when: Summer 1987
why: Jealous of their culture, resentful of Reagan and how our PM sucked up to him/them.
Canada back in 1970 must've seemed like a pretty cool place to be for the most part. The Prime Minister was Pierre Elliot Trudeau, a wealthy intellectual playboy, who stood in stark contrast to the gremlin sitting in the White House — and Nixon was far closer to the norm in terms of quality of world leader at the time. Americans began flooding north in order to avoid and/or desert the Vietnam War draft and the majority of them remained. Culturally, we had an emerging, home-grown rock scene paced by The Guess Who, a group that would have its fourth and final number one hit just as almost everyone else was only getting started.
One the themes central to "American Woman" is that even when our collective self-esteem is registering well, we can't help but look south of the border. Many of the Canadians who are deemed national treasures reside in the States. (No judgement on my part since I don't live in Canada either) Some of the more renowned Canadians of the age were hockey players — Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Bobby Hull, Phil Esposito — who played for American teams while many of the leading voices in music — Neil Young, Joni Mitchell; Gordon Lightfoot tried it out but he swiftly moved back his homeland — had already sought out New York and/or Los Angeles in order to make make their fortunes. They became national heroes because they managed to hit it big down south.
I was ten years old back in '87. While I was interested in current events for a youngster, I found the Iran-Contra Affair coverage to be highly boring. Yet, I could tell that the US establishment was as corrupt as any of the countries they either propped up or tried to bring down. I watched Rocky IV that summer and had two big takeaways: (a) Apollo Creed getting beaten to death was highly traumatic and (b) the pro-American manipulation was staggering. Yet some in my homeland refused to see through this shit. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney spent the bulk of his nine years in power kissing US ass. He came by it so naturally that it was almost as if our PMs always bent the knee to their American counterparts. Yet, Trudeau butted heads with Nixon and Pearson and Johnson rarely saw eye-to-eye and Diefenbaker and Eisenhower must've made each other physically sick (because of course they did). That year or so in which Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau crossed paths as leaders was celebrated as one of the great bro-mances of our time but I'd rather they'd had more of a pleasant indifference to one another, as it should be.
when: 1988-89
why: I got sick to death of everyone in Britain going on about "Amer-eee-ca" and wondering if I was "Amer-eee-can".
The British certainly talk a good game when it comes to anti-Americanism but they can't quite commit to it. And you know something? I get it. Here I am listing off all the times I've been fed up with the US and their bullshit which only goes to show you that it hasn't been a constant. Still, we could use a lot more of their support on this one. I know it always comes back to music with me (this is a music blog so what do you expect?) but would it kill British pop stars to dial back on the North American tours with two dozen stops in various American cities plus an obligatory visit up to Toronto US tours? Would British podcasters and YouTubers care to acknowledge the presence of international audiences from outside the United bloody States?
"Sparkle someone else's eyes": an easy command to make. The British, for one, seem to be even bigger suckers for pro-US bullshit than the rest of us. I suppose if we as Canadians happen to be immune to their charms, there's always going to be others out there happy to lap it up. Still, it's the twenties and there's K-Pop and Netflix dramas from Norway and the appetite to adapt British sitcoms into toothless American remakes isn't really there anymore. We can easily opt out of the US and their cultural hegemony. Canada back in the seventies wasn't quite as fortunate.
I was baffled by the way Britons in the eighties seemed so in thrall to the US. (Of course, they'll deny this was ever the case but take no notice of these silly people) They had the best music, their TV wasn't as poor (I mean, the best American shows were pretty great but US TV is never short on dreck), their writers were generally of a higher caliber. More importantly, they didn't act like annoying Americans. British culture was far from perfect but I've never understood why the citizens of a country that has consistently punched above its weight would be so enamoured by that big uncouth monolith on the other side of the Atlantic.
when: 1993-1999
why: Incessant news coverage of freakshow shit about cutting off dicks, female teachers raping young students, the President getting a B.J., the Nancy Cerrigan-Tonya Harding incident and O.J. Simpson, all of which conspired to trivialize genuine tragedies that occurred during the same time.
