Reunion Tour is the fourth studio album by The Weakerthans, released on September 25, 2007, in Canada and the U.S. The album was released on both compact disc and vinyl record.
The album was produced by Ian Blurton, who previously produced Left and Leaving and Reconstruction Site for the band. Blurton has described the album as the band's most experimental to date, and guitarist Stephen Carroll told Uptown that the album features "lots of ambient stuff, tape loops, and some more keyboard than before".
Prior to the album's release, the band released mock "webisodes" about the making of the record on the Epitaph Records website.
Contents
Chart performance
The album debuted at #22 on the Canadian Albums Chart, and at #4 on the alternative/modern rock chart.
Awards and nominations
The album was nominated for the 2008 Polaris Music Prize.
Track listing
"Civil Twilight" – 3:17
"Hymn of the Medical Oddity" – 3:08
"Relative Surplus Value" – 2:37
"Tournament of Hearts" – 3:34
"Virtute the Cat Explains Her Departure" – 4:08
"Elegy for Gump Worsley" – 2:43
"Sun in an Empty Room" – 4:00
"Night Windows" – 4:35
"Bigfoot!" – 2:23
"Reunion Tour" – 2:07
"Utilities" – 4:34
Song notes
"Civil Twilight"
The song is written from the perspective of a Winnipeg Transit bus driver.
"My Confusion Corner commuters are cursing the cold away..." Confusion Corner refers to the intersection of Osborne Street, Corydon Avenue, Donald Street, and Pembina Highway in Winnipeg, which is infamous for being difficult to navigate correctly.
"Hymn of the Medical Oddity"
The song is about David Reimer, a Winnipeg man who became a "queer experiment" when, after a botched childhood circumcision destroyed his penis, his parents were convinced by psychologist John Money to raise him as a girl and allow Money to study "her" as a test case in social construction theories of gender. Reimer committed suicide in 2004.
"...and ask St. Boniface and St. Vital / Preserve me from my past..." Two jurisdictions of Winnipeg are named after these saints, owing to the city's heavy French history.
"Relative Surplus Value"
Surplus value is a Marxist term for the profit derived by capitalists from unpaid labour. For example, if an employee is paid $10 an hour but produces $40 worth of goods in that time, his employer has received $30 in surplus value since the worker has not been paid the full value of his output.
The song is written from the perspective of a man who has just been fired from his job, and is now relating his experience to an unnamed acquaintance. In an early live performance of the song on college radio station KUCI in Irvine, California, Samson described the song as being about the dot-com bust.
"Tournament of Hearts"
The Scotties Tournament of Hearts is Canada's annual women's curling championship. The song is written from the perspective of a man who spends all his free time at the curling club, partly out of his love of the sport and partly because of communication problems in his marriage: "Why, why can't I draw right up to what I want to say? Why can't I ever stop where I want to stay? I slide right through the day, I'm always throwing hack weight."
Personnel
Stephen Carroll – guitars, vocals, pedal steel, keyboards
John K. Samson – vocals, guitars, keyboards
Greg Smith – bass, vocals, keyboards
Jason Tait – drums, percussion, vibes, glockenspiel, keyboards, banjo, loops
Michael Barth – trumpet ("Reunion Tour", "Bigfoot!")
Tyler Greenleaf – trombone ("Reunion Tour", "Bigfoot!")
Izabella Budai – flute ("Reunion Tour")
Sean Dealey – additional snare rolls ("Reunion Tour")
Julie Penner – trumpet ("Elegy for Gump Worsley")