Elbows Up, Canada: Musical Responses to Trump’s Threats
Rising Patriotism in Canadian Music
Canadian musicians and content creators are expressing a new wave of patriotism. This surge is a response to the escalating rhetoric from US President Donald Trump against Canada.
Pro-Canada songs are spreading on social media, including those by Canadian celebrities. These songs reflect various reactions to Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, contributing to the national mood.
This trend is notable because Canadians have generally been reserved about expressing nationalist sentiment, except during sports events.
Shared Identity and Nationalism
Shared identity has often been emphasized to promote provincial separatism or Indigenous Peoples’ rights. Uncritical Canadian nationalism has felt inappropriate to some since the 2015 Truth and Reconciliation Commission findings.
Patriotic feelings were further complicated during the pandemic when the flag was used by people opposing public health restrictions.
Many commentators have struggled to find a shared Canadian attitude toward the nation in these contexts.
“Multicultural nationalism”, “plural nationalism”, or even “a postnational country” may best describe nationalist sentiment when expressed in Canada.
Songs About the Trade War
As a scholar of music and nationalism, I’m interested in what the several dozen songs about the trade war suggest about this shift.
These songs represent various musical styles, including rock, metal, reggae, country, folk, and pop.
Most songs have original music, and some use AI. Indigenous and immigrant perspectives seem under-represented.
Canadian-Style Patriotism
Explicit patriotism is the most striking feature of this repertoire. However, Canadians still avoid jingoistic nationalism.
Tom Green’s “I’m a Canadian” is a humorous, self-deprecating song that celebrates Canada’s uniqueness without being exclusionary or claiming exceptionalism.
This gentle Canadianism is also reflected in polite refusals of Trump’s offer to join the United States: “Thanks, but we’re already great! We don’t need to borrow your stars or your fate!”
These songs celebrate Canada’s natural world, cold winters, food, and love of sports.
Canadian values are presented as compassionate, noble, and good: “We stand for truth and kindness, and we help those in need.”
Songs for the US
Many songs seem aimed at an American audience, in addition to a Canadian one.
“We Used to Be the Best of Friends” by Jim Cuddy, a Canadian Music Hall of Famer and Blue Rodeo frontman, reminds Americans of the long friendship between the US and Canada.
Cuddy uses a charming folk style to remind Americans of shared cultural and political experiences with Canada and challenging times when Canadians had their back.
Cuddy’s wistfulness for a threatened friendship contrasts with songs that take a more assertive stance, especially in response to Trump’s 51st state threats. With titles like “Canada is Not For Sale”, such songs emphasize the flag and the rights of Canadians.
A few songs go further, abandoning traditional courtesies for sarcasm and even rudeness.
Assertions of Canadian strength recur repeatedly. The “elbows up” movement, inspired by the moment Canadian comedian Mike Myers mouthed this hockey phrase associated with Gordie Howe on Saturday Night Live, has produced several songs about Canada’s readiness to resist American actions.
“Elbows Up Canada!” celebrates unity and “holding the line” together.
Using AI-created video imagery, this song juxtaposes images of early settlers with a brief image of Indigenous people in traditional dress or regalia standing with a Canadian flag, reflecting the lyrics, “side by side”.
This song’s brief depiction of Indigenous presence is unusual among songs I found. In meditations about national unity, most of these creators make no allusions to Indigenous Peoples or Canada’s ethnolinguistic or racial diversity.
In so doing, these songs minimize identities that are important to many Canadians to bolster national identity. They implicitly encourage all citizens to put aside what separates them to address an external threat.
In a cross-border context, these songs do not express hatred of Americans as a people. The frustration they express is consistently directed at Trump, not the US as a whole.
But with a looming election in Canada and the actions and rhetoric of both countries shifting every day, it’s possible this may change. Will the music and the cultural conversation become more hostile? Will Canadians themselves grow concerned if their country’s patriotic turn becomes belligerent?
As Cornell University political scientist Benedict Anderson argued in 1983, a nation is ultimately an “imagined community” because we can never know everyone within it. The feeling of national belonging happens solely in our minds and is reinforced by the stories we tell ourselves.
Music has a unique capacity to participate in this reinforcement, building shared identity across vast and varied spaces. It can also allow us to differentiate ourselves from others. Both capacities are being fully exploited in this challenging moment.
Emily Abrams Ansari is Associate Professor of Music History, Western University.
This article was first published on The Conversation.
