Disc Five: I was barely alive

The first hit of the Crash Test Dummies was "If I Had a Million Dollars." (Here's the original version, from the cassette tape they sold at concerts. Cassette tape.) But when they went on Canada's big music award show they didn't sing it.

They chose "Box Set" which is from the perspective of an artist at the end of his career, taking you disc by disc through his box set collection.

Disc four, never released before
And you can tell why
It's just some demos I recorded in my basement

Disc five, I was barely alive
I was hacking up a lung
So they had to use a special computer as my replacement

Disc six, a dance remix!
So I can catch the latest trend
And it'll make you scratch your head and wonder where my taste went

My brother and I thought it was a brilliant song choice! So ironic to sing this song when you're fresh and starting out! And how many musicians in the hall that night uncomfortably identified? The radio DJs the next morning criticized the Ladies for not singing "Million Dollars." Fools, fools, fools. Didn't they listen to this part?

I never thought I'd be regretful
Of all my past success
But some stupid number one hit single
Has got me in this mess!

They chose to not sing their stupid number one hit single. Well played, Ladies. Well played.



I'm mostly a "greatest hits" fan, but here are my other fave songs:

Anyone perfect must be lying, anything easy has its cost
Anyone plain can be lovely, anyone loved can be lost
What if I lost my direction? What if I lost sense of time?
What if I nursed this infection? Maybe the worst is behind
It feels just like I'm falling for the first time
It feels just like I'm falling for the first time


We've got these chains that hang around our necks
People want to strangle us with them before we take our first breath.


Cover of fellow Canadian Bruce Cockburn.
When you're lovers in a dangerous time,
Sometimes you're made to feel as if your love's a crime.
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
You gotta kick at the darkness till it bleeds daylight.