Well, this song.... it wasn't a hit when Elvis recorded it in 1968. It was a minor hit when rerecorded later that year for a TV special.... but it wasn't a hit, despite being a fun and energetic song. Written by Mac Davis (who wrote and later rerecorded a lot of Elvis songs) and Billy Strange, it was perhaps more than people were expecting.
Here's a video of the original, from the movie Live a Little, Love a Little, where the song first appeared.
You likely know this song, but that version you just heard doesn't sound right, right?
Fast forward to 2001. The song was featured in the movie Oceans 11, and then Junkie XL remixed it.
THIS SONG was a worldwide hit in 2002, everywhere... except the United States, where it was still a MINOR hit, but not to the level of everywhere else, where it was a top 5 hit. Even in the US, it was his first visit to the Billboard Hot 100 in twenty years.
It was only a matter of time until I got to Oliva Rodrigo's opening act, right?
But Chappell Roan is so much more than just an opener. She's a singer/songwriter from the middle of Missouri, who makes campy, poppy music with a drag-queen inspired aesthestic. This song, a 2022 song that ended up on her acclaimed album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, co-written by Chappel Roan, Daniel Nigro and Skyler Stonestreet, and its video, with all its pop culture references and over-the-top fashion is a perfect illustation of that aesthetic.
To be sure, she is unique, and so is this song. I'm genuinely impressed.
I could have very easily found a GUTS tour opening act performance of this song - and I did. I chose INSTEAD to share a more intimate club perforance of this song, which sounds better anyway. She engages the crowd, and they respond. She doesn't even need a background vocalist (she supplied her own on the album anyway).
This 1978 disco classic was co-written by Sylvester and James Wirrick. It was not more than a minor hit in the US - not nearly his biggest - and was a huge hit in Europe.
But that is only the start of the story.
The song was also a hit in discos - a club hit, as we would call it today. It is here where his star would truly shine - and endure. The song has been used as an anthem for LGBTQ+ pride in the years since the song was released - the magazine Time Out ranked it #8 on a list of songs to celebrate Pride all year long.
Sylvester himself, with his androgynous looks and the fact that he was, in fact, gay, was propelled by this song into icon status within the gay communitiy, and beyond, because the man was fabulous. Sadly, he passed away in 1988 from complications from HIV - I'm so grateful that that disease is not the killer it was in the 1980s but we still need a cure.
We are so happy to bring you a live version of this - not every disco song has that, but Sylvester did perform live. The laser sounds in the song are replaced with horns, and my goodness, it's a fantastic sound.
Olivia Rodrigo released one of my 2 or 3 favorite albums of 2023 - GUTS - in September.
Last week, she released GUTS (spilled) with five more songs.
Do I buy the new vinyl? Probably not. But this, the first new single, is pretty spectacular. Co-written by Rodrigo, Dan Nigro, and Annie Clark, it rocks hard and is already a top 20 hit. Fun fact - this is the 2nd Olivia Rodrigo song on which Annie Clark is listed as a songwriter ("deja vu", which borrows heavilty from "Cruel Summer" being the first), but the first on which they truly collaborated.
Anyway, it's a banger. Check it out.
Even before the expanded album, the song existed - and was on some special versions of GUTS (although not the one I own, dammit). It is included on the GUTS tour playlist.
This song was written and produced by Jim Steinman and was Bonnie Tyler's biggest hit by a long shot - becoming one of the hugest hits worldwide in 1983. It is a sad song - and one that's probably going to make you cry if you are prone to that. Originally clocking in at seven minutes, the radio version was around the four minute mark.
The song was Grammy-nominated, and would have likely had more had it not come out the same year as Michael Jackson's Thriller album.
Still, it's made Bonnie Tyler the name you know today.
And, oh yes, she did perform the song at the Grammys. And it was spectacular. Her husky voice shone strong that night.
I knew it was a possibility that Flower Face would come out with new music soon, and starting in late February, she started teasing a new video and a new song. There are very few posts I would not have immeduately bumped in favor of a brand spanking new Flower Face single. Maybe not The Beaches, but anyone else.
Well, she would release it just after March was done. April 4th, 9pm Eastern time. As I am writing this post, the song has been out for less than an hour, and now I'm rescheduling my Friday post to get this out, quickly. I just moved it to next week, so no big deal.
