|
Life Is a Highway
| |
|
| |
|
Date Aired
|
October 28, 2024
|
|
Running Time
|
24:59
|
|
Previous Review
|
|
|
Next Review
|
|
|
Website
|
|
Todd plays "Life Is a Highway" on the piano.
TOM COCHRANE - LIFE IS A HIGHWAY
A one-hit wonder retrospective
Todd: Welcome back to One Hit Wonderland, where we look at bands and artists known for only one song. Hey, you know how a few years ago I had to sell off a few requests because my car broke?
Clip from The Blues Brothers with the Bluesmobile falling apart, captioned "REENACTMENT"
Todd: Well, I had to do it again cause my dog broke.
The clip plays again
Todd: So, I decided to sell off some requests again to pay for my expensive dog repair, and also [image of Amydog wearing the cone of shame] because I deserve some compensation for the emotional labor of looking at my sad dog and her cone of shame. So uh, that'll be my year. [image of...] Our first request comes from my most famous friend C. Robert Cargill, [...and lists some of his work] and he gave me a full list of suggestions. And I went with the last of them, because it allows me to talk about one of the things I'm minorly obsessed aboot.
Clip of advertisement for...
Todd (VO): The Canadian Music Hall of Fame. [clip of CMHF induction ceremonies] Uh, I don't know why, but I love researching the insular and incestuous Canadian music industry. Especially its most exclusive honor, since they only have a handful of true legends. Sorry, Canada. So, it mostly falls into three categories: [clips of CMHF appearances from Nickelback, Sarah McLachlan, and Shania Twain...] The superstars, you know, maybe not S-tier acts like the Beatles, but household names who sold a ton of records and deserve some flowers they might not get down here. [...The Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo...] And then you've got the hometown heroes, unknown in America but truly beloved up there. Important for national pride to have acts like that that are only yours.
Todd: And then, there's my personal favorite: [images of Deborah Cox, Jann Arden, and Andy Kim from the CMHF website] The flashes in the pan with a couple pop hits who were the only act they could book that year.
Clip of Corey Hart's CMHF introduction
Announcer: He was the heartbeat of pop music in the '80s and '90s.
Corey Hart: Anybody got a pair of, um... sunglasses?
Corey (singing): I wear my sunglasses at night
Todd (VO): I love you Canada, you're not gonna trick me into thinking the "Sunglasses at Night" guy was this George Michael-level pop star.
Todd: Anyway, somewhere overlapping all of these categories is...
Clip from...
Todd (VO): ...2003's Hall of Fame inductee, Tom Cochrane. And Cochrane is a Canuck legend. Below the frozen North, however...
Todd: ...the name only brings to mind a single tune.
Clip of Tom Cochrane - "Life Is a Highway"
Tom Cochrane: Life is a highway, and I wanna ride it all night long
Todd (VO): You know it, sing along! [singing] Life is a highway.
Todd: I wanna drive it all night long.
Tom: One day in and the next day gone
Todd (VO): [back to normal] Now this is a fascinating career, because he is a star in Canada, and a complete unknown in any other country, even for people who love this song. If you downloaded this off of Kazaa in the early 2000s, [image of a YouTube upload of the song credited to...] it almost certainly told you it was Tom Petty. [clip of "Life Is a Highway" by...] If you are younger than middle-age, you probably know it better from the Rascal Flatts version from the Cars soundtrack. Katchow. [beat] I don't like that movie. But if you're old enough, you will remember the real version. As performed by a blonde man playing a harmonica and sporting a haircut and wardrobe which I can only describe as...Canadian.
Todd: In late 1991 and most of 1992, as rock-n-roll took...
Clip of Pearl Jam - "Alive"
Todd (VO): ...a severe turn to the downbeat. [clip of Tom performing "Life Is a Highway" live] Tom Cochrane blasted out a good time song that has endured through the ages and made him a legend in his home country. He has lots of fans. In Canada. You've never met them.
Tom: Knocked me down and back up again
But in this country, Tom drove down the highway for a short visit, and then went right back home. Which feels a little insulting to our closest neighbor's favorite son.
