Some of my oldest memories are of riding in my father’s 1998 red Toyota 4runner listening to a cassette tape of the Moxy Früvous album Bargainville (1993). I was walking this morning and I put the album on and it still really speaks to me.

I was always fond of River Valley because it’s a catchy tune, and I grew up in a river valley. Listening to it today, during the incipient climate collapse, is chilling.

Is your favourite place controlled by developing ambitions?

Do you think you’ll have some power signing a petition?

Are you fine with your surroundings? Are they gonna crumble?

Anyway. I kept listening, and kept hearing the same sort of left-wing anthems come through. I mean, this seems on the nose by contemporary standards, but in the 90’s this was somewhat subversive stuff.

Clem had a daydream, a daydream from heaven

Picked up the headline, his country was made up of singers

And no more right-wingers

He wakes up to “Homeless are stupid, welfare is stupid

Private investment, efficiency, cool fiscal plannin’”

Sounds like more Pat Buchanan

Anyway, if you’re interested in listening to 90’s Canadian folk rock, you could do a lot worse than Bargainville.