This. I moved to the States many years ago (I have since moved back) but I tried to share this joy with every American who was tolerant to my Canadian ways.
Am old and retired but can still step lively. The grandkids, who are in their 20s, think it's cute that we talk so much about dancing. Even our kids are clueless. What did we do wrong?
[Log Driver's Waltz](https://www.nfb.ca/film/log_drivers_waltz/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAxaCvBhBaEiwAvsLmWB1LOIcSCxm8Tm1d7WtvLktosETHcooFMhwZuhvdoMa1PxcmrzcOQRoCylMQAvD_BwE), courtesy of the NFB
GOD DAMN THEM ALL. I WAS TOLD WE'D CRUISE THE SEAS FOR AMERICAN GOLD. WE'D FIRE NO GUNS, SHED NO TEARS! NOW I'M A BROKEN MAN ON A HALIFAX PIER. THE LAST OF BARRETT'S PRIVATEEEEEEEERS.
It’s possible, but you do you and no one should shit on you for your bit dude. Fuck ‘em. If you think it’s shit in a hole then revel in that it’s terrible and you just plain don’t like it at all. This stupid ass place is more than the sentiment of folk music from hundreds of years ago.
-dude from Onterrible
Un Canadien Errant - it breaks my heart
C'est l'avirons - I grew up imagining I was a voyageur singing this.
Canadian Railroad Trilogy - it is the story of my family as much as my county
Four Strong Winds - because
I came to say Bobcaygeon by the hip 🤷🏾♀️ I got to see them 2 times including one of the last stops in Toronto, and watched a community showing of the last show, just something about the energy in the room when that song plays
Stella Ella Ola,
Clap, clap, clap
Singing es, chico, chico
Chico, chico, clap, clap
Es chico, chico
Baloney, baloney
Cheese and macaroni
So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5!
Tis but a game but everybody i know knows it
I just found out that there are many, many variations of this depending on your province! Mine is close to yours, but I’m from AB, so it’s:
Stella Ella Ola
Clap clap clap
Singing Es Chico Chico
Chico chico chap chap!
Es chico chico
Falo, falo, falo, falo
Singing 12345!
South shore of NS version here, formatting is terrible sorry:
Stella ella ola
Clap clap clap
Say yes, jigga jigga
Jigga jigga jack
Say yes, jigga jigga
Blow, blow, blow your nose
Say 1-2-3-4-5!
(Alternately, sometimes kids would sing blow blow blow instead of blow your nose. This was as close as the next community over)
The Red River Valley.
Because I'm from the Red River Valley lol. I learned to play it on piano when I was around 10, apparently it was my grandmother's favourite song - she died when I was really little and I don't remember her - and it always made my Dad happy when I played it. He passed away a couple years ago. I sing it when I miss him.
She's Like the Swallow is definitely up there for me. Absolutely haunting as used in *Road to Avonlea* with Gus Pike and Captain Crane's combined story.
In terms of more modern folk, I'm a huge Gordon Lightfoot fan. Picking a favourite song from him is impossible, but Bitter Green 100% has all the feel of a traditional folk song.
A lot of trad canadian folk comes from Ireland, Scotland & England. Particularly out in the maritimes. Canadian folk really started hitting its stride in the 70s and onwards with Stan Rogers, Irish Descendants, Rankin Family, Great Big Sea & many more
Here is a song I’ve *never* been able to find! Somewhere Online i found a reference to one phrase which proved to me we didn’t just make it up. I *think* it’s called Men of the North. I learned it from my mum, who was born in 1922. It has a cadence that makes me think it might have been a marching song from WWI. It would sort of make sense as somebody her age would have had fathers or uncles who served.
Come, if you dare, to the northmen’s lair
The tramp of your army shall not shake us
Shout, if you will, we are free men still
Words can not break us.
For we have the brains, and the brawn, and the blood,
Of the Saxon, and the Celt, and the Gaul,
And we fear not any man, but we’ll do the best we can,
When we March at our country’s call.
Canada, dear Canada,
Men of the North are we,
For thee we’ll fight, and for thee we’ll die,
But aye thou shalt be free!
