1  Seneca  Mitsa’s Abayas - Tlowitsis-Maamtigila

The song I have chosen is Mitsa’s Abayas. It is a song from my home of Alert Bay. I am Tlowitsis-Maamtigila and Namgis first nations. The song represents who I am as a person. It is what my people call the ladies professional dance. As a young girl we are groomed to know how to dance to this song, and learn all the hand movements. There are ladies dances that anyone can dance to, but they have no hand movements. You have to earn the right to dance the professional dance by learning the hand movements and becoming a lady. You know you have earned the right to dance the ladies professional when the older ladies ask you to dance with them.

        I had another song chosen to represent me culturally as I have lived off reserve for many years, but decided that this song represents me best because I am first nations first and a resident of Victoria second. I also think I love this song because it was sung by an old person that is no longer with us, and I remember listening to this exact tape at my dad’s workshop, while he carved with a bunch of other guys. It was a good time in my life that I never want to forget. I think music represents many things about a person: who they are, where they come from, and where they have been.

2 Andrew The song “Sound of Silence” by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel is a song that uses a lot of imagery and symbolism.  Some say it was written about the emotional trauma Americans went through after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963. Others say it’s about the fake and shallow culture that society is building on pop stars and their pursuit of money. The lyrics reference people “talking without speaking” and the people “hearing without listening”.  I think these lyrics mean that the media says a lot of things to society but none of it really means anything and a lot of people are hearing what the media has to say but they’re not really listening because there’s no meaning behind it anyway.  I think the “sounds of silence” represents a lack of meaning in some popular music that’s based on flashy “neon gods” that grab attention but are ultimately lacking in art and creativity.  Of course, I could be completely wrong with my interpretation of the song as fans often are, but the song still means something to me and I hear it as a message about cultural society that I absolutely agree with.

•   The main thing about playing the guitar, though, was that I was able to sit by myself and play and dream. And I was always happy doing that. I used to go off in the bathroom, because the bathroom had tiles, so it was a slight echo chamber. I'd turn on the faucet so that water would run - I like that sound, it's very soothing to me - and I'd play. In the dark. "Hello darkness, my old friend / I've come to talk with you again".

- Paul Simon

3 Randy - Incandescent Blue – Bruce Cockburn  

This song is definitive for me and my culture, being a product of the 60s and 70s I left home in the early 80s, off to the big city, then off to the bigger, more cosmopolitan and bilingual one, Montreal.  Heading out across the country in my VW van to see the mountains and prairies, and fall colours across northern Ontario and Quebec.  Completely on my own, trying to make it in a foreign place. I was "sneaking across the border" into my own mystery world, Quebec, the other side of Canada that taught me what my culture is and what really mattered most me. Living in a beautiful place with clean air and fresh water, bright blue skies and beautiful sights and sounds.

As the lyrics discuss:

"hear the lonesome  violin play, notes float up in to the overcast and change to whitebirds and sail on through and soar away free to incandescent blue".  He sounds like he is finding the spiritual in nature and also our being caught up in city life and control where we are concerned about safety as he also describes the imagery of "the concrete vortex sucks down the wind sounding like a howling violin",  tension in surviving travel through the big city traveling alone, missing the one(s) you need for support.  Seeking friends, confidents, lovers keeping memories and searches alive as living in transition,  trying to hold on freedom and beauty while traveling through the wide open world away from home. 

 Bruce Cockburn help to define home for me by the imagery of his words, his sounds and his stories. His style came to influence me strongly in my poetry and my passion for living well in the wide land of natural experience.

4, 5 6 Amanda  Hockey & Elvis
     When I looking at music that culturally influenced me there wasn't really much. I'm a 3rd/4th generation Canadian and those great great grandparents who came here were welsh and English and Irish. As I thought more about my growing up years I realized that i grew up on hockey. My brother, my dad, my uncles, I even have a relative who plays in the NHL. That's why I chose  Stompin' Tom Connors The Good Old Hockey Game and the hockey night in Canada theme. I tacked on an Elivs song as well. Music came alive to me the first time I heard Elvis.
SO i put on my favourite Elvis song, wooden heart, which came from the first Elvis movie I ever saw, which was G.I. Blues.

