Gordon Lightfoot Book, Music and More!

The Weakerthans’ John K. Samson is Canada’s poetic punk-rock laureate. Need proof? Check out just two of the titles on the Winnipeg band’s latest album: “Hymn of the Medical Oddity” and “Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure.” When he isn’t writing thoughtful narratives and singing them with The Weakerthans, Samson publishes leftist fiction, non-fiction and cultural studies. But the most radical thing about the band is his wildly inventive songs, including the brilliant hockey tribute “Elegy for Gump Worsley.” Sept. 25

The crowded riders’ restlessness enunciates that the Guess Who suck, the Jets were lousy anyway…our Golden Business Boy will watch the North End die, and sing “I love this town,” then let his arcing wrecking ball proclaim, “I hate Winnipeg.”  “One Great City!”Lyrics by John K. SamsonMusic by the Weakerthans An alienation ballad? A protest song about duplicitous urban redevelopment? A poison-pen letter to Winnipeg’s tourism office? The Weakerthans’ “One Great City!” is all that and more. Taken from the Winnipeg band’s third album, Reconstruction Site, the folky number—with its references to gray, bitterly cold winter days and stalled cars in turning lanes—is set in the gro...