[gsmacleod]

With Round 3, we see Beautiful Thing and Leave receive the majority of the votes.

Eliminated Round 1
Are You Ready
All Tore Up
Silver Jet

Eliminated Round 2
Use It Up
Throwing Off Glass

Eliminated Round 3
Beautiful Thing
Leave

Vote for the song you believe to be the weakest on In Violet Light and after 48 hours, we will remove the song that has the most votes.

The poll will end Tuesday at 10:01am Eastern.

Happy voting!

Shane

[Scotty12]

This is where its getting tougher, hard to decide between darkest and good life.

Not as hard as the final is going to be.

Who's for the dire wolf? :censored :rambo:

[senrab]

astounded that Good Life is already ahead.

[direwolf74]

Have to go with the Dark Canuck here. I like the song, but Gord's vocals in that 1st half of the song are not his best work, and actually somewhat irritating. Also, the song doesn't really take off until the 2nd half after the band launches into that awesome Hip-style groove. The production is also much better in the 2nd half of the song, with Sinclair's bass much more prominent in the mix, and better singing from Downie. Good song, but not quite up to par with the other three.

[chancellor]

This is where its getting tougher, hard to decide between darkest and good life.

Not as hard as the final is going to be.

Who's for the dire wolf? :censored :rambo:

I was the Direwolf, not quite sure all the fuss is with this song.

[andrew sharpe]

Tough one. Much as it will madden KWT, I have to take extra factors into consideration here. I cannot hear The Darkest One without picturing the video, which is simply great and SO Gord, so no way am I voting for it. It's A Good Life is possibly my favourite song title in the Hip's catalogue, so it's out as well. That comes down to Dire Wolf and Dark Canuck, and as much as it pains me to vote against the song that contains one of the best Gord "whoo"'s of all time ("and get celebrity skin, woo!"), I think The Dire Wolf is the better song.

So I voted for Dark Canuck. As others have noted, the second half is MUCH better than the first. I do love the drive-in premiers line though and the aforementioned "WHOO". Tough call.

[andrew sharpe]

Also I'm still super bummed that Glass is out.

[senrab]

Also I'm still super bummed that Glass is out.

Me too. I've always thought that it was a beautiful song, especially the bridge.

[Killer Whale Tank]

Darkest One is merely an OK Hip song. It was probably chosen as a single because it reflected their staple sound - unfortunately this seems to be how singles are generally chosen, by trying to meet fan expectations rather than just going with the best song - it palls compared to earlier 'rock' singles, lacking a convincing resolution in the chorus. ('and yer the darkest waaaa-aaaawwwn' lacks imagination).

By contrast, Good Life is a soaring ballad that shouldn't work bit does, sustained by a classic arch Downie melody, some haunting lines, and that swirling guitar sound. Dire Wolf - despite still more too-precious 'thesaurus' writing by Gord in the verses, and the awkward metre of 'done with acting,' has one of the most amazing choruses they ever gave us. Those magnificent, rising chords, the fantastic lyric! You can see that water, you're in that rickety boat. Manwhile, Dark Canuck's second movement ('Metamorphosis') is sonically everything the rest of the album isn't: throbbing, immediate, intense, and thank Christ, bass-heavy. And its study of Canada in the War on Terror is disturbing and potent. I got to ask GD about this briefly one time, and he said he loved the image of the people in the drive in honking their horns at the death of the villain. No kidding! That was War on Terror politics in a nutshell.

We've relinquished enough/
and it goes on and on and on

Amen, brother.

[Escape@Hand]

Dark Canuck is the best song on the album, and one of their best ever, imo. Not sure how anyone could think Darkest One or Good Life is better than it. Dire Wolf is great too, but Canuck is just such a great departure from the normal Hip stuff, it's the tops for this album. I voted Darkest One for this round; great song and I wished they would have played it live more, but it's a small notch below the other three.

[Moof_Milker]

Darkest One gets my vote. I always liked the song...but it never knocked my socks off like the other remaining songs. That said, it's one of the songs I've rediscovered and found new appreciation for in recent years. A song that I have always loved...and love even more now is the other dark song on the album, The Dark Canuck. Seeing Gord in that Jaws t-shirt is what did it. 14 years after IVL, Gord was still thinking about Jaws. Jaws, and his fictitious cinematic counterpart The Dark Canuck, is a great metaphor for the darkness that lurks just below the surface, whether it's terrorism/war...or cancer. I like to imagine the Long Time Running doc played at a drive-in movie theatre somewhere and as the end credits rolled you could hear the misted cars honking their applause. Lastly, I always liked how this album ended with such momentum -- something I felt their previous record lacked in the back half. The second half of The Dark Canuck, made even better by the first half that precedes it, is such a great ending to IVL. I'm not sure if The Dark Canuck will get my vote as best on the record, but it definitely gets my vote as the coolest.

[cochise]

This is a tough one, but going to be much tougher after this round.

Love "The Darkest One", but the three remaining I love more. Its a great song, but just doesn't quite match the others.

Now best video......maybe.

[potsie]

My final four rankings:
4. The Darkest One - I like KWT's thought of it lacking a convincing resolution in the chorus. The chorus is beautifully sung, but yet feels empty to me. I wish GD had put a little more elbow grease into the writing on this one.
3. The Dark Canuck - Demerit points here for the first half of the song. All the first two minutes do is heighten the anticipation for that mid-song tempo change. I can't wait for them to pass.
2. Good Life - "Silver Jet" has the obvious "There's a heron outside in violet light" lines which reference the album cover, but it is this song that truly has a dusky violet light feel to it, which is "...the colour of the night". That churning guitar opening gives me goose bumps.
1. The Dire Wolf - Damn near perfection, and one of their best post-PP songs.

[loach]

I'm going to have a tough time on the next one. I find myself shuffling the order of those 3 differently every few days, since I've been anticipating this decision the last month or so.

[nestene1]

The Darkest Gone.