Repertoire

photo by Dan Fischer, 2017. CanadianBeats

Here’s a fairly comprehensive list of songs that constitute the well that we draw from. The songwriters are credited, if you’re curious about that. And there’s a few annotations.
If you’re coming to a gig and you see a song here that you’d like us to play, why not scoot over to our “contact” page and send us a request. We’ll do our best to put it on our set list!


7 Down 15 Across (Greg Denton)
A Little Extra Love (Richard Laviolette)
All Around The World (Pixies rewrite of the traditional “Hang me, oh Hang Me” song)
All Lost In The Supermarket (Strummer/Jones)
Bad Boy (Antonia/Stampfel)
Beautiful Blue Eyes (originally “Brown” eyes, by Alton Delmore)
Before I Met You (Rader/Seitz, 1st recorded by Joe Cannonball Lewis, 1953)
Benson, Arizona (Bill Taylor/John Carpenter, a country & western sci-fi song about faster-than-light space travel recorded by John Yager for John Carpenter’s 1st movie, “Dark Star – A Spaced Out Odyssey”, 1974)
Break Down These Blues (Richard Laviolette)
Buffalo Gal (Greg Denton)
Cold Cold Heart (Hank Williams, melody adapted from T. Texas Tyler’s 1945 recording of the Ted West song “You’ll Still Be In My Heart”, 1943)
Cold Hard Facts Of Life (Bill Anderson, 1st recorded by Porter Wagoner in 1966)
Coming To The End of the Street (Greg Denton)
Cowtown (Greg Denton) – a hoedowned re-conceptualization of the E.E. Cummings poem ‘anyone lived in a pretty how town’ with a dash of 70s T.V. nostalgia thrown in too.
Crazy Feeling (Lou Reed)
Dark End of the Street (Penn/Moman, 1st recorded by James Carr in 1967)
Don’t Let The Sunshine Fool Ya (Guy Clark)
Drivin’ Nails In My Coffin (Jerry Irby, 1st recorded by Jerry Irby and His Texas Cowboys in 1945, and by Ernest Tubb in 1946)
Euphoria (Robin Remailly, Holy Modal Rounders)
Everything Is Broken (Bob Dylan)
Fiddler A Dram (trad.)
Fine Artiste Blues (Robert Crumb)
Fistful of Rain (Warren Zevon)
Flop Eared Mule (trad.)
Freight Train (Elizabeth Cotten)
Gospel Truth (Greg Denton)
Griselda (Antonia/Stampfel)
Ground Hog (trad.)
Happy Boy (Conover/Becker, The Beat Farmers)
Heart Disease Called Love (John Cooper Clarke)
Hearts of Stone (Bruce Springsteen, the title track from the Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes album known as “the best album Bruce Springsteen never recorded”, 1978)
How I Got To Memphis (Tom T. Hall)
I Know It’s True But I’m Sorry To Say (Gordan Gano, Violent Femmes)
I Wanna Be Sedated (The Ramones)
I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight (Bob Dylan)
I’ll Be Your Mirror (Lou Reed)
I’ll Break Out Again Tonight (Owens/Shaffer, recorded by Merle Haggard, 1974)
I’ll Sing Tonight (Meredith Blackmore)
In My Hour of Darkness (Emmylou Harris & Gram Parsons)
In The Morning (Meredith Blackmore)
In The Neighborhood (Tom Waits)
Leaving The Table (Leonard Cohen)
Light My Fire (The Doors)
Little Girl and the Dreadful Snake (Albert Price)
Log Driver’s Waltz (Wade Hemsworth)
Mary Tyler Moore aka Love Is All Around (Sonny Curtis, the Probable Cause version ends with a wee mash-up with Weezer’s Buddy Holly)
Me, Myself, and I (Gordon/Roberts/Kauffman, 1st recorded by Billie Holiday in 1937)
Must You Throw Dirt In My Face (Bill Anderson, 1st recorded by The Louvin Brothers in 1962)
No-One’s In The Kitchen (Greg Denton)
Old Plank Road (trad., recorded by Uncle Dave Macon in 1926)
Peggy Leg (Terry Allen)
Philadelphia Lawyer (Woody Guthrie)
Pistol Packin’ Mama (Al Dexter)
Railroad Bill (trad., According to Alan Lomax, “Railroad Bill” was an African-American turpentine worker from Alabama, whose real name was Morris Slater. The terrible conditions in which turpentine workers lived drove him to a life of crime; typically, he would break into railroad cars and steal the goods. Slater’s life has become legend in this song.)
Railroad Worksong (trad. this is based on the adaptation by Mark Knopfler’s band The Notting Hillbillies)
Run Mountain (trad.? or J.E.Mainer?)
Saginaw, Michigan (Bill Anderson/Don Wayne, recorded by Lefty Frizzell in 1963)
Same Old Man (trad. also known as Old Man of the Mill)
Sherry Darling (Bruce Springsteen)
Snowin’ On Raton (Townes Van Zandt)
Spirited (Greg Denton)
Sugar Tooth (Greg Denton)
Sunday Morning (Lou Reed)
Supine Diamond (Greg Denton)
Sweet William (trad.)
Take Time To Know Her (Steve Davis, recorded by Percy Sledge in 1968)
Things Have Changed (Bob Dylan)
Three-Way (Tom Heinl)
To Live Is To Fly (Townes Van Zandt)
To Make A Long Story Short (Greg Denton)
Underdressed (Greg Denton)
Vicious (Lou Reed)
Volunteer (Warren Zevon)
Voodoo Queens (Greg Denton)
When She Comes (Greg Denton) – an apocalyptic rewrite of Comin’ Round The Mountain with references to Bob Dylan’s Highway 61, Leonard Cohen’s The Future, CCR’s Bad Moon Rising, and Geoff Berner’s Higher Ground.
Whisky Willy (Michael Hurley)
Who Loves The Sun (Lou Reed)
Who’s Gonna Shoe (trad.)
Window (Greg Denton)
Winterlude (Bob Dylan)
Your Tears Are Just Interest On The Loan (Don Reno)
You’re Just A Wave (Butch Hancock)
You’ve Got the Right String, Baby, But The Wrong Yo-Yo (Piano Red, 1st recorded by Douglas Finell and His Royal Stompers in 1929)
Young Creeper (Greg Denton)

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