7 Victoria …..Xnotzeon ……

8  Celine   Destin  - Celine Dion
  
For me this song is special to me for a couple of reasons and no one of the reasons isn't cause we share the same name. Well first of the song itself
is in french which is my first language and growing up in a french household as well as attending french immersion makes this song a big part of who am I as a French Canadian, so that is kind of the cultural aspect of the song for me. For French Canadians Celine Dion is pretty big star which is another part of it too.  The next thing about the song that is meaningful for me is that for the time I am at in my life ,maybe no the exact lyrics of the song apply but the whole idea of chasing after what you feel is your destiny. She talks about how hard it is being away from everyone while she's out chasing her dream to be a singer. I can relate to this part of the song the most because in coming to school here in Victoria I had to leave my loved one's and family back in my hometown, but as hard as it was I knew that this move was what ,in the long run, would be the best thing for me and my own future.

9    Geoff   Summer of 69

 I've decided to go with "Summer of '69" for my entry mainly because it is a great Canadian song written by a very well known Canadian Rock singer Bryan Adams in 1984. I guess I chose this song because of its success and its popularity. It became a hit in the US immediately after its release in 1985 remaining at #5 on the Billboard Top 100 for two weeks. The song seems to have a had a reboost in popularity in the last few years which probably led to it being rated the "number one song to drive to in Canada in 2006".

10 Nicola Blind Faith - Dream Theater

I chose a piece of music called ‘Blind Faith’ by Dream Theatre because I believe that it absolutely and entirely represents our global culture as human beings. I may seem a bit pessimistic in my choice of song, but I feel that it is important to recognize our human flaws that inevitably hold us back as a human culture.

We live in a society so consumed in our own lives and sometimes in our own ignorance that we forget how our actions can have consequences, and how negligent we are to the feelings our fellow people are suffering. ‘Blind Faith’ by Dream Theatre beautifully highlights these very ideas and brings our absent-mindedness into words we can all reflect on. I know that I myself justify any mistakes that I make to the bitter bone. As I have made this realization, it greatly affects and changes my everyday life because before I do or say anything that might have an impact on my, or someone else’s, life, I really stop and think. I try and picture my own potential and ask myself constantly “am I reaching it?”

11  Kiwita  Return to Innocence - Enigma

Growing up, my family started a Cultural group called "Oh Toh Kin".  The group practiced many First Nations dances from around North America.  My favourite dance was the "Jingle Dance" from my mother's tribe, Ojibwa.  I would practice almost everyday, and I remember dancing to the song "Return to Innocence", over and over and over.  Now, whenever i hear the song, I am reminded of dancing the Jingle Dance. For this reason, the song has personal, as well as cultural significance to me!

12  Alexis    I’ll be there for you -   The Rembrants

A large part of North American culture is television. Successful T.V. sitcoms make a huge impact on many lives. For example, the show "Friends" was watched by millions through the nineties until it's final season in 2003. Not only did the show capture the interest of a young generation, "Friends" attracted a broad audience of all ages. The sitcom defined style and humour, and by the last episode had gained an enormous fan base. "I'll Be There For You", by The Rembrants immediately reminds one of the show, as it was the opening song to "Friends". The song can be seen as a representation the period of time in which the show aired, as well as the culture that resulted from it. 

13 Jenn    “simple life” by Carolyn Dawn Johnson.

This song came out when I was in high school and I really was not a fan of it at the time because I thought that it didn’t exactly have the best message for young girls.  I thought that the message was more or less, that if you are girl all you want to do is just settle down and start a family and really that is what your life should be about.  But a few years later, after I had been graduated, I heard it again and realized that there was actually more to it and that I could actually relate to it.   I had missed the part/did not understand at the time that after a few years of living the young life and traveling and doing all that fun stuff ,that you can’t really do it forever, and will become tired of it.  It was actually about returning to your roots.  Being raised on a farm I can relate to the culture that the song depicts; about the want to eventually return to the country and just taking life day by day and enjoying the simple things; hence, the simple life.  The line “there’s nothing like coming home” is not exactly original, but it is just so true and basic, that spending time with family and close friends is a vital part of my culture.  However, one of the next lines does not speak, “…after Church on Sunday…,” not so much part of my culture but to some that might be part of the basic pleasures in life.   I think that this song in general embodies a major part of my culture because as a child my family did most of the things in the song.  We would go down to the river, hang out on the porch, sit outside watching the stars and it really was the simple things that we did that defined what was important to us and the value placed on family in our culture.

14 Morgan    Try a little Tenderness : Otis Redding

This song holds no personal relevance to my life in terms of the lyrics.  It is a song that has been a reoccurring soundtrack throughout my childhood.  My mother was a big Otis fan and my little sister and I used to pop on his tapes and rock out in the living room when we were small.  With the release of Pretty in Pink to VHS it only cemented our love for the oldies and classic, cheesy love songs with soul.  My mother used to say that without soul music, my sister and me would never have been born, as traumatizing as that was to hear, it never dampened our spirit for gettin' down.  These moments are some of my favorite childhood memories and I’d be lying if I said it still isn’t a common CD in my play list.  It lifts my mood and inspires feelings of innocent hope.