Todd: How can this guy be so big North of the border, and just completely unknown here?
Tom: There was a distance between you and I
Todd (VO): Well, we're gonna find out. Is he, in fact, one of the best artists alive and we're all just too snobby to appreciate him? Or is it just, like, one of those things Canadians insist are good but aren't, like curling. Or their smug, talky movies. Sorry, Canada.
Todd: You'll deal with it.
Tom: When the light comes in
Just tell 'em we're survivors, life is a
BEFORE THE HIT
Todd: Alright so, do me a favor and tune into [logo for 98.5 WNCX] your favorite classic rock station — I believe those still exist — and listen to it for 48 hours. I'll wait.
Pause for 48 hrs
Todd: Alright, that should have been enough time for you to hear a particular song.
Clip of Red Rider - "Lunatic Fringe"
Todd (VO): It probably sounded kind of familiar, but you weren't quite able to place it. It wasn't Pink Floyd, it wasn't Blue Öyster Cult, and it wasn't "Twilight Zone" by Golden Earring. And you can't really sing along to it, or know any of the words, or remember how it goes, but...you know it. Goddammit, you know it.
Todd: [starts humming the chorus] Mmmh...Ooooooooooooooh, oh!
Red Rider: Lunatic fringe
Todd (VO): Okay, well that is "Lunatic Fringe", by the band [cover image of Red Rider's 80's lineup] Red Rider. And that is where Tom Cochrane first enters our story. Now Cochrane [clips of Cochrane's life play in the background] actually existed before this; born way up in the most northern parts of nowhere Canada. In 1973, he released his first un-notable solo record, and, after a brief time trying to make it in California, he moved back home. But in 1979, he joined an existing band in Toronto that would launch him to the wider world, called Red Rider.
Footage of Red Rider - "White Hot"
Red Rider: I'm white hot, I can't take it anymore
Now, Red Rider had several hits right away in Canada, but the song that would break them in America was [clip of...] "Lunatic Fringe". A moody song inspired by World War II, and specifically watching the Nazis take over the country.
Red Rider: You're in hiding, and you hold your meetings
Todd (VO): No resonance today, obviously. And again, this seriously does make me think the band had listened to a lot of [clip from...] The Wall before recording it.
Red Rider: We're on guard this time (on guard this time)
Against your Final Solution
Anyway, this is a protest song, arguably, about the rising tide of fascism. Tha-that's some heavy stuff for a song I mostly associate with that scene from Eastbound & Down where Kenny realizes that April stuck him with the baby.
Kenny Powers (Danny McBride): [hears crying] Fuck me [The song starts to play]
Todd (VO): Good shit. [clip from Vision Quest] Now, like I said, you probably heard it; it shows up in a lot of soundtracks, and it's a pretty good time capsule of mullet rock at the start of the '80s. Allegedly, Red Rider had some other songs that got play on the rock stations too, but "Lunatic Fringe" is the only one anyone remembers, making Tom Cochrane my favorite of pop phenomena: the double one-hit wonder.
Tom: I just think it-it-it tapped into an American nerve. You know, there's something about that song, maybe because of the-the...you know, America tends to be a lit-little bit more of a violent...um, uh, environment
Hey, who gave you the right to call Americans violent?! Say that to my face, Canadian, I'll kick your ass! Anyway, [clip of Red Rider - "Human Race"] up North, they put out a series of platinum albums. That's Canadian platinum, so watch out for that exchange rate. But they never really broke in America, partially because they wouldn't move to LA like their manager wanted. Uh, that manager is [image and clip of...] Bruce Allen, who's an industry legend up there, brought many Canadian acts to fame. [brief clips of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", "Working for the Weekend" and "Heaven" by, respectively...] Michael Bublé, Loverboy, Bryan Adams — who we'll get to later — but, apparently, they fell out with Allen over this. Bad enough to the point of diss tracks.