Seriously, she was very public on social media when she was recording her new album, and now a single is out. It still is written and performed by Flower Face, and it still features her rich, soft voice. It has a slightly more poppy sound - and her lyrical maturity shows through strong here. I can't wait to hear what comes next.
I suspect this is going to be in my heavy rotation for the next several weeks. I hope you enjoy it.
I seriously, SERIOUSLY debated whether this song from the Barbie movie deserved to be here - and not on Totally Covered.
Gayle is listed as a songwriter. She absolutely did lift the chorus from the Crazy Town song "Butterfly", The original songwriters are listed. But what Gayle did almost could be defined more as a sample than as a cover.
And, let's be clear. whereas the Crazy Town song is listed as one of the worst singles of all time (which means we will post about it eventually), Gayle's version absolutely slaps. It is NOT laid back, but instead a straight-ahead hard rock song.
Gayle has a condition called chromesthesia - in which sound invokes a color response. We wonder what colors she sees when she performs this song.
By the way, it's also a song that sounds absolutely terrific live. And seems to be very pink.
Thanks for sticking with me through my fourth #MapleLeafMarch. I didn't think it would last, and I didn't think it would change my musical taste forever, but both of those things happened.
I also didn't think I'd have to push a post from March to April 2nd just to make sure it was posted in a timely manner. For those who are regular readers of this blog, I asked a couple of days ago, "Why the hell couldn't I just move Lights?" This is the post I was referencing. I ended up moving it for something ELSE important.
At this point, I know what a Lights release cycle looks like at this point. This is the point where she ends an "era" - in this case, the "PEP" era - and spends time collaborating with other artists.
Well, in this case, it's an artist she's worked with before. Felix Cartal is a Canadian DJ - Vancouver - who has done a LOT of great collaborations. This is their latest one - written by Cartal and Poxleitner-Bokan (because she does have a last name) (also, Felix Cartal is a stage name - Taelor Deitcher is his real name) (how the hell is Lights NOT just a stage name but Felix IS?!) (InB4 "but she was born Valerie" - I know! I know! You do know who you are talking to here, right?) released in February - and it is, once again, phenomenal.
Also, sorry about all the Lights recently. But I couldn't ignore this one.
Well, she's an independent musician and something of a TikTok and Instagram influencer. She's a single mom to a tween. She's kind of a hippie. She's very comfortable with her own body, clearly.
She also writes very positive music - borderline hippie. And it seems like the combination of her free spirit public image, her embracement of psychedelic drugs in some of her music, and her positivity really pissed people off on Twitter X....
....enough to get her to join Twitter X and bring her positivity there.
I don't understand the hate - she seems genuinely kind and goes out of her way to interact with her fans. I love her! Her sweet spirit is absolutely infectious. Also, proving that there's no such thing as bad publicity, the attention has hepled bring her music to a broader audience.
This song is from her 2021 album Lioness and it's a very ethereal, very light song - I'd almost say atmospheric.
This absollutely bonkers song is based on a really long German tongue twister.
It's about a small-town woman named Barbara who is really well known for her rhubarb cake. She opened Barbara's Rhubarb Bar, which was discovered by barbarians. They would come to be known as the rhubarb barbarians (rhubarbarians?).
We're 30 SECONDS into the song at this point.
Over the years, the barbarians mellowed. They became, in Barbara's words, kinder, more than even Barbapapa, who, by the way, is a nice pink blob from a kid's book.
Barbapapa
However, the barbarians were very hairy, and they grew really shaggy barbarian beards, which Barbara did not find special at all.
You have to know where this is going.
She sent them to a barbarian beard barber. He even styled their entire barbarian heads in his barbarian beard barber shop. After they were done, the barbarians invited the barbarian beard barber to Barbara's rhubarb bar. They drank a beer together at the bar, the rhubarb barbarians and the bearded barber, and they ate a piece of rhubarb cake without any barbarism.
These tough men became very approachable, all thanks to Barbara's rhubarb!
So, three barbarians and the bearded barber were sitting in the bar one evening having a beer. Then, the police came, looking for the Three Barbarians and the Bearded Barber.
1:27, we're done.
And now, you've enjoyed a delightful German tongue twister.