15 Julie    Dirty Old Town –The Pogues

Although Dirty Old Town is not originally an Irish song at all, it has had an influence within the music scene in Irish culture.

I chose this song as it reminds me of life in Ireland every time I hear it. When you walk down the streets you hear live music playing from every bar. Most of the time, in the small pubs, locals are playing traditional songs. Dirty Old Town was by far the most popular. Every time this song was played everyone stopped what they were doing and sang along, even the children and the bar staff. For such a dark song, it was so uplifting.

The thing I miss the most about Ireland (besides the Guinness) is the sound of the fiddle with all the other instruments; Ireland pub jams are the best Craic!

16 Sean       “Oxycontin Blues”, by Steve Earle,

is a culturally relevant piece of music because it examines the impact we have on the environment, and in turn the impact the environment has on us.  It’s a short song about a boy who lives in a coal mining town, and his spiral into drug abuse.  I find that Steve Earle is a songwriter whose lyrics describe the human condition in terms of the struggles we have within our various socio-economic stations.  His songs are both liberating in their melancholy tones and they evoke empathy and wonder due to the characters he describes in his lyrics.  I like this song in particular because you can sense a genuine connection between his subject and his own personal struggles.

17 Heather Officer Down  - Current Swell <>

18 Stephanie  What I got  - Sublime <>

 19 Katherine - Didge Jam

Though this music is not from our own culture I picked it because it clearly displays elements from the Australian culture. Xavier Rudd (Artist) plays the didgeridoo, and ancient instrument that was created my the Australian aboriginal people.  It's made from a long hollow branch or stick and can create a wide variety of sounds.

20  Jaron -  Capoeira Tem Historia - Axe Capoeira vol.5

      I practice a Brazilian martial arts called Capoeira (cap-oh-ay-rah, with a Spanish sounding ‘r’). It is practiced to music played with traditional Brazilian instruments. The song I chose is a Capoeira song.

      Capoeira is a mixture of martial arts, dance and music. It is characterized by acrobatic style fighting moves that flow together in a type of dance between two people. This dance is described as a conversation: while one person ‘attacks’ the other person evades and vice versa, all while maintaining a flow of connected movements. For the most part there is little contact in Capoeira and it is mostly practiced for fun.

      Capoeira is practiced with a group of capoeistas. All the capoeistas form a circle called a roda (haw-dah) with a few people at one end playing the music and two people ‘playing’ (or fighting/dancing) in the middle.

      There are four main instruments that are played during a roda: the Atabaque (a large hand drum), the Pandeiro (a tambourine), the A-go-go (two bells struck with a stick) and the Berimbau (a bow-like instrument tightly tide with a steel wire that is struck with a stick making a buzzing sound). The Berimbau is a symbol of Capoeira and is the main instrument in that it sets the tempo and style of fighting. If you listen closely you can make out the Berimbau; it is the most recognizable instrument.

      The people who form the circle of the roda clap and sing to the chorus. Everyone is encouraged to put lots of energy into the music to create an empowering atmosphere for the dancers/fighters. It is very loud. It is also a very positive experience; everyone is in support of everyone else; everyone is there to have fun.

      Because Capoeira is challenging, a very social art form, great exercise and super fun it has become an important part of my life and my culture.

 URLs Outdoor(mexico) pic: http://www.axecapoeira.com/gallery/gallery.php?id=17

Indoor(vancouver) pic: http://www.axecapoeira.com/gallery/gallery.php?id=6

21 Rachelle   Nelly Powerless

22  Brandon      Crime of the Century- Supertramp

The reason why I chose this song is simple. I believe that music is an essential part of any culture. Not only can the lyrics inspire people to make a change, but the music can be very unique Cross Culturally. Supertramp is a band British band who has effectively spanned the generation gap, with songs redone today like breakfast in America and the Logical song. Crime of the century is the title track of their most popular album. The musical talent gone into this song is unparalleled. The harmony in the voices the piano solo the saxophone and the drums are all very distinct yet perfectly harmonious. I chose this song because it is music like this that can change the world.

Lyrics
Now they're planning the crime of the century
Well what will it be?
Read all about their schemes and adventuring
It's well worth a fee
So roll up and see
And they rape the universe
How they've gone from bad to worse
Who are these men of lust, greed, and glory?
Rip off the masks and let's see.
But that's no right - oh no, what's the story?
There's you and there's me
That can't be right