Clip of Red Rider - "Citizen Cain"
Red Rider: You might own all the locks in the whole damn town
But there ain't no chains on me
Todd (VO): The band started to struggle at that point, and even broke up briefly, though they were still big enough to get onto Canadian "We Are The World".
Clip of Northern Lights - "Tears Are Not Enough"
Northern Lights: If we can pull together
We could change the world forever
Arrow points to a singer who looks vaguely like Tom with text "maybe?"
He-he's in there somewhere. But they reunited quickly with some lineup shuffling, and it sounds like there was some intra-band power jockeying going on, and that Tom won the Game of Thrones there, because from here on out, they are called [album cover with the name...] "Tom Cochrane & Red Rider".
Clip of Tom Cochrane & Red Rider - "Boy Inside The Man"
Red Rider: Running for the boy inside the man
Todd (VO): And Cochrane taking full charge was the right move, I guess, cause from here on out, they [clip of the band winning for "Group of the Year" at the Juno Awards] become mega-hitmakers of CanCon.
Todd: Actually, I can't remember if I've mentioned CanCon before, but uh, if you don't know this one...
Todd (VO): ...Canada has a rule that all the radio stations have to play a certain percentage of [image of...] "Canadian Content", because otherwise they'd be crushed under [clip of...] Uncle Sam's cultural imperialist boot. This is why, even though I normally feel bad for calling bands One-Hit Wonders if they were big in their home country, I don't here because Canada is juicing the stats.
Todd: Like, there's a big asterisk for all of Red Rider's hits as far as I'm concerned.
Clip of Tom Cochrane & Red Rider - "Victory Day"
Red Rider: On that Victory Day
Todd (VO): At this point, they also become kind of a more commercial band and at this point the [clip of "Run To You" by...] Bryan Adams comparisons become unavoidable, because they have very similar singing voices.
Clips of "Victory Day" and "Run To You" are played together, showing how both Tom and Bryan do the same high-pitched yelp
Red Rider: On that Victory Day
Bryan Adams: Oh, but her love is cold
Yeah, I guess that [imitates Bryan] "ooooooohhhhhh!!!" is just a Canadian accent, who knew? [image of news article from 1992 where Tom complains about being compared to Bryan] He hates when you say this, by the way. [clip of Red Rider's...] Anyway, their biggest hit during this period was a sports anthem called "Big League".
Todd: About a kid who's gonna play in the big leagues!!!
Clip of "Big League" plays
Red Rider: Ah, my boy's gonna play in the Big League
Todd (VO): And naturally, you know which sports I'm talking about.
Red Rider: Out after school and back on ice
Anything hockey-related is automatically CanCon, for the record.
Red Rider: My boy's gonna knock em' dead, ah-oh
Todd (VO): Uh, this was my favorite discovery in research; I like this one a lot. It's like a Canadian version of [footage of John Fogerty performing...] "Centerfield". You know, "put me in, Coach!"
Todd: Except, you know, it's horribly tragic.
Red Rider: Out with his girl near Lake McClean
Hit a truck doing seventy in the wrong lane to the big league
You never can tell when you might check out
Todd (VO): That's sad. Some real mixed messages about the greatness of highways from this guy, I gotta say.
Todd: Red Rider also died tragically before they made it to the big leagues in America.
Red Rider: Scholarship and school on a big U.S. team
Todd (VO): Even though "Lunatic Fringe" was a rock radio standard, and [clip from Miami Vice] allegedly some other songs got radio play too, and they'd show up as background music for Miami Vice and stuff like that, the-they never really got anywhere in America. And naturally, when the lead singer of your band has already renamed it "Me And Some Other Guys"...
Todd: ...you're probably gonna be looking for work pretty soon.
Clip of interview with...
Todd (VO): Tom had outgrown Red Rider. It was time for bigger, better things. The '90s were a new decade.
Todd: [waves his hand theatrically] The future was stretching before him like the glorious open road.
THE BIG HIT
Clip of "Life Is a Highway"
Todd (VO): Get out of the road, asshole!
