‘I Believe’: a song you can’t stand is on guard for thee

Montreal vocalist Nikki Yanofsky turns 16 today — old enough to annoy a critical mass of viewers of the Super Bowl via CTV, who were hoping to wake up Monday morning with renewed enthusiasm for The Who, and left instead with their ears ringing with one too many impressions of the network’s theme song for their Vancouver 2010 coverage, “I Believe.” But now that you can’t count on most folks to be familiar with the No. 1 song on the download charts — incidentally, this week in Canada, it’s the FIFA World Cup anthem “Wavin’ Flag” by K’Naan — a tune that a critical mass can despise is an ideal metaphor for the Olympic spirit. While first tasting fame as a tweenage jazz vocalist, Nikki couldn’t say no to the exposure afforded by the anthem composed by Stephan Moccio, with lyrics by Glass Tiger stalwart Alan Frew. Toronto Star pop scribe Ashante Infantry described the results as “‘I Believe I Can Fly’ set to the Chariots of Fire theme” but no one will mistake this bombast for R. Kelly and Vangelis. Now available in retail stores — accompanied by French and bilingual versions, “J’Imagine,” sung by Annie Villeneuve — this is sure to be the biggest retail CD single in Canada since Elton John’s tribute to Diana, “Candle in the Wind 1997.” Then again, major record companies gave up on releasing CD singles after that.

Remember when Hillary Clinton made a big deal of picking her presidential campaign song in 2007 — even releasing a teaser Sopranos parody co-starring Bill — only to reveal her supporters favoured an erstwhile Air Canada jingle, “You and I” by Céline Dion? By the time Barack Obama was on her trail, it was quietly jettisoned in favour of “Blue Sky” by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, because what plays in Vegas should stay in Vegas. The anthemic “I Believe” has a sound inextricably associated with Céline, though — and it’s no surprise to learn that composer Moccio caught a break writing her “A New Day Has Come” with one Aldo Nova. So, a true Canadian torch is obviously being carried here.

Twitter comments about repeated plays of “I Believe” are not as entirely damning as one might think. When the surrounding product pitches are generally the by-product of advertising agencies trying to out-deadpan one another, a blast of hopeful sincerity can’t help but resonate. And they’ve produced a version of this anthem for every conceivable Olympic mood — 225 versions in 11 sonic colours, as Moccio describes it: “We call one ‘The Extreme Version’ for the snowboarders. We have one called ‘Emotional’ when we’re building a story around an athlete. It shows the journey to the podium — or not.” The composer calls the primary version “über-commercial and über-classical” — a compliment, presumably.

Alan Frew, meanwhile, is now the country’s preeminent writer of anthems: “Free To Be (Go Leafs Go)” was his fight song for a hapless hockey franchise, imagined as “Canada’s Team” to the chagrin of five other NHL markets and beyond. Then the same tune served him to play the same song — stripped of its bagpipes and war drums — before a Leafs game as a salute to Forces serving in Afghanistan, since the song came about after a trip there to begin with. “I Believe” is obviously designed to be just as versatile. Prevailing lyrical message: if you don’t like this song, not only have the terrorists won, you also have no soul.