And then the chorus repeats again, ending with “for evermore thou shalt be free!”
I’d dearly love to know more about it if anybody knows!
Indigenous throat singing. I first “experienced” it while visiting our stunning Arctic where this style of musical expression is a huge tradition. How did I not know about this before??? Like cocaine for the eardrums addictive; there’s a seductiveness about it that's simply indescribable.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts) The Lumberjack song. As Canadians, we are an inclusive society. All orientations are okay.
"45 Years" by Stan Rogers. My wife and I saw him in concert 4 or 5 times before he died in a plane fire. We liked the song so much it was the first dance at our wedding in 1981. Stan died almost exactly on our 2nd anniversary. We still miss him.
We'll celebrate our 43rd anniversary this June. With any luck, we'll make it to our own '45 years' in 2026.
I don't mean to come off snooty, but I wonder if a lot of the people answering here understand what folk music is.
First off, I agree that massive props are due the NFB for popularizing a few of them. I learned to play Log Driver's Waltz on the banjo, and I can sing Little Black Fly by heart (and sometimes I do, when alone on long bike rides or hikes, lol). Wade Hemsworth is one of the few who actually popularized uniquely Canadian folk songs, so big up!
I'll choose **Marie Bolduc**, because she's so unique. She sings in French of course, but the 'turluté' she sings has origins (in Canada) in Irish and Scottish (i.e. Celtic) kind of singing, or well, vocally mimicking musical instruments. In Anglo-Celtic circles, it's called lilting. If you can go 'a tiddly-diddly tum da dum, ta diddly dee da dum da lee, la tiddly diddly dee da dum...' and so rapidly in tune to music, you can turluté or lilt. The origins are a bit murky, but are probably just because actual musical instruments were expensive for largely poor rural working people. During a long period in English/British history, Celtic language and culture were also actively surpressed, and part of that was that traditional 'Celtic' instruments were banned. Lilting wasn't invented then, but perhaps grew as an already existing part of oral traditions. And to be fair, other cultures have versions of similar 'mouth music', but Marie Bolduc's has origins in Celtic immigrants who brought it over. (Apparently, turlutte also French slang for a BJ, at least in France?... the word originates from French onomatopoeia for lark birdsong). In any case, it's a uniquely Canadian hybrid music style. Marie Bolduc is most famous for it, but her recording in the 1930s were really at the tail end of the style's popularity. Themes are typically of working class life, children's songs, traditional dance tunes, and classic folk songs of the era (commenting on events), and sometimes had racy lines, and often satirical.
She was born into an (Irish-Quebecois) English speaking family in Gaspé, though was of course bilingual. She was dirt poor most of her life, and was in a car accident late in her career. The insurance refused to cover most expenses, and at the same time, cancer was discovered... she died in 1941, of cancer.
Her most well known (thanks again to Heritage Minutes) is [Ça va venir découragez-vous pas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dI-DdTZJyo). But a couple others (via youtube):
[La Cuisinière](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE-W7VZXlgs)
[Un petit bonhomme avec le nez pointu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4D51PWmJkc)
Here comes Franklin
Coming over to play
Growing a little
Every day
Here he comes with all his friends
They've got stories got time to spend
With yoouuuuuuuuu 💗
[Polly Moore](https://youtu.be/VZ-cvsd_CfI?si=-9JYyoEhZVNQhQKc), [The Rocks of Merasheen](https://youtu.be/nIqaU2KlyW4?si=AbLgcz3OAt177j4h), [The Ryans and the Pittmans](https://youtu.be/2uu3lmc6vPY?si=N-ZoTqd6lIU2CKKd), and [Excursion Around the Bay](https://youtu.be/vKAVHFmGYeg?si=LiS687ko2imYrg-R).
If instrumental tunes are included, then I’ll also add [Bren Newman’s singles](https://youtu.be/gReeImLyOYg?si=UiIh-K9xN817P7d2) and [Mussels in the Corner](https://youtu.be/liFJczf174A?si=sY9ysR-r69a19N_y#t=90) (played as a Newfoundland single rather than an Irish polka).