Tom: Like a road that you travel on
When Tom went solo, he was told by friends that he sounded like a different artist altogether. Like, Red Rider was a very '80s band. And there's something altogether... I don't know, no- not grittier exactly, but more earthy about "Life Is a Highway". Like, you can hear it immediately, that bright sunny blast of guitar and harmonica.
Todd: You would never guess the guy who made something as dark as "Lunatic Fringe" could make something this carefree.
Tom: Life is a highway
Todd (VO): If you have a song with the word "highway" in it, it has to be a really good song for driving. And "Life Is a Highway" is one of the best. [image of a map of Canada's highways] Like, Canada is mostly highway, so you can easily tell what Tom Cochrane was inspired by.
Todd: The glory of the open road, the sights, the sounds, the new places. Shit that puts you in a good mood.
Clip of Tom Cochrane interview with Canadian Press
Tom: I saw... Well, I saw- You know, we were shot at, I saw somebody die in front of me of starvation. It was just, uh, left a lot of scars on my psyche.
Todd: [beat] Ah.
Todd (VO): Ok, uh, let's back up. [clips of Tom volunteering in Africa] In the '80s, like so many well-meaning pop stars, Tom got involved in relief efforts in Africa. But he was, like, actually out there doing it and not just putting on a self-serving concert. And apparently, he saw some shit and it fucked him up.
Tom: I'd had this sketch sitting around, and we'd actually done a mockup of it.
Now, at that point, "Life Is a Highway" was a half-written and shelved song he's had in his back pocket for a long time. And after his trip to Africa, he needed some kinda way to process all of the human suffering he had seen. And "Life Is a Highway" was the result.
Tom: There's not much time left today
Life is a highway
Todd (VO): Like, boy, you see some shit in life, right? But uh, you know, life is a journey, that's what happens. You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both, and there you have the facts of life. Which is a highway.
Todd: Uh, I guess this self pep talk worked, because the song is so cheerful that I would not have ever...
Todd (VO): ...ever guessed that this is what it's trying to say.
Todd: And there might have been something about that sentiment in the air, because you might remember a variation on it in one of the biggest movies of the '90s.
Clip from Forrest Gump
Forrest (Tom Hanks): My mamma always said, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
Todd: Right. "Life is a highway"; "Life is like a box of chocolates".
Todd (VO): Just like Tom, Mrs. Gump there is trying to put a pretty face on the crappiness of life. You never know what you're going to get, like a box of chocolates. If you consider tragedy and death another flavor of chocolate. But I guess you can hear the influence of his time in Africa, because there's also the sense of "Shit happens to everyone, quit whining about it. Look how good you have it."
Tom: There's a world outside every darkened door
Where the blues won't haunt you anymore
That's certainly how people took it, it's a big smile-on-your-face song, and going solo feels like the right move for Tom, cause he sounds a lot freer without the band. He said he wanted to get more bluesy, and I don't know that's how I'd describe it, but there is something gloriously free of the '80s in it.
Tom: I wanna drive it all night long
Todd: But, how good is the song really?
Tom: There was a distance between you and I
Todd (VO): The fact is, much like "Life Is a Highway" itself, my script for this episode was an unfinished thing that I had in my back pocket for a long time that it took me until it got requested to finish.
Todd: And the reason is, you know, I don't- I don't really have any strong feelings about "Life Is a Highway".
Todd (VO): Like, deserves to be a big hit? Yeah, absolutely, glad it exists. You'd have to have a giant stick up your ass to be anti-"Life Is a Highway". But uh, I have also never listened to it on purpose. And Tom himself seems a little perplexed as to how this caught on so big.
Clip of interview with Tom
Tom: It-it's like, "Life Is a Highway"; ask me to explain why it's a #1 song in Canada, I can't. Other than the fact that it makes you tap your foot, you know, it's a happy song. It's-it's infectious, I guess. That's as close as I can come.
