carrying the cross - how Papist!).

In fact the whole thing is so much more epic, on such a grand scale, with words like "brilliant exploits" and "valour" (and even, God forbid, "faith"!). But in English, those words just don't fit the musical framework. And there's something about them that's just a little. . . unCanadian. So we're left with an anthem that has all the character of a well-chewed piece of gum, something that is (to use Madonna's famous description of Lady Gaga) sadly reductive.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.ca/2013/04/the-glass-character-synopsis.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm