Ten years ago the world began to notice us. We’ve always
been a country with some of the world's greatest music, but for some reason this
time was different. I was a young writer then. Still in school with my emo hair
and a copy if Is This It, and I too, began taking a better look at the country I
live in.
In early 2003, at 18 years old, I heard You Forgot it in
People by Broken Social Scene for the first time. Now, I’ve had several
discussions with friends about their first time listening to this record and we
all tend to agree: that was the moment when the game changed. Without knowing it, You Forgot it in People was
the record that would bring us together. No disrespect to Joni Mitchell, Stompin’
Tom, Anne Murray or Leonard Cohen (still, fuck you, Celine), but it felt like
it was our music and our time now.
There are few words left to be said about this album — and I
won’t repeat them here since this isn't a review. You Forgot it in
People isn’t considered good just because it's an
amazing album, but for what it has done for us, too. Turning on a radio in the early
2000's all we'd hear were songs about cars we'd never afford, or "bitches in tow", and why would we want to listen to that?
We wanted change and we got it.
After that, the door was ajar for other acts such as Stars, Metric, The
Acorn, Arcade Fire and countless other Broken Social Scene off-shoots. Stars would drop Set Yourself on Fire and make Canadian music history in
their own right. Metric would bring rock back into our lives with Old World
Underground, Where Are You Now and it's hard to imagine our lives without those
seminal albums.
Those records awoke something in me — something difficult to
explain, but it’s best thought of as a call of duty. I wanted the world to hear
this music and make them feel the joy I felt, have it touch their lives like it touched mine. So I began writing about Canadian music.
Moving to Toronto
after graduating, I'd meet people with a similar spirit (and much stronger
journalism skills) and we worked together with the same mission statement. We
would champion Canadian music or die trying. Now, none of us actually died
(though we drank enough that we probably should have), but we did eventually grow up
and realize stuff like eating and paying rent is also important. We had to
divide our time between the job we would continue to do along with the job that
would continue to keep us alive.
The years have been kind to our musical friends. Broken
Social Scene, Metric, Feist, Stars, The Dears, Arcade Fire — along with many other
bands we wrote about in those early years — acheived great success. We got to be happy for them and
happy we came along for the ride. Although most of those people don't know us
by name, we like to think they felt our presence.
Like these bands, we all had our ups and downs. Some of us still write about music, some of us don't. But we could
always rely on music to keep us together.
In June, I sat at the Field Trip festival, which featured both Stars
and Broken Social Scene, with the people I shared those albums with. It got me thinking. I was with a couple who called the festival's line-up the soundtrack
to their relationship, a newlywed couple whose greatest bond is music, and other
friends whom I’ve seen all these bands with many times before — and who I'll see them with many times
again. I reflected on how these people are like family to me and how we owe it to one
album. If that album was never released we would have never come together in
the ways we did; we wouldn’t be sitting here right now pooling together money for more beer.
Looking around the festival, I could see it other
peoples' faces, too. We all felt the same way. We all wanted to hear You Forgot it
in People in its entirely with the people we'll never forget. Couples held each
other, children held hands and I held a tear back from my eye.
Leaving the show, after feeling the raw emotion of a band
who loves the city we live in — and its fans — there was an unspoken conversation.
These bands don't need us anymore, but others do. Though our love of these bands
will never end, the era we lived in with them is over; it's time to move on.
Broken Social Scene is a band that never forgot where it came from and I
believe that's the most grounding, down to earth and accessible thing about
them. It's one of the reasons their music wraps around us like a sweater. A sweater weaved
with some of the most talented musicians, writers, producers and artists we'll
ever know.
I'd like to wear that sweater for the rest of my life, but
there will always be times it stays in the drawer. I'll never forget it's
there, how it makes me feel and why I will always keep it close to me. That
sweater brought me purpose, friendship, and above all, family. I owe my life to
that sweater. To that album. To that band.
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Cody McGraw is many things but the
thing you can actually call him to his face is the Managing
Editor of The Little Red Umbrella. See more posts from him here or follow him on Twitter @cody_mcgraw.
First photo: You Forgot it in People by Broken Social Scene
Second photo: Field Trip (by Adam Bunch)
