Last June, a couple of friends and I started to collect and map all of the songs we could find about the city of Toronto. We now have a rich and rapidly growing archive of over 100 songs for your listening pleasure at www.listentotrack.ca.
We were inspired by the abundance of fantastic local music in Toronto, as well as the connection you feel when the familiar shows up somewhere unexpected. Our project, Track Toronto, exists to bring these two things together.
There’s something magical about learning that Leonard Cohen’s Closing Time was written about the Matador Club at 466 Dovercourt, or that there’s a song about the subway ride you take everyday, like I Will Never See the Sun by Great Lake Swimmers, or that even a humble spot like the Parkdale Dollarmart has a place in a beautiful song by Oh Bijou. The city is littered with gems like these, and we want to bring them out into the open for everyone to enjoy. Our goal is to allow people to discover these songs as they wander the city. While the online version of our project is up and running – our next step is to install [murmur] inspired signs around the city to alert passers-by that there is more here to explore, and enable them to listen to songs in the very places that inspired them.
In the meantime you can come see us present the collection so far at The Pages Festival on March 15th. We’ll be part of the Urban Narratives event alongside Shawn Micallef, Gerry Flahive and Amy Lavender Harris.
Until then, you can browse our collection of site specific songs at www.listentotrack.ca, and keep up to date with new songs as we discover them on twitter @tracktoronto.
Song suggestions are always welcome! Send them to [email protected].