This year, we had WAY too much content. We almost doubled up on weekdays - and DIDon some days. The Beaches getting pushed to a weekend feels wrong.
And yet, here we are.
Why the hell couldn't I just move Lights? (Editor's note: Yeah, we did end up moving Lights to another day OUTSIDE OF MARCH because this month was THAT packed, so there's no link there!)
The Beaches are a Toronto band that have been around for a decade, and finally broke through to US alternative radio in 2023 with this absolutel banger. As of the time I am writing this, they are nominated for two Juno Awards this year (Group of the Year and Rock Album of the Year, for Blame My Ex, who absolutely is a real ex of Jordan Miller named Brett) (edit: they WON both of those Junos), but those were awarded last week as of the time you are actually reading this, so hopeful we remember to update this post. (Edit: we did but a little bit late)
We really feel badly for relegating this absolutely great song to a weekend. We're going to promote the hell out of this post.
But, to be fair, they really ARE up and coming. They only just appeared on Jimmy Kimmel's show last month.... and they were spectacular.
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Here is the band in Ottawa last summer, performing the hell out of this song. They give off a Go-Go's vibe, and not Loverboy, for sure.
We promise to post more of them on weekdays in the future. We may not even wait until next March.
When possible, I like to include concert footage with a personal connection. My sister went to their show in Toronto on Nov. 1, 2023 - and got footage of this song.
Wanna see it?
Wanna see the crowd go nuts?!
Here ya go.
(Edit: 3 Sep 2025) So, I mean, they can never not play this song again. You got linked here from a post about another song and yeah, they did this song at the June 2025 show in Buffalo, too!
This is why you're getting your 2nd Maryze post within five minutes of the first.
In this post, though, we're going to talk about this 2021 non-album single that is just a fun song about being pretty and poor. Also, it's about owning your identity and who you are - Maryze identifies themself as queer, gender-fluid and non-binary, and this video features Maryze with a lot of their friends being who they are. Filmed in Montreal, it makes me want to go there now.
And yes, I know. The song is called "Female Brad Pitt" so that seems to really imply a gender. Maryze's pronouns are she/they.
It is always a struggle for me to choose what music to include and what to leave out every March. It is especially hard this year, when there are so many weekend days.
This is really the only time of year we post on Saturday and Sunday, and I try to turf lesser-known artists to those days - up and comers, if you will.
One of those up and comers is Maryze (her real name - Maryze Bernard), based in Montreal but originally from Vancouver, who released their debut album 8 in 2022. It took me a few listens to really get the alt-pop feel of the whole album - of which this song is an absolute centrepiece - but I'm in. I'm all in.
This song starts a little slow but build quickly, and the seizure warning is no joke. Directed and concieved by Maryze themself, the video is visually appealing and draws you in.
It took a while for Blonde to grow on me, but it did. Her solo catalog is eight albums deep at this point, and I'd put at least three of them in my top 20 of all time - Roses (easily top 5 and probably top 3), Perséides, En cas de tempête, ce jardin sera fermé - and the rest aren't far behind, including Blonde.
This absolutely stunning song, written by Béatrice Martin (who by now you should know is Cœur de Pirate), is the reason Blonde exists. It is a hauntingly dense and beautiful song that she was dying to record. Named for the plaza in Paris, it is a melancholy love song, and it sits smack dab in the middle of the album.
Voici Cœur de Pirate interprétant la chanson en direct et en beauté à l'Aéroport international Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau de Montréal. Est-ce une salle de concert insolite ? Bien sûr. Est-ce absolument magnifiquement réalisé ? Absolument. Ai-je utilisé Google Translate pour vous écrire ? Vous pariez que je l'ai fait.
Born in Toronto, and a Canadian citizen, Neil Young is an absolute national treasure. He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1982 - 7 years before today's song was released.
This song, from Young's 1989 album Freedom, is one of his biggest hits ever, being both a Canadian chart hit and a US rock radio hit.... plus MTV loved this song, which you can't say about every song and video he made.
This song was something of a career revolution for Young, who subsequently toured to packed houses and released a live album - Weld - that was also a hit. Written by Young, it is absolutely a song of revolution.
The song was actually on the album twice. This acoustic version was also featured. They're both really powerful.