Is that it? [clip of Tom performing "Life Is a Highway" live] Yeah, I guess. It's catchy. It's fun and catchy. It's just, like, a song everyone agrees on. It was a rock song, not necessarily an alternative song, but it didn't really sound all that [clips of "All I Want" by...] out-of-place next to Toad the Wet Sprocket [...and the Spin Doctors'...] and "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong". [clip of "Life Is a Highway"] But it had that Southern rock edge that gave it airtime with Bonnie Raitt and Tom Petty. [clip of Chris LeDoux - "Life is a Highway"] And the country audience loved it before Rascal Flatts got to it; there were country covers before the '90s even ended. Rock was rapidly getting moodier, [back to "Life Is a Highway"] but here was this bright, happy song that anyone could enjoy, including non-Canadians. I mean, that definitely looks like some American desert. [clip of Bugle Boy Jeans commercial] Right when that was the dominant aesthetic in pop culture. Even though that is, in fact, [image of Drumheller, Alberta] central Alberta. So naturally, while it was a big hit in several countries, nowhere loved it more than Canada. And he does rep his home country pretty proudly.
Tom: From Mozambique to those Memphis nights
To Khyber Pass, to Vancouver's lights
Todd (VO): Ah yes, Vancouver.
Todd: The city of lights.
Todd (VO): Not Paris, Tokyo, New York. Only a native Canuck would have put the city of Vancouver in that line. I-I'm sure Vancouver's very nice. But naturally, this made Tom one of the biggest names in Canada.
Todd: Which brings us to a fun moment in Canadian music history.
Clip of two hockey players fighting
Todd (VO): The Great Bryan Adams-Tom Cochrane Feud of 1992. It's not that great. It-It's kind of a funny story.
Todd: It turns out that Bryan Adams hates the Canadian music industry.
Clip of CBC news story about...
Todd (VO): Because of some weird CanCon rule that said his music wasn't Canadian enough. Also, Adams just hates the CanCon rules in general. He thinks this whole "Affirmative action for local bands" thing just holds bands back.
Bryan Adams: There's a lot of artists that have been successful in Canada that can't get arrested anywhere else in the world, and it's because of this, sort of, I- What I think is breeding mediocrity.
Clip of Bryan Adams - "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You"
Which for, you know, a guy with global ambitions like Bryan Adams, like, I do kinda see where he's coming from.
Todd: Very few Canadian artists had the ambition to suck on an international level like Bryan Adams did.
Clip from...
Todd (VO): Anyway, this was a big deal at the 1992 Juno Awards, which is their Grammys.
Rick Moranis: We now have conclusive proof that Bryan Adams is 100% Canadian. During the number, his dressing room was searched, and we found receipts from Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo dated on a Sunday.
I-I'm sure if you're Canadian, that's hilarious. [images of...] Anyway, Bryan Adams did win a lot of awards that year, [...and...] but so did Tom Cochrane. And when he accepted his, he said, quote, [the quote appears] "There's some incredible music being made in this country. Anyone who says Canadian music is mediocre can go to hell."
Todd: The Junos has not made this clip available online, as this act of impoliteness would ruin their national image.
Todd (VO): So there you go, Tom Cochrane was now big enough to be causing national controversy. Weird for such a carefree song. But there we are; at long last, Tom Cochrane was a known quantity outside of Canada. Where would his highway lead next?
THE FAILED FOLLOW-UP
Clip of Tom Cochrane's...
Todd (VO): This is Tom's second solo single, "No Regrets".
Tom: Walking by the roadside
And like a lot of follow-up singles I cover on here, "No Regrets" is fine.
Todd: I guess.
Tom: You have no, no regrets
Todd (VO): It's uh, you know, it's about how you have to go through life with no regrets. Because life is a highway, or whatever.
Todd: It's similar, is what I'm saying.
Todd (VO): That-that's a pretty common theme on this show where I'm like, "Oh wow, this sounds just like their big hit if their big hit was about half as memorable."
Todd: It is better than "mediocre" though. I can't believe Bryan Adams of all people had the fucking nerve.
Todd (VO): But I'm picky about this; lots of non-One Hit Wonders follow their first hit with songs I don't think are as good, and they still do fine. Tom Cochrane could have been one of them.
Todd: So I'm gonna have to dig a little harder here to figure out why.
