Bryan Adams will release How’s It Goin’ on 6 November through BAD Records, a thirteen-track album written entirely about Canada.
It started with a commission. Adams wrote a song for the documentary Canada’s Wild Eastern Edge, and the research sent him somewhere he had not planned to go.
“The idea was simply to make a record about Canada,” Adams said. “It started with writing the song for the documentary Canada’s Wild Eastern Edge and after doing so much research, I was inspired to start writing more songs about Canada. Musically it took me somewhere a little different too, which made the whole thing exciting.”
The result pulls country and folk in alongside the rock, and the subject matter is specific rather than general. “The Battle of Lundy’s Lane” takes on the War of 1812. “When Canada Joined Newfoundland” inverts the usual framing of 1949. “Iron Ribbon” points at the railway. “51st State” has a video out now, as does “The Ballad of Terry Fox,” which will also appear in Run Terry Run, a forthcoming documentary about Fox.
The album runs to twelve songs on physical formats, with “Lake Ontario” added as a digital bonus track. The LP comes in a gatefold sleeve with printed inner sleeves, obi and shrink wrap. There is also an A4 hardback book edition packaging the CD with lyrics and images tied to the stories on the record.
Adams has spent four decades mostly writing about other things. A record built from Canadian places and Canadian history is a departure, and the timing of a song called “51st State” is not accidental.
Tracklist
- How’s It Goin’
- Highway 16
- Diesel & Dirt
- The Battle of Lundy’s Lane
- The Ballad of Terry Fox
- 51st State
- When Canada Joined Newfoundland
- A Handful of Gold
- Iron Ribbon
- The Bridge
- Canada’s Wild Eastern Edge
- Heave Away
- Lake Ontario (digital bonus track)
