'CA-NA-DA'

"Ca-na-da." A centennial song composed by Bobby Gimby as a children's marching song with English and French lyrics. Gimby composed the song on his own initiative and offered it to the advertising agency for Canada's Centennial Commission, who purchased it for use in a CBC TV documentary, 'Preview '67.' "Ca-na-da" was quickly adopted by the Centennial Commission as a theme song for the centennial. A recording (Quality SE-1967) by the Young Canada Singers, two groups of ten-year-old children, one conducted in Montreal by Raymond Berthiaume and the other in Toronto by Laurie Bower, became the most popular Canadian single of 1967. The song attained an all-time high for a Canadian recording at that time, of over 270,000 45-rpm singles sold. Published in 1967 by G.V. Thompson, "Ca-na-da" has been recorded by more than 25 other artists, including Gimby, Johnny Burt, Jim McHarg, the Saints and Sinners, and the Sugar Shoppe, and has sold more than 75,000 copies of sheet music. Gimby donated his royalties from the song to the Boy Scouts of Canada.