Clip of Tom Cochrane's...
Todd (VO): Here's the third single, "Sinking Like a Sunset".
Tom: I am not a lock, and I can feel it now
But for a moment, I'd like to forget
That my heart is sinking like a sunset
Todd: [throws hands up] This is good! I-I don't know why this didn't catch on.
Tom: Sinking like a sunset
Todd (VO): Well, I think I need to make a guess at least. You don't watch these episodes for me to just shrug and say "I don't know".
Todd: So let's see if we can't find [taps chin] an overarching trend going on. What year was it? [image of Bill Clinton's TIME Person of the Year cover] '92? Hmmm...
Clip of Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
Todd (VO): That's right, it's time for another episode of Nirvana Killed... My Ca...? Hmm... I don't know.
Todd: This one might be a stretch, I don't know about this one.
Clip of Alice in Chains - "Rooster"
Todd (VO): What I can say for sure is that 1992 was a year of rapid change. [clip of Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Under the Bridge"] And when we talk about the alternative revolution sweeping out a lot of the dead weight of the '80s, we don't just mean [clips of Poison - "Unskinny Bop"...] hair metal. We mean [...Gloria Estefan - "Here We Are"...] adult contemporary, we mean [...Jesus Jones - "Right Here, Right Now"...] a lot of the college rock, we mean [...live performance from...] whatever Tom Cochrane was a member of. Which, I guess the closest description is heartland rock. [...and Tom Petty live performance] You know, Springsteen, and Mellencamp, and Tom Petty and stuff like that.
Todd: By 1992, this was also a dying genre.
Clip of Bruce Springsteen - "57 Channels (And Nothin' On)"
Todd (VO): Like, all those guys would continue to move records, but if you are not already established, your window for growing an audience there was closed. [clip of John Mellencamp - "Now More Than Ever"] This was an aging genre with an aging demographic who are not interested in finding new artists.
Todd: If you are not established enough to be part of the Traveling Wilburys, you were not gonna make it.
Clip of Tom Cochrane concert
Tom: When you take
Todd (VO): All of these songs were released in 1991, and they sound so 1991. And they were kinda dated by '92, and they were complete nonsense by '93.
Todd: And just in general, time never looks kindly on "mainstream" rock. Rock for normies is not rock-n'-roll at all.
Clip of Tom Cochrane's...
Todd (VO): The last single from this album is called "Washed Away", which is also the only other Tom Cochrane song to touch the Hot 100.
Tom: 'Round and 'round and 'round we go
Where it stops don't no one know
If you find a love, you better let 'em know
Or you both get washed away
This is good! This deserved to be bigger. And at the same time, you can hear it, right? This is old people's music, this is Don Henley stuff. There was just not much runway left in the '90s for it.
Todd: I don't know, that's one guess at it at least.
Clip of the interview with...
Todd (VO): I don't know, maybe Bryan Adams was right. Maybe the Canadian music industry was holding him back.
Todd: Maybe he did need to move to America if he wanted to get big.
Tom: Ohhhhhhhh
DID HE EVER DO ANYTHING ELSE?
Todd: Kinda? Not really.
Clip of Tom Cochrane - "I Wish You Well"
Todd (VO): A few more albums in the '90s that did not do a goddamn thing in America. Like, those albums forgot their passport, because [image of a newspaper article comparing the sales of Cochran's albums, with the first reading "sold 15,000 units" and the second just "2,900 units"] they got stopped right at the border.
Todd: In fact, he didn't last much longer in Canada either. [album cover for...] He released his next album in 1995, called Ragged Ass Road. Which is another Canadian reference I don't get.
Todd (VO): And also, that's a- That title's a pretty good indicator on how his highway was progressing.
Tom: I wish you well
You can hear him leaning hard into the Mellencamp heartland rock sound; call him "John Beaver Mellencamp". This is fine, but obviously, it's also not "Life Is a Highway". And it's not like there was a huge market for regular American Mellencamp in 1995 either.
