In honour of Canada Day earlier this month, Rolling Stone magazine rolled out its occasional accounting of “best” Canadian artists, encompassing familiar names like Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Rush, Shania, Celine, Drake, and Justin (Bieber, that is). Plus, some absolute head-scratchers: Snow, (disco-punk revivalists) Death From Above 1979, and Japandroids.

Listed at number 25 (out of 50), the latter Vancouver band – no disrespect intended – charted higher than such luminaries as The Guess Who, Anne Murray, Bryan Adams, kd lang, and The Tragically Hip. And Blue Rodeo, which didn’t even make the list. But we must be tragically hip, I suppose.

Back to reality. Personal taste notwithstanding, few could definitively argue at least that Rolling Stone missed the mark entirely with its No. 1: Saskatchewan’s Joni Mitchell, of whom the magazine wrote that “she would become so immersed in the West Coast singer-songwriter scene that casual fans wouldn’t even realize she was Canadian,” but also adding, “she never lost site of her home country.”

For the record, so to speak, the rest of Rolling Stone’s top 10 Canadian artists, in the latest list, were: Young, Rush, Leonard Cohen, Drake, The Band, Twain, The Weeknd, Alanis Morrisette, and Celine Dion.

But Japandroids? Gee whillikers. Instead, we offer you Joni, in a much-anticipated return to performing at the Newport Folk Festival in 2022 with Brandi Carlisle, and still amazing at age 78.

Lyrics

Just before our love got lost you said
“I am as constant as a northern star”
And I said “Constantly in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar”

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
With your face sketched on it twice
Oh you’re in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
oh I would still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid

I remember that time you told me you said
“Love is touching souls”
Surely you touched mine
‘Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time
Oh, you’re in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
“Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed”

Oh but you are in my blood
You’re my holy wine
You’re so bitter, bitter and so sweet

Oh, I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
I would still be on my feet