Aluminum and Styrofoam

Two songs have really gotten under my skin over the past few weeks, and both are by Canadian artists. The first, "Aluminum", is off the Barenaked Ladies 2003 Everything to Everyone. Not only is the music great, but you've got to love the lyrics:

"Aluminum to me, aluminium to some. You can shine like silver all you want, but you're just aluminum."

I really respond to this song because it's such a heart-felt anthem to a mundane, everyday material. It's the stuff mom used to wrap your corned-beef sandwich, not an awe-inspiring woman or breath-taking vista. Just the fact that the Ladies took note of the aluminum in their lives fascinates me, and the same is true for Track 7 on Daniel Powter's 2005 debut album, an affectionate ballad to Styrofoam.

So what's in the water up in Canada, eh? Why are all these great musicians writing love songs to food wrap and packing material? I think the answer lies in the blend of the Anglo and French in Canadian culture.

The Barenaked Ladies are a band associated with fast food and mounds of macaroni and cheese thrown on stage while they're performing- there's nothing too français about that! But these guys throw out casual references to Truffaut with the same authority as they discuss their favorite American cartoons (see Barenaked Ladies - Barelaked Nadies). There's no doubt kids growing up in the strip malls of Scarborough, Ontario (like the BNL's Steve Page and Ed Robertson) had more references to French culture in their daily lives than their counterparts on the other side of Niagara Falls. One aspect of French literature and cinema that seems to have really influenced Canadian artists, like the Barenaked Ladies and Daniel Powter, is an eye for the fabric of daily life.

If you're not up to jumping into a Truffaut film, take a look at The Dreamers, an English/French production that uses modern sensibility to pay tribute to hallmarks of French cinema. Where is the eye of the camera going in The Dreamers? Why are the filmmakers showing us the worn bristles on a toothbrush, the pattern on the tablecloth, a frying egg, the garbage behind the apartment building?

Aren't these the details the audience wants left out of the story? In the case of French cinema and literature, the answer is no.

The French aesthetic argues that our lives are made from details, from a series of ablutions, chores, meals, conversations. A character's personality is defined by his everyday actions, and the movement of his character arc can sometimes be communicated to the audience by the smallest change in routine or circumstance.

Francophiles may dream of an everyday world of hot coffee, crusty bread, checked tablecloths, and quaint balconies. Kids who grew up in Ontario or British Columbia experienced a different reality, one of Nintendo games, juice boxes, pizza, and ham and cheese sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil.