24. I Cain't Say No. Oklahoma

It is strange that there is anyone who does not think this song is fantastic. I think the lyrics are very clever. This is one of my favourite songs to sing at social occasions when I've had just a bit too much to drink. My public premiere with this song was at the first annual Library Idol competition at the S. Walter Stewart Library on Christmas Eve, 2001.

P.S. The photo shows me in a nurse's uniform that my grandmother, a nurse and excellent seamstress, made for me one Christmas.

25. Ae Fond Kiss. Eddi Reader

Eddi Reader was first featured back at #93. This song is quite different and very lovely, from her album of Robbie Burns songs. The photo shows our good friends S and M, who are very fond of one another.

26. Christ for President. Billy Bragg & Wilco

Woody Guthrie wrote a lot of songs which were never recorded; I'm not sure if he had actually written the music or not. In the 90s, his daughter approached Billy Bragg and asked him to put these lyrics to music. Billy Bragg and the band Wilco put out two albums, Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue II, of these Woody Guthrie songs.

Let's have Christ for President.
Let us have him for our King.
Cast your vote for the Carpenter
that you call the Nazarene.

The only way we can ever beat
these crooked politician men
Is to run the money changers out of the temple
And put the Carpenter in

O It's Jesus Christ for president
God above our king
With a job and a pension for young and old
We will make hallelujah ring

Every year we waste enough
to feed the ones who starve
We build our civilization up
and we shoot it down with wars

But with the Carpenter on the seat
away up in the capital town
The USA would be on the way prosperity bound!

Funny story about a Very Close Friend: this Friend was on a whale-watching tour with another Friend (also Very Close) who was back home for a visit, and on the boat they met this nice bloke from England and his girlfriend and had a nice chat. Fast forward to the weekend, when the VCF had bought tickets for her and Dr S (also visiting home) to see Billy Bragg in concert. As they were waiting in the line to go into the concert, they bumped into the English bloke's girlfriend. Friend asked girlfriend if her boyfriend was coming to the concert. Girlfriend looked at Friend quizically and did not answer. The Aha moment came when the English bloke walked onto the stage: Billy Bragg.

27. Stardust. Ruby Braff

I was introduced to this album in my teens, I think. The music is great and I loved the album cover. The CD I bought of this in the 90s had the wrong cover but I found the right one on the internet.

28. Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier. James Taylor

This traditional song from the American Revolution is actually a version of a Gaelic song from the late 1600s / early 1700s, when the Irish went to France to fight in the French army - the original song is called Siul a Ghra or Siul a Run. Pamela Morgan and Anita Best did a version of it, but I can't seem to find it anywhere. One verse that seems to be common in all the versions (this one is from Siul a Ghra) is:

I'll sell my lock, I'll sell my reel
When my flax is spun I'll sell my wheel,
And buy for my love a sword and steel
Is go dti a mo mhuirnin, slainte.

Another guy who does Johnny Has Gone For a Soldier is Old Man Luedecke, a banjo player from Nova Scotia. You'll hear him in a few days.

29. Finlandia. Sibelius

I discovered Sibelius kind of late in life, because I never listened to side two of my Finlandia album (see post #38). This piece starts out sounding very menacing, and continues in a serious note until it gets about halfway through. Then things start to get kind of excited, and finally we get this very hopeful tune. We have a hymn to this tune in Voices United, the United Church hymn book, and the words (most of them) really fit the sound of the music, I think.

All praise to you, O God of all creation: you made the world, and it is yours alone.
The planet earth you spun in its location amid the stars adorning heaven's dome.
We lease the earth but for a life's duration, yet for this life it is our cherished home.

With wondrous grace you clothed the earth in splendour; with teeming life you filled the sea and land.
Instil in us a sense of awe and wonder when we behold the bounty of you hand.
Then when we hear the voice of bird or thunder, we hear the voice our faith can understand.

I don't approve of words like "lease" in a hymn, but I like the imagery of creation and nature.

30. You'll Never Leave Harlan Alive. Patty Loveless

I first heard Patti Loveless sing this at a Down from the Mountain concert in Toronto in 2002. This song has a lot of things going for it: the story, with its plot twists; the instruments, especially the fiddle and mandolin, and the great harmonies (in the chorus, you get the harmony line above the melody). I like the way the chorus starts out on kind of a hopeful note (at least it sounds like a hopeful key), but turns dark.