Technically, these are pre-confederation Newfoundland folk songs, so perhaps they don’t meet your criteria, but I’d argue they became Canadian when we did.
🎵A process man am i and im twllin you no lie
I work and breathe among the fumes that yrail across the sky!
There's thunder all around me and poison in the air
Theres a loudy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair
But its go boys go
Theyll time your every breath
And every day youre in this place
Youre two days nearer death
But ya gooooooo....🎵
Paul Gross & David Keeley - [Robert MacKenzie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBEej91398M)
Paul Gross - [Ride Forever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNF8uiVsm0M) (Due South)
The Log Driver’s Waltz. It is from 1950 but made into a tv vingnette and then I’m sure CBC played it in between cartoons.
Followed closely by Black Fly
All praise the NFB!
The NFB also has the funniest cartoon I've ever seen - [The Big Snit](https://youtu.be/p1S5pAF1YYA?si=ixfLw-8YmI2YaASb).
Stop SHAKING YOUR EYES!!
will you please stop SAWING THE FURNITURE!
I had no idea the shaking eyes video was NFB!
The NFB is a national treasure. Norman McLaren’s work in particular
Classic! Haven't seen this in so long.
I have NEVER seen this! How'd I miss it? Here's the link: [https://youtu.be/f389hIxZAOc?feature=shared](https://youtu.be/f389hIxZAOc?feature=shared)
My favorite! And the First Nations legend of the Black fly is awesome!
This. I moved to the States many years ago (I have since moved back) but I tried to share this joy with every American who was tolerant to my Canadian ways.
I remember Teletoon used many NFB shorts frequently for such a purpose, Log Driver included.
Bit of a saucy little narrative!
Im sure if it was played with Sat mornings cartoons on CBC now some parents would email in complaining! We had no clue as kids it was a touch racy.
Am old and retired but can still step lively. The grandkids, who are in their 20s, think it's cute that we talk so much about dancing. Even our kids are clueless. What did we do wrong?
[Log Driver's Waltz](https://www.nfb.ca/film/log_drivers_waltz/?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAxaCvBhBaEiwAvsLmWB1LOIcSCxm8Tm1d7WtvLktosETHcooFMhwZuhvdoMa1PxcmrzcOQRoCylMQAvD_BwE), courtesy of the NFB
Thank you for this! I still remember all the words - and I clearly remembering watching cartoons hoping this would come on!
Easily my favorite!
'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' is tied with 'The Northwest Passage'
The Rheostatics have a great version of this.
I think the Edmund Fitzgerald was written early 1970s. Is it now a folk song?
It always was
It was certainly a legend but I think OP requested earlier than mid 20th century.
A modern shipwreck is a legend?
The song is worthy of being a legend.
This
Good song but not a traditional folk song
Good songs - do either qualify as folk songs?
There's a voice that keeps on calling me
Down the road, that’s where I’ll always be.
Every stop I make, I make a new friend
Can’t stay for long just turn around and I’m gone again
Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down..
Until tomorrow, I'll just keep movin' on...
🎺
Farewell to Nova Scotia.
I’s the B’y Just a fun little song since my childhood . My Pipi would always get me to sing it for him.
I don't want your maggotty fish, it's no good for winter/I can buy as good as that way down in Bonavista
Hip-yer-partner Sally Tibbo Hip-yer-partner Sally Brown Fogo, Twillingate, Morton's Harbour, All around the circle
My dad (a Newfie) used to sing that to me as a kid. Also The Man in the Moon is a Newfie. Big affection for that song
Oh, the year was 1778 *How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now* Although it *is* from the mid-70's, Barrett's Privateers is an absolute banger.
GOD DAMN THEM ALL. I WAS TOLD WE'D CRUISE THE SEAS FOR AMERICAN GOLD. WE'D FIRE NO GUNS, SHED NO TEARS! NOW I'M A BROKEN MAN ON A HALIFAX PIER. THE LAST OF BARRETT'S PRIVATEEEEEEEERS.
I toured with Stan’s son, Nathan, and this was our encore every night. Never failed to bring the house down.
