I'm not sure if it began with Fay Wray, the Dionne Quintuplets or — him again! — Guy Lombardo but at some point Canadians began taking a little too much pride in the famous names who hailed from their homeland. If I was to guess, I'd say it really got going after the war with the likes of Glenn Gould, Christopher Plummer, Lorne Greene, Monty Hall, Wayne & Shuster and Oscar Peterson. When Gould crossed through the Iron Curtain to play Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre in 1957 it would have been a point of pride for many Canadians, even for some who didn't care for his Goldberg Variations. Similarly, having the chance to witness entertainers like Greene and the comedy duo of Johnny Wayne and Frank Shuster perform on the Ed Sullivan Show would have meant a lot to viewers who lived north of the US border.
But at some point there seemed to be this expectation that Canadians ought to be proud of anyone from our country who happened to find fame in the States, regardless of our distaste for them. I was once doing an English language camp one winter break at my university here in Korea and one day we had a special guest speaker. She spoke to students, teachers and staff for nearly an hour. At first, the kids liked her. Speaking pretty good Korean no doubt helped. But she began to lose them when she started to boast of the many famous Canadians out there. This being 2012, she would've been well-advised to bring up a still popular and (relatively) trouble-free Justin Bieber. Instead, she informed everyone that Jim Carrey and Celine Dion and Avril Levigne all happen to be Canadian. These people meant nothing to the kids at this assembly. Afterwards, a teacher from New Zealand — itself a country short on well known individuals beyond Peter Jackson — came up to me and asked, "does everyone in Canada do that?" "Oh god yeah", I replied, my eyes rolling in exasperation.
Paul Anka could very well have been a pioneer in this respect. I don't think there's a Canadian from an earlier time who people would boast proudly over and yet not want to have anything to do with otherwise. I can only speculate on this. He was very popular so of course some of his fellow citizens could tell people from other countries about Anka's birthplace and be a fan of his but there's certainly no question his music isn't for everybody. "Diana" isn't even the worst offender as equally large future hits "Lonely Boy" and, particularly, "(You're) Having My Baby" are a good deal worse. Growing up in the eighties, I didn't know anyone who liked him but he did seems to command a certain degree of respect though only if your definition of 'respect' is to not be making fun of someone all the time. A British or American equivalent would have been mocked ceaselessly in spite of having a lengthy run of hits; but for Ottawa native Anka it was more like 'let's be excited that he managed to make it Stateside even if we'd rather not have anything to do with him otherwise'.
Watching the groundbreaking National Film Board of Canada documentary Lonely Boy, it's clear that Anka went down a storm as much among the the older generations than he did with sobbing girls. Maybe more so in fact. Playing New York's legendary Copacabana club, he is in his element, confidently strutting about behind a mic and hob nobbing with intimidating nightclub owner Jules Podell. "Diana" would've worked better in this kind of environment rather than having disguised as ersatz rock 'n' roll. But the screaming girls had to be satisfied: the pleading Anka just had to have something approaching beat music in the background.
Better than I remember it being but nevertheless completely undeserving of the nine weeks it spent at the top of the UK chart, the "Diana" single week it spent on top of both the Canadian and US charts seems much easier to accept. Countrymen may indeed have been proud but they weren't interested in keeping him at number one for any longer than need be. And who could blame them? After all, we'll tell the rest of the world about how Paul Anka happened to have been born and raised in the same country as us but we wouldn't go so far as to listen to his music. We're just very Canadian that way.
Score: 4
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Con Can
Paul-bloody-Anka and nothing else. But being a lone Canadian looks nicer at the top of the charts instead of hanging around near the bottom. But couldn't B side "Don't Gamble with Love" have grabbed a lowly spot of its own? I can see it going down well among the well-to-do socialites and mob bosses at the Copacabana but maybe the shrieking females had little interested in it. But what am I saying? One Paul Anka song is more than enough.
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