Obama's Playlist

When I was young, I listened to (and watched) a lot of CBC. After all, what choice did I have? I had two TV channels. When I finally had the ability to watch MuchMusic regularly, I was a junkie in its heyday. You know, back when Much made a difference, played videos every day, and had good artists on regularly (as I write this, God, I miss it). Now, MM is absolute shit. I don't know if there's anything truly worth watching on there any more. The music is gone for sure. One thing that definitely didn't help was the departure of station captain Denise Donlon. She left Much and worked for Sony Canada for a few years. This past September, she was hired on as executive director of CBC Radio's English-language services.
Is it a coincidence the music coming out of CBC as well as the shows are awesome these days? I think not. Although a friend of mine made a great graph of CBC and Much vs time on his site a while ago, I think, aside from age (and other factors), the true tale is the Donlon factor. I love listening to CBC Radio3 online and being interactive. How often can you write about what's going on on the radio and have the host give you a shout-out on the air? It's dang cool. Even more than that, I love the music (and personalities) on CBC Radio2 during my listening hours. I listen to Tom Allen in the morning, and Rich Terfry (AKA Buck 65) in the afternoon. The music is varied, but it's all excellent, intelligent, and worthwhile. Loves it.

An interesting feature that started today (like the Canada East vs West debate of December) is the challenge of making a 49-song mixtape for Barack Obama, to help him better understand the fantastic country above him. My wheels have been turning on this for a while now, to make some choice suggestions. Some online & on air have been great thus far, but I added one that was missing (as far as I could tell). Tonight, I added RUSH's "The Trees".

What would you put on a playlist as songs that best represent our country? Gimme your top five (or so). Whatever else I come up with (that hopefully hadn't been mentioned on CBC yet), I'll let you know. Suggest away!