Classic Canadian Song Lyrics Trivia Quiz

Answer: White Hot

"White Hot" was Red Rider's first big hit and came from their first album, titled "Don't Fight It", which was released in 1980. After releasing their fourth album, "Breaking Curfew", in 1984, they were released by Capitol Records but immediately signed on with RCA and became known as Tom Cochrane and Red Rider.

They had three releases with RCA, but with dwindling sales and Cochrane's solo career taking off, the group broke up in 1989. Their most successful album was called "Neruda", named after Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, and became the band's third straight platinum album in Canada while reaching number 66 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart in the U.S.

Answer: Five Man Electrical Band

"Signs" by the Five Man Electrical Band did poorly on its first release as a single, but when it was re-released by MGM in 1971 with "Signs" on the A-side, it hit number four in Canada, reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Top 100, and spent nearly two months at the number one spot on Australia's music charts.

The song also showed great success by selling over one million copies. In 1973, their album "Sweet Paradise" produced the prophetic sounding single "I'm A Stranger Here", which became their highest ranking single ever in Canada, reaching number two on the charts.

Answer: Snowbird

"Snowbird" is Anne Murray's most recognizable and well-known song. But her success on the Canadian country charts, Canadian Adult Contemporary, and U.S. Contemporary Charts is rarely seen for a Canadian artist, if ever seen at all. Murray has hit the number one spot on the Country charts in her home country of Canada no less than twenty-four times.

The Canadian Contemporary listings has twenty-six number one hits by Anne, while the U.S. Contemporary Charts has been graced by her voice with eight number one hits, a remarkable feat by a Canadian artist from any genre.

Her career has run from 1968 right through to the 2010s and she has at least forty-seven albums to her credit so far.

Answer: (You're) Havin' My Baby

Despite writing sixty-five top 100 hits that could be found on as many as five different music hit charts at the same time, "(You're) Havin' My Baby" was his first number one hit in fifteen years, which he sang as a duet with Odia Coates. "Lonely Boy" was the title of his previous number one song from 1959. "Lonely Boy" was made into a documentary in 1962 by the NFBC - National Film Board of Canada - and was considered a classic work of cinema verite.

As well as enjoying a long and established musical career, Anka was also known for his acting career which included parts and cameos in 1962's war epic, "The Longest Day", 2001's "3000 Miles to Graceland", and many other t.v. sitcoms and dramas.

Although Paul is considered Canadian/American, he was actually born in Ottawa, Canada on July 30, 1941 and has been in the music business since 1955.

Answer: You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

Bachman Turner Overdrive originated in Winnipeg, Manitoba back in 1973, and in 1975 hit the charts with their first number one hit, "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet", from which the lyrics came. The group was accused of stealing the song style and the stutter from The Who, but Randy Bachman insists to this day that the song was merely a joke directed at his brother who has a stuttering speech impediment as well as a shyness when around the female gender.

He does admit that the song sounds like "Baba O'Reilly", yet he insists the song was recorded once and sent to his brother.

The story holds truth as the only time one would hear "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" was when B.T.O. used it to set up their microphones and sound systems. Lacking a song that would make their third album the "magic single" they were seeking for their third album, Charlie Fach of Mercury Records and some band members suggested using the song for this purpose and the rest is history. Randy made some changes in the song to avoid the whining being done by The Who and the piece was added to their popular album, "Not Fragile". Since that time, Gary Bachman has taken speech lessons and no longer has a stutter.

Answer: Cuts Like A Knife

All of the songs shown came from the same album, with the same title as the song in question, "Cuts Like A Knife". It hit number six on the Billboard Rock Tracks and quickly rose to number fifteen on the Billboard Hot 100. The album is named number fifteen in Bob Mersereau's book, "The Top 100 Canadian Albums". "Straight From The Heart" and "This Time" were two other singles that achieved good success from the album.

Answer: Subdivisions

"Subdivisions" is one of my all-time favourite videos as it was filmed in Toronto mostly in areas that I often travelled through by car or other well-known city places such as downtown venues like the Funland Arcade Centre and Sam the Record Man. It even had a scene of the young man in the video playing on an arcade game called Tempest, the very game I often shoved my owned quarters into.

The song was written with an intent to show Rush fans how people are shoved together in ant farm-like situations and as the lyrics mention and the video shows, "Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone".

After years of complaints from fans and thousands of letters demanding Rush be admitted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they were finally chosen to be inducted in 2013 by the very musical wannabes that worked so hard to keep them out. Still playing to this day after 45 years which includes a five-year hiatus, they have put forth twenty-four Gold records and fourteen platinum albums, which includes three multiplatinum albums.

They remain the fourth best-selling group in history, with only The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Kiss ahead of them.

Answer: Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell is one of the few Canadiian artists that surprisingly made it in the United States before becoming big in Canada. But still not big enough, as her boyfriend left her pregnant and broke. But Mitchell was a persistent and hard-working musician and in 1970 she garnered her first Grammy Award for her album, "Clouds", for Best Folk Performance. Only a month later, Reprise Records released "Ladies of the Canyon", her third album which included the familiar song "The Circle Game" and her darker version of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's "Woodstock", as well as the environmental anthem, "Big Yellow Taxi", with its now famous refrain, "They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot".

Answer: Gino Vanelli

Tough one here for those who don't follow Canadian music, but Gino Vannelli did go on to release eighteen chart-making albums and twenty-three singles after Herb Alpert, famous from Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, found him and his two brothers, Joe and Ross, waiting outside his locked studio gate in Los Angeles in 1973.

They were there due to being financial distraught and desperate for any musical shot afforded them as they were totally broke and were heading back to Montreal the very next day if this final attempt failed. Lucky for the Vannelli Brothers, and especially Gino, Herb loved what he heard and had them signed to an A & M contract two days later.

Despite "I Just Wanna Stop" being his only number one single, other memorable greats that went high on the music charts were "People Gotta Move", "Wheels of Life", "Living Inside Myself", "Black Cars", and "It Hurts To Be In Love". An uncredited story tells of one concert Gino did in Montreal which was sold out, mostly to his female fans who were in love with his thick, curly black hair and his Italian style fashion statements in which he wore tight pants and left his shirts open to the waist to show off his hairy chest.

It was reported that the Vannelli-mad female fans rushed the stage and before the security could stop them, they had completely disrobed him and stole his belt, chains, and anything they could get their hands on. Lucky for Gino, the love-crazed women mistook one of the security guards for Gino and by the time they realized they had stripped the wrong man, Vannelli had made his escape out the back stage door, leaving the guard red-faced and stripped naked under a pile of lustful ladies.

Answer: Raise A Little Hell

"Raise A Little Hell" became Trooper's concert anthem after hitting the charts in both Canada and the U.S. in 1978. More of the lyrics go like this.
"Nobody's going to help you, you've just gotta stand up alone.
And dig in your heels, and see how it feels,
To Raise a little Hell of your own!
Raise a little hell, raise a little hell, raise a little hell!"
It's a tune that still gets sold out crowds going too wild on occasion. You have to give Trooper credit because despite having the names of eighteen different musicians so far who have played for them, the group has played without any hiatus or breakups from the day of their inception in 1975 until into the second decade of the new century, over 37 years later. Several of their more popular hits are included in the questions' choices and you can add greats such as "Janine", "A Three Dressed Up As A Nine", "We're Here For A Good Time(Not A Long Time)", "Santa Maria", and "Two For The Show."