Internal Soundtrack: Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier

If all country music sounded like Corb Lund, I’d be first on the wagon train to Calgary.

Lund was a founding member of seminal Edmonton punk band the smalls, but found his way back to his roots a few years ago. Lund grew up in and around Taber, Alberta, just outside Calgary, and along with his band, the Hurtin’ Albertans, has found a unique sound that blends country, rock, folk, bluegrass, roots. Hell, he blends pretty much anything he wants.

You may recognize his name from his last hit, “The Truck Got Stuck.”

“Horse Soldier, Horse Soldier” is the song that found its way into my head early this morning. It’s less comedic than “The Truck” and more epic.

It comes from the fifth album by Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans, titled Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! (note the punctuational differences) and released last fall. The entire album is a tribute to horses and the people who have ridden them throughout history.

This song in particular traces the horse solider (duh) through the conflicts of modern history. It’s a story, actually, which makes sense, because Lund is, in fact, a modern-day storyteller, a troubadour for our age.

And it’s got this as a hook:

I'm a hussar, I'm a Hun, I'm a wretched Englishman
Routing Bonaparte at Waterloo
I'm a dragoon on a dun, I'm a Cossack on the run
I'm a horse soldier, timeless, through and through
I’m a horse soldier, eternal, through and through

Lund is the kind of musician my father and I can both listen to when trapped together in a car - or truck. And Marty Robbins. That’s a special thing.

Internal Soundtrack: Weighty Ghost

It didn't take much for "Weighty Ghost" to find its way onto the internal soundtrack this morning. It's cold and rainy here in Vancouver, and even though the morning light appears earlier than a month ago, it was still dark and grey.

At some point, while in the swimming pool with my 9-month-old daughter, I caught a guitar lick wafting through the air. Instantly, this song, by Halifax band Wintersleep (off their album Welcome to the Night Sky), was rolling through my head, the choral chorus suddenly there: "Oh, have you seen my ghost? Seen my ghost, seen my ghost? Oh, have you seen my ghost, staring at the ground?"

The banjo twang and organ drone give the song a melancholy that was quite appropriate as we walked home in the drizzle.

Internal Soundtrack: Pop Goes the World

I've got two younger siblings, and when they were younger - like 2 and 4, or 3 and 5 - they hit this phase where they would not go to sleep without listening to Men Without Hats' Pop Goes the World.

Despite that album being the beginning of the end for the Montreal pop-synth band, it still has a soft spot for all of us, so I'm not surprised that the title track stuck in my head after I heard it in a store earlier today.

It was playing on some soft-rock FM radio station, and reminded me of how listening to the radio can remind you of songs you've forgotten about. It used to be that I used to listen to the radio to hear the new music, but most of that - for me - happens on the Internet these days. Love those CBC Radio 3 podcasts.

In tracking down an album cover image, I stumbled onto the band's Web site. It's news to me, but apparently Ivan and Stefan, the two Doroschuk brothers at the core of the group, reunited to release No Hats Beyond This Point in 2003. Anyone out there heard anything off that album?

Internal Soundtrack: 1234

One of the best times to hear your internal soundtrack is early in the morning, right after you wake from sleep, because your mind hasn't yet become cluttered with the thoughts, the sounds, the images of the day.

This morning I woke to the strains of Feist and her single, "1234" from the album The Reminder.

I know Leslie from her days in Calgary with the garage-punk band Placebo (okay, "know" might be a bit of a stretch, but I did book the band for a gig way back when), and was thrilled to see how much fun she had performing this song on Saturday Night Live last fall.

Now she faces four Grammy Award nominations (which will be handed out on February 10): best female pop vocal, for "1234"; best new artist; best pop vocal album for The Reminder; best short form music video for "1234".

Grant Lawrence and the CBC Radio 3 gang awarded this song a Bucky Award for "song most likely to be a future classic."

I'll say. The album was released in April, and I still can't get it out of my head.

Are you a fan of Feist? Tell me in the comments.

Internal Soundtrack: The Night Starts Here

Over at my work blog I started a regular feature called the "Internal Soundtrack" that I decided to move over here to Giga Byte Me.

In my first post on the topic (on Eddie Grant's "Electric Avenue"), I explain that the internal soundtrack is the personal soundtrack we all have running in our heads, even if we're not aware that there's a song playing there.

But in the early morning, when you are still half asleep, listen closely. I bet you hear a song in there. The more you listen for your internal soundtrack, the more aware you’ll become of it. I had a roommate once who would, at the weirdest moments – like at two o’clock in the morning when I was just getting home from fixing an ex-girlfriend’s flat tire – ask me what song was in my head. Whether he knew it or not, he trained me to hear my internal soundtrack.

It’s like tracking your dreams: the more you try to remember your dreams, the better you’ll find you recall them.

On this note, I realized today that "The Night Starts Here," from the latest album from Montreal's wonderband Stars, was running through my head. It's got the same soft, shifting lyric that typifies the band's writing, and is accompanied by a bass line that is disarming in its simplicity.

It's the fourth album for the band, and has a smooth confidence to it. At times I feel like Stars songs are over-produced, but I get over it soon enough.

Anyone else heard the new album? How do you think it compares?

P.S. For those of you who are interested, you can read earlier posts in the "Internal Soundtrack" by clicking here.