I bet you didn't know this song was Canadian. But yes, it is.
This Montreal pianist had a #3 hit in the US in 1979 with his instumental classic. And it came with a very clear mistake - a few notes are missing in that third repeated introduction. However, Mills could not afford to rerecord it, so the mistake stayed.
By the way, he recorded it in 1974. It took that long to get it released.
The song is recorded in C# Major so it would sound like a music box - specifically, his daughter's broken music box.
Oh yes, Frank Mills is still with us and still performs this song. It still sounds like it always did.
And, of course, musician. This was her debut single, in 1988. It ended up being a hit ACROSS Canada, which is a rare feat for a francophone song..... probably because it contained a few English words in the title.
It's a pretty racy song, to be honest - she ends up breaking up witht he cowboy even though he makes love like a god. This is not my intepretation. It is literally what she says. Well, also, he cheats on her, so she says... bye bye to her..... cowboy.
It's catchy as hell and you should hear it.
The song got a remix and a US release in 1990, and, well, Canadians love it. Americans just don't listen to French songs, even great ones. Still, it's a French song that got worldwide exposure, and that's great.
CBC Music has been a great resource for this blog for several years. Just this week, they released a list of songs that were hits ONLY in Canada.
ONLY in Canada.
Yes, there is a rule in Canada that a certain percentage of radio-broadcasted music has to be by Canadian artists, which makes Canada unique in promoting home-grown artists - and also makes a whole bunch of artists that are known ONLY in Canada.
This 2001 single - the debut by this Niagara Falls, Ontario pop-rock duo - was, indeed, a top 10 hit in Canada. It did get the song a Juno nomination (losing to Nickelback) and also a nomination for best new group, which it also lost.
The band broke up in 2003 to pursue other things, but they did reunite once, in 2016, at a Niagara Falls beer festival, and of course they performed their biggest hit.
This folk group from Newfoundland and Labrador had a few hits in the 1990s - hits that you wouldn't know if you didn't live in Canada.
Some of them were covers, to be sure, but they did original music, too. This song, from 1997, was among their biggest hits and it was written by members of the group. According to co-author Alan Doyle, it was inspired by a Vancouver street musician who had gotten beaten up and robbed, and then went right back to performing in the same place.
The song was co-opted by Conservative Party politicians in the 2000s, but the band filed a copyright claim to stop that. Because they don't need their song politicized.
It may not be so clear from the official video that they were a folk group, but this live performance should make that clear.
In 1989, he released his debut album, Symphony In Effect. He would release this classic as his first single, ever.
It hit the US top 40 chart and was a top 15 US rap hit. It is the first time a Canadian rap artist ever did either of those things.
In Canada, he sold more than 50,000 copies of this - which is their gold certification. He was the Canadian rap artist to do this.
But also, the song kicks some old-school ass. It's a great song, and even though he proudly declares he's not American, at the end of the day, that doesn't matter.
It is, of course his biggest hit, so it makes sense that he's still performing it all these years later. Here is the Canadian Music Hall of Famer performing the song last year as part of the coast-to-coast Canada Day celebrations.
He's still got the mad rhymes.
I mentioned he was a member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, and that's great. He was inducted in 2024 at the Juno Award ceremony and, yes, of course he closed with this song.
THIS might be the biggest oversight of this page so far. This song, when I first heard it on CFNY in the early 1990s, changed my life. It was lighthearted, fun, and lyrically clever. And you KNOW this post is going to be a doozy!!!
It also changed the way I looked at green dresses.
Written by Steven Page and Ed Robertson - the two vocalists - which should suprise no one - it takes a call-and response style and adds a lot of eccentric romantic purchases, many of them references to REAL purchases that Michael Jackson made. You never connected that set of dots, did you? But yeah, he bought Joseph Merrick's remains and a monkey. Haven't you always wanted a monkey?
The dialog pieces are different in every live performance because, no joke, they're made up as they go along. It's just banter.
The song was never released as a single, but became a HUGE HUGE hit anyway.
I can't even justify a studio version of this song for this post. I start with this 1996 live performance, where they react to the rides around them.
In 2000, the band performed the song at Farm Aid and were complementary to fine organic foods.
Then there's this Page/Robertson performance where they pick on the TV host in a stripped-down manner.
Then there is this 2008 performance where they have a special guest star on accordion.
Of course, Steven Page left the group and it's never been the same, but there's still a lot of banter. The whole band gets into it now. This show happened to be in Cincinatti, Ohio. If this concert happened today, it would probably cost 25% more.
But really, it was their reunion at the 2018 Juno Awards that got me. The shoutout to Maestro Fresh-Wes was a nice touch.
When I first saw this pop up on my Spotify last year, I had to do a double take. You see, I recognized the artist's name.... but not from music.
One of my favorite TV series of all time is a show from the 2010s called Orphan Black. Seek it out - I highly recommend it. Evelyne Brochu was the name of an actress on the show (for those who know the show, she played Delphine). And yes, it's the same Evelyne Brochu, I found out in my research. The even wilder thing I found out? She's Canadian - growing up outside of Montreal and a native speaker of French in Quebec (although also learning English at a very young age). I always thought she was French.
She did reprise her role of Delphine in Orphan Black: Echoes, which was also good but not quite matching the original.
But let's talk about "Paris". A sincere love letter to the city, Brochu sings the song with a sincerity and a brightness. It also seems like she recorded the video on her cell phone - because she did. She was the cinematographer.
Her performance is just as genuine and sweet live as it is recorded.
