Daniel MacIvor's musical tribute to Sydney, Nova Scotia

Originally published November 28, 2016

In a new segment we call the q Block Party, we invite guests to pay a musical tribute to the neighbourhoods they hold dear to their hearts. 

Today, playwright, screenwriter and actor Daniel MacIvor takes listeners on a guided musical tour through his hometown of Sydney, Nova Scotia, a former city of the province located on Cape Breton Island's east coast.

Below are MacIvor's song picks and his reasons behind them.

Gino Vannelli, I Just Wanna Stop

"It's that first line, really 'When I think about those nights in Montreal,' it brings me back to Sydney, to I think it was like sixteen, seventeen, having a driver's license and smoking cigarettes and shooting the drag as we used to call it."

Raylene Rankin, We Rise Again

"To me it speaks about the fact that Sydney is the city but it's still on the island and there's still that Cape Breton pride, the island pride, and we're Cape Bretoners first, we're not Nova Scotians, we're Cape Bretoners first."

The Pixies, Here Comes Your Man

"This to me represents a period of my relationship to Sydney, which would be The Pixies and The Breeders and Superchuck and Yo Lo Tengo, and a discordant feed-backy kind of feeling. It was when I was really happy to have left and resisted going back. And it was a very particular period for me. This is the realistic Sydney for me."

Sufjan Stevens, Should Have Known Better

"It's something about being a grown-up, going home and understanding something about it now that I didn't. I let go of the discordant and the Yo Lo Tengo and The Pixies and I've come to something a bit more acoustic feeling about Sydney and understanding having a lot of gratitude for the place that made me."