Yukon musician creates a pandemic playlist

This story is part of a web series called Music that Matters with CBC Yukon's Airplay host Dave White. Dave sits down with Yukoners to talk about five pieces of music that inspire them. 

Gigs have been cancelled, recording dates shelved and the music industry is reeling as a result of the pandemic.

Which means musicians like Gregory McLaughlin are finding inspiration in music that's already been made, and he had no problem coming up with a pandemic playlist.

The only challenge he had was whittling it down to just five songs.

The first song on his list? I'm Afraid Of Americans by David Bowie, he said.

"I picked this song kind of tongue in cheek because in the Yukon, we've seen our fair share of Americans coming through the border crossing over into Alaska and vice versa, and a certain amount of paranoia comes with that," he said.

Even though the song seems to have been written with the current crisis in mind, McLaughlin said that's just one of those happy accidents.

"Bowie's explanation for the lyrics and the title was actually about the homogenization of culture by American corporations,| he explained.

"He was travelling in Java when the first Starbucks was opened and he thought that was just a slippery slope."

McLaughlin chose Lunatic With A Loaded Gun by British band The Blinders for his second selection.

"This is kind of a random discovery, this single just came out in the past year...It's a very literal punk song, which is not a genre I usually go to. The band wrote this about the American government's child separation policies....there's a lot of power to this song."

McLaughlin admitted his third choice, Hysteria by Def Leppard, comes out of left field, and also admitted it is a guilty pleasure.

"The biggest song on this record was Pour Some Sugar On Me, which was my favourite song when I was three years old. (But) this song is more in keeping with the theme I've loosely put together here."

McLaughlin made a huge leap for his fourth choice, going with See No Evil a  seminal New York punk band Television.

"One of the things I like the most about this record is the counterpoint between Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd's guitars. They just interact in a really interesting way, using scales that aren't often found in rock music."

Finally, McLaughlin returned to David Bowie for his final selection.

"I was having a hard time figuring out what the final song should be, so I figured why not [go] with some more David Bowie...this song is actually in quotations, and they're an intentional part of the title to denote a sense of irony, apparently."