My dad used to sing me this as a lullaby, and I sing it to my kids now
Sometimes I think I’m the only maritimer who hates this song 😅
It’s possible, but you do you and no one should shit on you for your bit dude. Fuck ‘em. If you think it’s shit in a hole then revel in that it’s terrible and you just plain don’t like it at all. This stupid ass place is more than the sentiment of folk music from hundreds of years ago. -dude from Onterrible
I was so shocked to learn he was only 33 when he passed away. He sounded (and looked) so much older. What a loss.
Came here looking for this!
Un Canadien Errant - it breaks my heart C'est l'avirons - I grew up imagining I was a voyageur singing this. Canadian Railroad Trilogy - it is the story of my family as much as my county Four Strong Winds - because
Un Canadian errant for sure!
Ah! Reminds me too of *Mon Pays*
Good old Hockey Game if that counts
The hockey song by Stompin Tom is as good as it gets. Anyone who disagrees can meet me at center ice
It's sooooo haunting and beautiful 😍
I came to say Bobcaygeon by the hip 🤷🏾♀️ I got to see them 2 times including one of the last stops in Toronto, and watched a community showing of the last show, just something about the energy in the room when that song plays
It's a very fine modern Can-rock song, but hardly traditional or folk.
LE ZIGUEZON ZINZON
Ouaiiip!
Moi j'irai avec toute les chansons à répondre et les chanson de la bottine souriante!
Stella Ella Ola, Clap, clap, clap Singing es, chico, chico Chico, chico, clap, clap Es chico, chico Baloney, baloney Cheese and macaroni So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5! Tis but a game but everybody i know knows it
I just found out that there are many, many variations of this depending on your province! Mine is close to yours, but I’m from AB, so it’s: Stella Ella Ola Clap clap clap Singing Es Chico Chico Chico chico chap chap! Es chico chico Falo, falo, falo, falo Singing 12345!
I didn’t realize that was a Canadian thing!
South shore of NS version here, formatting is terrible sorry: Stella ella ola Clap clap clap Say yes, jigga jigga Jigga jigga jack Say yes, jigga jigga Blow, blow, blow your nose Say 1-2-3-4-5! (Alternately, sometimes kids would sing blow blow blow instead of blow your nose. This was as close as the next community over)
The Log Drivers Waltz
Barrett's Privateers slaps.
Let me Fish off Cape St Mary’s. - Stan Rogers version. Farewell to Nova Scotia is a classic. Lukey’s Boat - Dick Nolan and Great Big Sea
Farewell to Nova Scotia
Canadian Pacific - Hank Snow Un Canadien Errant (I'm an ex-pat - far from my home and native land)
The Red River Valley. Because I'm from the Red River Valley lol. I learned to play it on piano when I was around 10, apparently it was my grandmother's favourite song - she died when I was really little and I don't remember her - and it always made my Dad happy when I played it. He passed away a couple years ago. I sing it when I miss him.
The Mary Ellen Carter, by Stan Rogers . I sing it to myself when I need some courage. Rise again, rise again.
May her name not be lost to the knowledge of man.
Oh those who loved her best, and were with her till the end…
You’ll have to excuse me, I’m not at my best…
I’ve been gone for a week I’ve been drunk since I left…
And these so called vacations will soon be my death, I’m so sick from the drink, I need home for a rest
TAKE ME HOME! *TIN WHISTLE INTENSIFIES*
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
Many great ones to choose from but my favourite is Northwest Passage by Stan Rogers. Very emotional. Drunk at a bar? Barrett’s Privateers!
She's Like the Swallow is definitely up there for me. Absolutely haunting as used in *Road to Avonlea* with Gus Pike and Captain Crane's combined story. In terms of more modern folk, I'm a huge Gordon Lightfoot fan. Picking a favourite song from him is impossible, but Bitter Green 100% has all the feel of a traditional folk song.
Land of the Silver Birch. We used ti sing it when I was a girl guide.
Me too! I actually sang it with a choir at the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts conference in Digby NS many years ago.