Young also performed the song live on Saturday Night Live in 1989, a performance Dennis Miller called the greatest ever for the show.
This is the REHERSAL.
It was so important to include Neil Young this month, and this song specifically, I moved Lights.
Anyone who knows me personally knows that I spent several months in Calgary, Alberta in 2019... and visited for a day in 2022 as well. I love the city. It was a great place to work and live and visit, and I would gleefully return.
Why am I spending time evangelizing Calgary?
Because today's Wicked Guilty Pleasure hails from Calgary. Formed in 1979, they got their start as Kiss's opening act in Vancouver.
Seriously. That was their first live performance.
An album followed in 1980, and their first single, released in 1981, was "Turn Me Loose". Mike Reno really sells the song - practically begging to do it his way or no way at all. It ended up being a Top 40 hit in the US (and a huge hit on rock radio in the States as well) and Top 10 in Canada. It also won the 1982 Juno Award for Single of the Year.
It would be their biggest Canadian hit (but by no means their only!), but they did a lot more in the US, where MTV embraced them.
And, yes, they are Canadian Music Hall of Famers - 2009 inductees - beating Shania Twain there by 2 years.
And yes, they are still together - after a brief hiatus in the late 80s, they reformed in the early 90s and never looked back.
And Mike Reno is older, but still commands the stage. That classic bassline is still there. The classic guitar is still here, more than 40 years after its initial release.
I don't think I've ever featured an artist from Nunavut.
Hell, most of you don't know where Nunavut is.
Riit is from a town in Nunavut called Panniqtuq located on Baffin Island, which is about 45 km. south of the Arctic Circle. For those who measure distance in screaming bald eagles instead of kilometers, that's about 28 miles. Nunavut is a Canadian territory, formed in 1999 when the Northwest Territories were split roughly along ethnic lines. Nunavut is primarily Inuit, who are a First Nations group that you may know by another name we're not saying.
Riit is the stage name of Rita Claire Mike-Murphy, who is a children's television show host. She hosted a show in English and Inuktitut called Anaana's Tent. Here's the Season 1 promo in English.
And here it is in Inuktitut.
We don't make this stuff up.
In 2017, she released her debut album, and followed it in 2019 with the critically acclaimed Ataataga - a 2020 Juno Award nominee - which included the lead single "quamajaupik". Her music is traditionally Euro-synth, except the lyrics are all in Inuktitut. Literally translated to "you are shining", this is a love song that preserves her native First Nations language, which is exactly her intent.
As part of the release of this single, Riit also had a performance for CBC Music in which she debuted this song.....
The performance is just spectacular, and that's why we're doubling up today and not pushing Riit's Maple Leaf March debut to 2025.
It's funny. We've been doing this Canadian music thing in March for four years now.
We've now had Carly Rae Jepson posts in three of them. The year we missed? 2022.
This song is from Jepsen's 2022 Juno-nominated album The Loneliest Time.
The video is absolutely hilarious, and the song is a bop (and hilarious in its own right) that should have been a hit everywhere.
We know from past experience that Carly Rae puts on a hell of a good show. Here she is in Montreal putting on a hell of a great performance of this banger.
Congratualtions to Charlotte Cardin on her multiple Juno Award wins.
I don't know as of this writing (I wrote this in February) whether she won last night or not, but, given all her nominations and critical acclaim, I'm going to bet she did. I'll edit this post if I was wrong (but I won't be).
(Edit:24 March - she won Pop Album of the Year. and one of the major awards, Album of the Year. She did lose Artist and Single of the Year - both to Tate McRae.)
This song was nominated for Song of the Year this year (one of her six Juno nominations, including two for the album 99 Nights). Written by Cardin, Jason Brando and Lubalin, this song is funky and has a strong R&B influence, with Cardin's husky voice carrying the track. The song is lyrically a little depressing - reminding me a bit of "Habits (Stay High)".
The song has been Cardin's biggest hit in Canada - her first top 10 entry - and she is absolutely an artist that deserves attention outside of Canada.
Could Charlotte Cardin be the Canadian Taylor Swift? Who knows, but this crowd is really into her performance.
I failed to mention earlier that Cardin is from Montreal, is of course still Canadian, and currently lives in Paris.
