I heard the Sloan song Underwhelmed today, which naturally made me think of the best Canadian songs ever.

Apparently, the CBC made a list of 100 in 2004. (The CBC site has redesigned, so I couldn’t find the original.) Some of it makes sense. Some of it just looks like random selections from notable bands. (Seriously, Monster Hospital is the pick from Metric?) And the Guess Who’s American Woman features prominently in the great but now outdated book The Worst Rock n Roll Records of All Time. With good reason.  

I can’t do 100. But I figure I can do 10 and limit it to one per band (otherwise, I’ll have scores of Rush, Metric, Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan songs). The song’s rank in the CBC list is in parentheses:

1. Rush, Tom Sawyer (7)
2. Metric, Gimme Sympathy (NA)
3. Barenaked Ladies, The Old Apartment (NA)
4. Red Rider, Lunatic Fringe (NA)
5. Sarah McLachlan, Building a Mystery (40)
6. Gordon Lightfoot, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (29, below Sundown)
7. Alanis Morissette, You Oughta Know (31)
8. Sloan, Underwhelmed (58)
9. Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Takin’ Care of Business (34)
10. Bryan Adams, Cuts Like a Knife (NA)