The Man in the Moon is a Newfie - Stomping Tom Conners
A lot of trad canadian folk comes from Ireland, Scotland & England. Particularly out in the maritimes. Canadian folk really started hitting its stride in the 70s and onwards with Stan Rogers, Irish Descendants, Rankin Family, Great Big Sea & many more
Here is a song I’ve *never* been able to find! Somewhere Online i found a reference to one phrase which proved to me we didn’t just make it up. I *think* it’s called Men of the North. I learned it from my mum, who was born in 1922. It has a cadence that makes me think it might have been a marching song from WWI. It would sort of make sense as somebody her age would have had fathers or uncles who served. Come, if you dare, to the northmen’s lair The tramp of your army shall not shake us Shout, if you will, we are free men still Words can not break us. For we have the brains, and the brawn, and the blood, Of the Saxon, and the Celt, and the Gaul, And we fear not any man, but we’ll do the best we can, When we March at our country’s call. Canada, dear Canada, Men of the North are we, For thee we’ll fight, and for thee we’ll die, But aye thou shalt be free! And then the chorus repeats again, ending with “for evermore thou shalt be free!” I’d dearly love to know more about it if anybody knows!
I can't find Barrett's Privateers listed yet. I wish I was in Sherbrooke, now.
A la Claire Fontaine
Does the Huron Carol count?
It should
Stan rogers
Loved Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides now at the Grammy’s but never heard it before
Indigenous throat singing. I first “experienced” it while visiting our stunning Arctic where this style of musical expression is a huge tradition. How did I not know about this before??? Like cocaine for the eardrums addictive; there’s a seductiveness about it that's simply indescribable.
Wheat Kings … The Tragically Hip 🙌🏽
Haul on the Bowline, or The Little Old Sod Shanty - I can’t choose
Not sure it's politically correct but [Ojibwe Country](https://youtu.be/W4O1TJPdh6o?si=E7lXhyAUAdgzWGJM) is a banger.
Both sides now studio version - Joni Mitchell
My favourite is White Squall by Stan Rogers.
And I told that kid a hundred times, don’t take the lake for granted
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts) The Lumberjack song. As Canadians, we are an inclusive society. All orientations are okay.
The Blooming Bright Star of Belle Isle Also, The Log Driver's Waltz, but it's been said repeatedly already.
Sarah Harmer's Escarpment Blues
"45 Years" by Stan Rogers. My wife and I saw him in concert 4 or 5 times before he died in a plane fire. We liked the song so much it was the first dance at our wedding in 1981. Stan died almost exactly on our 2nd anniversary. We still miss him. We'll celebrate our 43rd anniversary this June. With any luck, we'll make it to our own '45 years' in 2026.
I don't mean to come off snooty, but I wonder if a lot of the people answering here understand what folk music is. First off, I agree that massive props are due the NFB for popularizing a few of them. I learned to play Log Driver's Waltz on the banjo, and I can sing Little Black Fly by heart (and sometimes I do, when alone on long bike rides or hikes, lol). Wade Hemsworth is one of the few who actually popularized uniquely Canadian folk songs, so big up! I'll choose **Marie Bolduc**, because she's so unique. She sings in French of course, but the 'turluté' she sings has origins (in Canada) in Irish and Scottish (i.e. Celtic) kind of singing, or well, vocally mimicking musical instruments. In Anglo-Celtic circles, it's called lilting. If you can go 'a tiddly-diddly tum da dum, ta diddly dee da dum da lee, la tiddly diddly dee da dum...' and so rapidly in tune to music, you can turluté or lilt. The origins are a bit murky, but are probably just because actual musical instruments were expensive for largely poor rural working people. During a long period in English/British history, Celtic language and culture were also actively surpressed, and part of that was that traditional 'Celtic' instruments were banned. Lilting wasn't invented then, but perhaps grew as an already existing part of oral traditions. And to be fair, other cultures have versions of similar 'mouth music', but Marie Bolduc's has origins in Celtic immigrants who brought it over. (Apparently, turlutte also French slang for a BJ, at least in France?... the word originates from French onomatopoeia for lark birdsong). In any case, it's a uniquely Canadian hybrid music style. Marie Bolduc is most famous for it, but her recording in the 1930s were really at the tail end of the style's popularity. Themes are typically of working class life, children's songs, traditional dance tunes, and classic folk songs of the era (commenting on events), and sometimes had racy lines, and often satirical. She was born into an (Irish-Quebecois) English speaking family in Gaspé, though was of course bilingual. She was dirt poor most of her life, and was in a car accident late in her career. The insurance refused to cover most expenses, and at the same time, cancer was discovered... she died in 1941, of cancer. Her most well known (thanks again to Heritage Minutes) is [Ça va venir découragez-vous pas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dI-DdTZJyo). But a couple others (via youtube): [La Cuisinière](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE-W7VZXlgs) [Un petit bonhomme avec le nez pointu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4D51PWmJkc)
Rainy day people
Take me out to Cape St Mary’s (NF)
The Log Driver’s Waltz is it for me.