Tom: The pain will disappear
Todd (VO): And that was the last time he was big in Canada either. By that point, [clips of Celine Dion live performance, Shania Twain - "Any Man of Mine", and Alanis Morissette live performance] Canada had some real global superstars, not just local legends like Tom Cochrane. [clip of Tom Cochrane - "I Wonder"] I also think the music might've gotten less solid.
Tom: And I wonder what it's like
To be the first in space
What is this? And what is this awful goatee? Yeah, when you start sporting that, it's over, eh? [clip of Tom's Canadian Music Week Hall of Fame induction] So since then, he's kinda settled into his role as an elder statesman of Canadian rock, and they have inducted him into every Hall of Fame they have up there. [clip of an older Tom performing "Victory Day"] Like, I should be careful and point out that I don't necessarily know that he's beloved by Canadians, or if he's just beloved by the Canadian music industry, which is not the same thing.
Todd: I wouldn't wanna assume that [images of...] H.E.R. and John Legend were the biggest names in America.
Clip of Tom's Live 8 Canada performance
Todd (VO): But judging by the information I have, he is still treated like fucking royalty up there. [video about...] They named a major road near his hometown the "Tom Cochrane's Life Is a Highway". [clip of...] And of course, he got into the Canadian Hall of Fame. Three years before Bryan Adams did.
DID HE DESERVE BETTER?
Todd: Uh, I'd bump him up from two big hits to maybe four or five.
Tom: You're going my way
Todd (VO): I didn't hear this guy's stuff and think, "Wow, where have you been hiding this guy, Canada?"
Todd: Now, Bruce Cockburn, that's a singer you should share with the world.
Todd (VO): On the other hand, is Cochrane better than Bryan Adams? Absolutely, you fucking bet. If I could make them trade careers, I absolutely would. I think I agree with Cochrane that "Life Is a Highway" isn't, like, his greatest, deepest work, or his best song, but it is his best pop song.
Todd: And sometimes you need a reminder to take your life as it comes. [earlier image of Amydog in her cone of shame] Like if your dog has a growth on her eye that needs to be removed, and it swells up so much that it busts her stitches and she needs to have reconstructive surgery on her eyelid, and you have to sell a bunch of requests to pay for it, and that's the next fucking year of your life. [sighs] Life! It's a highway. And one last thing.
Clip of "Flagpole Sitta" by...
Todd (VO): Do you remember a while back, I did a One Hit Wonderland video about the band Harvey Danger? [clips of videos from Sean Nelson] And I happened to mention that the lead singer is also a music critic, and probably a better one than I am?
Todd: Well, he's about to be a better content creator than me also.
Clip from "The Wonder of It All"
Todd (VO): That guy is named Sean Nelson, and he has a new podcast, "The Wonder of It All", about the blessings and curses of success. Where he interviews all sorts of famous artists, like John Hodgman, or Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows about the ways their lives and careers were shaped by one conspicuous breakthrough moment. And how the experience changed their lives and careers for good and for bad. It's kinda like my show, One Hit Wonderland, except I never had the guts to talk to any of those people in person.
Todd: And you can check out this podcast on Nebula.
Clip of Nebula ad
Todd (VO): A creator-specific platform where you can watch other great creators like Big Joel, F.D Signifier, and myself. It is the most exciting independent streaming platform around right now, and you can get a lifetime membership. For literally just $300, you will never have to pay a single cent ever again to subscribe.
Todd: For as long as both you and Nebula exist on this Earth, you're in.
Todd (VO): Or, if you wanna do just the regular monthly subscription, you can sign up with my link. Not only will you get access to the entire Nebula library, but you will get it for only 6 dollars a month. Or, if you sign up for the annual subscription, only 3 dollars a month.
Todd: And you'll also be helping me out specifically, which I would appreciate.
Todd (VO): So click the link in the description, and check it out below.
Todd: Thank you, and goodnight.
Closing Tag Song: Veggie Tales - "Life Is a Highway"
THE END
"Life Is a Highway" is owned by Capitol Records
This video is owned by me
THANK YOU TO THE LOYAL PATRONS!!