Lynn Miles - It's Hockey Night In Canada

Artist: Lynn Miles

Song: It’s Hockey Night In Canada

Album: Chalk This One Up To The Moon (1991)

Canadian singer/songwriter Lynn Miles, who is known for her plaintive singing and melancholy muse, is often compared to the likes of Shawn Colvin and Lucinda Williams. The Ottawa native entered Carleton University with the intention of studying music, but soon dropped out to write songs and perform at the bars and coffeehouses of Canada's capital city. She independently released a self-titled debut and Chalk This One Up to the Moon in the early '90s. Her song "Remembrance Day" ended up being featured in a Canadian Armed Forces video that depicted the losses of war and was televised nationally. In 1996, Miles released Slightly Haunted on Philo Records. The effort ended up as a year-end Top Ten pick in Billboard Magazine. (New York Times critic Jon Pareles has also praised Miles' forlorn songcraft.) Miles moved to Los Angeles in 1997 and the following year released Night in a Strange Town. Around that time, she also did a guest vocal on fellow Canadian Fred Eaglesmith's Lipstick, Lies & Gasoline album (on the track "Drinking Too Much"). For 2001's Unravel, Miles reunited with longtime collaborator, guitarist Ian Lefeuvre. ~ Erik Hage, All Music Guide

(…) Featuring a dozen of her compositions, Lynn's sophomore album Chalk This One Up To The Moon was released on CD by Snowy River in 1991. Recorded at Sound of One Hand Studios in Ottawa, Bill Stunt, who worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Commission, produced the disc.While her debut set hinted at a songwriterunder development, Chalk This One Up To The Moon provided ample proof that Lynn possessed an exceptional talent for marrying thoughtful lyrics to memorable, hook laden, melodies.
"It's Hockey Night in Canada" was written from the perspective of a girl growing up in Canada, where ice hockey takes over the airwaves and the minds of men from October till May. My father was a hockey coach. The song is about memories I have of walking home through the snow and seeing television sets glowing blue in living room windows. more

It's hockey night in Canada
There is a blue glow in every window
And I am walking home alone again
In the freshly fallen frozen snow

With my heart beneath my duffle coat
My dreams turning to icicles
I wish there was a sunny summer sky
And I was cruising on my bicycle

And I would wait
For all the lights to change to green
And I would race right through
And take it down the afternoon avenue
That's what I would do
But there's just these skating rinks
And the boys always get their way
It seems like it's hockey night in Canada
Almost every single day

They are clearing my street again
Trying to deny the season
And I want so much to disagree with them
But they refuse to hear my reason

There is a zamboni of sorts in all our souls
And the streets of old Montreal are cold
Equal ice time is all we need
To catch our breath and build our speed

And we would wait
For all the lights to change to green
And we would march right through
And take it down the afternoon avenue
That's what we would do
But there's just these skating rinks
And the boys always get their way
It seems like it's hockey night in Canada
Almost every single day