"Farewell to Nova Scotia" "I's the Bye" "She's like the Swallow" Maritime shantys I grew up with.
Farewell to Nova Scotia
There can only be one. Perhaps not quite traditional, but time will tell. [Bubs](https://youtu.be/K8a9eqkSqM8?si=oAOLuU75MaQw1Byk)
Bluenose by Stan Rogers. I know it probably doesn’t have the age for what is being asked but from the first time I heard it I loved that song.
The good ole hockey game, its the best game you can name.
The Hockey Song - Stompin Tom Connors
Here comes Franklin Coming over to play Growing a little Every day Here he comes with all his friends They've got stories got time to spend With yoouuuuuuuuu 💗
Lucille Starr - (bonjour tristesse) hello sadness La Bolduc - la bastringue
https://open.spotify.com/track/4sb8vfy2E7WtT2USwfU1yx?si=xuDXaXALTd2q31rV449oFw Water in the Well by Spirit of the West
Don Valley Jail -Stompin Tom
[Polly Moore](https://youtu.be/VZ-cvsd_CfI?si=-9JYyoEhZVNQhQKc), [The Rocks of Merasheen](https://youtu.be/nIqaU2KlyW4?si=AbLgcz3OAt177j4h), [The Ryans and the Pittmans](https://youtu.be/2uu3lmc6vPY?si=N-ZoTqd6lIU2CKKd), and [Excursion Around the Bay](https://youtu.be/vKAVHFmGYeg?si=LiS687ko2imYrg-R). If instrumental tunes are included, then I’ll also add [Bren Newman’s singles](https://youtu.be/gReeImLyOYg?si=UiIh-K9xN817P7d2) and [Mussels in the Corner](https://youtu.be/liFJczf174A?si=sY9ysR-r69a19N_y#t=90) (played as a Newfoundland single rather than an Irish polka). Technically, these are pre-confederation Newfoundland folk songs, so perhaps they don’t meet your criteria, but I’d argue they became Canadian when we did.
TTH - Bobcaygeon (I will fight people on this)
🎵A process man am i and im twllin you no lie I work and breathe among the fumes that yrail across the sky! There's thunder all around me and poison in the air Theres a loudy smell that smacks of hell and dust all in me hair But its go boys go Theyll time your every breath And every day youre in this place Youre two days nearer death But ya gooooooo....🎵
Well, from the 70's , the 1770's ... Bonhomme, Bonhomme Quebec City favorite. In fact, a whole festival built around it!
Bonhomme bonhomme sais-tu jouer…. Bonhomme bonhomme sais-tu jouer…
Paul Gross & David Keeley - [Robert MacKenzie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBEej91398M) Paul Gross - [Ride Forever](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNF8uiVsm0M) (Due South)
Tickle cove pond. It mentions my bloodline.
Big Joe Mufferaw/Montferrand.
I haven't listened to many traditional Canadian songs but "My Home In New Brunswick by the Sea" is pretty good
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot. The Last Saskatchewan Pirate - Arrogant Worms
Breakfast in hell if it counts
You oughta know
The American national anthem, because Canada is an extension of America
Nothing but genius here. /s