The closest I ever got to becoming desensitized was during the Clinton years (I won't even bother trying to re-name them 'the Chretien era') when the news seemed jammed with all that crazy shit above and I began thinking of school shootings as more or less equal to all of them. The O.J. situation was a genuine tragedy but the media circus surrounding it drowned out any semblance of humanity. This may well have been the one bright spot surrounding 9/11 since it seemed to signal an end to this absurd period of time.
Even still, Americans like to make everything about themselves. A thousand people may lose their lives in Bangladesh but if a housewife drowns her children, which one do you think makes the headlines? The Clash put it best when they went right out and proclaimed "I'm So Bored with the USA" but The Guess Who said much the same thing seven years earlier on their most famous song. Speaking of which, it's pretty amazing that "American Woman" managed to top the Billboard Hot 100 when it was so brazenly anti-American. It's almost as if there are people in the States who are able to think for themselves and don't need right wing media to hold their hands and reassure them that their country is the greatest. That said, morons who figured it was all about American women being too much for foreigners to handle couldn't have hurt sales either. It's always a bonus when you can appeal to both enlightened Americans who know something's wrong while failing to turn off the idiots.
when: 2003
why: Their POS president and his godawful war in Iraq.
What was Lenny Kravitz thinking? Or that's what you typically hear nowadays. I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt on this one though. An African-American rock star who arrived at a time when he would've been expected to go into either rap or R&B set him apart. He has resided abroad for much of his adult life and many of his romantic relationships have been with women who come from other countries. Kravitz isn't Ted Nugent or Kid Rock. He isn't even Bruce Springsteen or Tom Petty. I think he hears "American Woman" and finds himself in agreement with much of it.
That said, his cover isn't in the same league as The Guess Who's original. While many interpretations of classic rock and pop songs are notable for how bloodless they are, his has energy and guts to spare but nevertheless fails due to it being no better than a competent but unremarkable band you might see at a local pub. You might find yourself singing along with it — as well as covers of "Sunshine of Your Love" and "All Right Now" — and their show might liven up your night of drinking with your significant other or group of friends but that's as far as it goes. While the original is a great song, there's surprisingly little too it. The chords don't change, the riff repeats itself, Burton Cummings doesn't veer off of 'spitting out bile' mode. You might think that such simplicity would've given Kravitz room to improvise and/or add a few touches of his own but, if anything, he only manages to reduce its complexities, if such a thing is even possible.
Americans and their nauseating apologists north of the border wondered where all this anti-Americanism came from but it has always been there in one form or other. There was resentment when the US stayed out of the two World Wars until they made their belated appearances in both. Canadians have used the old 'we don't want to be just like the Americans' excuse in order to justify keeping the royal family and for why Quebec's status is so important. We define ourselves in part based on how un-American we are. Wishing to have nothing to do with George W. Bush was reason enough to stay out of the war in Iraq.
when: 2016-present
why: Somehow the Americans elected and even bigger POS, one who also happens to be highly grotesque and a bully.
Trump is all of the above rolled into one. The blatant corruption, the upsetting way that people bow to the US even when we should all be united in opposition to them, the ghastly way a reality TV star conducts himself as leader of the free world, his unjustified, immoral war. It's remarkable it has come to this but perhaps it had been inevitable ever since American exceptionalism became normalized.
I don't know whether Cummings or Randy Bachman would agree but there is responsibility on the part of Canadians in all of this too. We can opt out. We don't owe them a goddamn thing. And Canadians who advocate "giving Trump the win" (yes, he's definitely the type of individual who is satisfied with winning just the once) or appeasing his increasingly deranged demands are perhaps worse than all the MAGA dimwits put together. What they do with their country is their business but keep it the hell out of ours. And this is what makes "American Woman" is even more relevant today.