I mention this because, on her 99 Nights Deluxe release, which was mostly French, she included 4 extra songs.... and really, this was just 99 Nights plus her EP, Une semaine à Paris.
Yes, Begonia is nominated at this year's Juno's (Adult Alternative Album of the Year, for Powder Blue), which are TONIGHT.
Begonia is the stage name of Alexa Dirks, a singer/songwriter from Winnipeg, Manitoba, which, to those in the States who aren't following along this March, is in Canada. She is unique, and flamboyant, and entertaining, and she deserves a bigger spotlight, which is why we're featuring her on a Wednesday and not a Sunday.
This song is a centerpiece of her nominated album, and was co-written by the artist with Matt Schellenberg and Matthew Peters (the three of them also produced the song). It is a short song, sure, but also, it's a great showcase for one of the more unique voices in music today.
Begonia's songs are known to be even more epic live. This is an in-studio live performance of this song at incredibly influential CFNY in Toronto - so maybe not so epic, but still, amazing.
If you didn't know that Feist was still making music after "1 2 3 4", you're missing out on a fabulous solo artist. The Nova Scotia-born and Calgary-raised artist released her comeback album Multitudes, nominated for a Juno and shortlisted for the 2023 Polaris Music prize (it lost that), in 2023, and it is truly delightful.
The album documents the death of Feist's father and the adoption of her daughter - which makes for a rich tapestry of just beautiful folk-pop music.
As is typical of Feist, she puts on a hell of a live show - and in this show, she also shows the phenominal video she made for this beautiful song.
Also, this month is so packed we've got Feist on a SATURDAY!
In this week where we are posting about absolute monstrous superstars, we bring one of the biggest stars on the planet.
I mean, her name - Céline - is synonymous with her.
Who is the best selling French language artist in history? Céline Dion.
Who is the best selling Canadian artist in history? Céline Dion.
Who is the biggest gaping hole in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame? Céline Dion.
She is the first Maple Leaf March post-ee to be a Eurovision winner - in 1988, representing Switzerland, despite being a Canadian, from Charlemagne, Quebec, just outside of Montreal. 1988 was also the year she learned how to speak English, having grown up a French speaker. She was 20 and had been recording music for almost a decade - and music that was relatively well-known in the French-speaking world.
After she broke through in the Anglo market, she did not forget her roots. In 1995, she released a Francophone album called D'eux in most of the world. In the United States, it was called The French Album.
OF COURSE the English speaking world didn't embrace the ALBUM like the French speaking world did, but it was a big hit in Europe and Canada. This was one of her best-known singles of that era - in her very distinctive style, only in French. This particular single was actually a hit in the UK as well, making the top 10.
It is her biggest French language hit by far.
When she performs the song live in the French-speaking world, it is like "My Heart Will Go On". Everyone knows EVERY word.
Even during her Vegas residency, she performed the song, because of course she did. The song is clearly very important to her, and English audiences do respond.
Gordon Lightfoot passed away last May, and we didn't do a Special Edition post for him.
That's because I was saving it for today. This week, when I am posting about some of the giants of Canadian music.
Gordon Lightfoot was a goddamn Canadian treasure, and there's no fucking way we weren't putting a fitting tribute into Maple Leaf March. Inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986, we aren't just saying things like this to say them. We're saying them because he is revered to this day across Canada, and he truly spoke to life in Canada in a lot of his songs.
This song was released in 1967, having been commissioned in 1966 by the CBC to commemorate the building of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which is transcontinental, as part of a celebration of the Canadian Centennial.
Lightfoot's debut album was released in 1966, and he had a few top 10 hits as far back as 1962, so he was already a big enough deal to do this. This song was also included on his 1967 album The Way I Feel, and is a huge and epic song of labor and national pride.
He re-recorded the song for his 1975 greatest hits album Gord's Gold.
We could think of no greater tribute than a performance of this song from Reno, NV in the year 2000. This is one of the videos that is included as part of his official Canadian Music Hall of Fame record.
Not good enough? How about this 1972 performance from the BBC? It's different, equally beautiful, and spreads the Canadian pride.
OK, you want peak Canadian pride. I get it.
Here's Gordon Lightfoot performing "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" on Ottawa's Parliament Hill on the occasion of Canada's 125th birthday party.
