Vancouver may not be New York, Paris or L.A., but it has its fair share of songs about it.
While it gets name dropped in many, they're not always about Vancouver. But there are actually a fair number of songs actually about life in the city and pieces of it's history.
These are five (that you probably haven't heard before).
1. Véronique Sanson - Vancouver
Sanson is a big deal in France, with several major awards to her name, and while Vancouver wasn't an award winner, it was a successful song; in fact, the album it was on shared the name.
While it is in French, the lyrics are clearly about Vancouver, at least to some extent. Notably, the chorus starts with "I sing in the port of Vancouver."
2. The Smugglers - Vancouver B.C.
Featuring a young Grant Lawrence before his work at CBC and as a local author, the Smugglers were a local garage punk band with seven studio albums to their names over a 15 year run coveringthe 90s.
As fans of their hometown, it may not be a surprise they penned a song titled Vancouver , B.C. However, it's not just a title; the song is very much about the band's hometown, with lyrics referencing the SkyTrain, Grouse Mountain and Granville Street.
3. Stompin' Tom Connors - Bridge Came Tumbling Down
Stompin' Tom Connors may be most famous for his hockey song, but he's well known for writing about a variety of Canadian historical events.
One of those was the collapse of the bridge that is now known as the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge (or Second Narrows Bridge). The reason for its name is the collapse that happened on June 17, 1958, which sent 79 workers into Burrard Inlet, killing 18 (a nineteenth person, a diver searching for bodies, died shortly after).
Connors decided to memorialize the event in song.
Remember and be kind
For the bridge came tumbling down
And 19 men were drowned
So you could ride to the other side
Of old Vancouver town
4. Treeline - The Vancouver Song
Just over a decade ago, the now defunct The Peak radio station used to have a competition called the Peak Performance Project.
As part of that local band Treelines put out The Vancouver Song, a very positive view of Vancouver, name dropping Expo 86 and the 2010 Olympics and mentioning everything from the local peaks to the Canucks.
We come from all around the globe,
In many languages we call this home,
What we eat and what we wear may differ,
But that just makes our culture richer.
You may complain about the rain,
But those are just tears from the clouds out here,
Cause they can't stay every day.
5. The Guess Who - Vancouver
The Guess Who that most people remember involves Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman, but a version of the band persisted after, involving a couple of the classic members including Jim Kale, who'd split from the band a couple years earlier.
In 1978 this version of the Guess Who released an album with the track Vancouver, a relatively soft, bluesy song that name drops lots of places, almost like a tourism brochure, including Stanley Park, Marine Drive and Spanish Banks (in a line that also references Wreck Beach).
