Constantines are Canadian, but they understand the death of the American Dream, with their quiet, dignified stories of working-class struggles.
“Best get new dreams, these old dreams won’t last.”
“Soon enough, work and love will make a man out of you.”
After their self-titled debut and Sub Pop-released follow-up Shine a Light, Constantines seemed primed for a significant breakthrough. The Guelph, Ontario-based band’s fiery, energetic brand of punk was indebted to greats like Fugazi and the Clash. Those first two records were met with widespread acclaim, including multiple Juno Award nominations (Canada’s equivalent of the Grammy Awards).
For the follow-up, Constantines traded in their stream-of-consciousness lyrics for a powerful statement about working-class life, inspired in part by Studs Terkel’s classic Working, a series of interviews the famed journalist conducted with Americans about their work. It is a landmark, and if you haven’t read it, I implore you to do so. Few books have captured the contemporary American experience as well.
The album’s title, Tournament of Hearts, originated during the recording process, derived from the name of the national women’s curling tournament, which became a band obsession when the National Hockey League were on strike. Consistent with the themes on the record, there are no full-time pro curlers. Lead singer Bryan Webb was also reading books on Wicca spirituality and the environment, themes that found their way into the opening track “Draw Us Lines”, a steadily propulsive song that is a different type of anthem than the openers on the previous two releases. It feels more like an invitation into a different, equally powerful space.
This pivot from noisy punk anthems was received respectfully, but 20 years on, Tournament of Hearts is the Constantines album I always put on, despite my love for their two previous records and the follow-up. Typically, it leads me to go down a rabbit hole of the band’s short but formidable discography. I return for the moments where it is anthemic, as well as the slow burns and left turns. Most of all, I return for the lyrics, the spare narratives of people doing their jobs, getting by on hope, and trying to make ends meet. Constantines are Canadian, but they understand the death of the American Dream.
It was perhaps not the record critics wanted next from them, but Tournament of Hearts remains as potent in its own way as the group’s more musically explosive first two records, as we all wonder how long it will be until our jobs will be done by AI. Self-checkouts have gradually replaced cashiers. Machines replaced lineworkers. Robots are gradually replacing warehouse workers, and now artificial intelligence is coming for jobs like mine. If anything, the necessity of earning a living in increasingly dire circumstances has made Tournament of Hearts even more bracing and vitally affirming, its quiet moments more affecting as the years have passed.
Where Shine a Light’s songs are gritty and raging, filled with sloganeering and music that added a touch of soul to punk, the songs on Tournament of Hearts are decidedly quieter, more controlled, even when they do rage. “Hotline Operator” opts for a slow build, and when it picks up, it’s still without the crashing guitars. The same applies to “Love in Fear”. When Constantines crank up the guitars, the songs have a stomp, as on “Lizaveta”, or a slow march, as on “You Are a Conductor”.
Tournament of Hearts‘ characters have unglamorous jobs that are taken for granted by society. They are Hotline Operators and Good Nurses, dealing with rolling blackouts and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which forced several countries into masks over 15 years before COVID-19 raged across the globe. Their stories are sketched powerfully, with spare details meant to evoke that person you don’t think about after you’re done with the call or you have left the hospital.
This economy actually drives connection, rather than impeding it. Focusing on the universal makes these characters more relatable. “Thieves” unfolds like noir flash fiction, with its images of a night on fire and lovers who meet behind the abattoir, and features a saxophone to double down on the atmosphere.
The centerpiece and thesis of the record is “Working Full-Time”, a stirring ode to work that joins Aesop Rock’s “Nine to Fivers Anthem” as the definitive statement on workaday life of the decade. It is a thrilling assertion of blue-collar dignity that balances the realities of selling our time with the aspects of our lives that make the work worth it. These are the people I knew when I was growing up. While I did not wind up in a skilled labor job, my father’s union electrician job is what put me through college.
I have never lost that work ethic that was instilled in me, even as I became disillusioned with corporate politics throughout my career. This is one of the tracks that most closely recalls Constantines’ signature sound, with a killer riff that leads the song and builds to singer Bry Webb shouting the title. This is the song that wakes me every morning.
One of the biggest surprises is also one of the most powerful songs in Constantines’ catalog. “Soon Enough” is a warm-hearted, country-tinged ballad written from an expectant father’s perspective. It is moving and sweet, centered around the understated beauty of the line “Soon enough, work and love will make a man out of you.” You don’t need to be a father to a son to shed a tear, but if you are, this song will hit you in the gut, and it’s a moment of hope on a record mostly filled with grim realities of the day-to-day grind.
The closer, “Windy Road”, is another surprise, a quiet acoustic song featuring one of the record’s more memorable lines: “Best get new dreams, these old dreams won’t last.” It is uncharacteristically gentle for the Constantines. “You are a Conductor” would have ended the record on a dirge filled with marching orders to keep soldiering on, but this is the Constantines record that eschews expectation, so ending on an atmospheric ballad is fitting.
From here, Constantines released one more record, Kensington Heights, moving over to Canadian indie institution Arts and Crafts. This record brought back some of the big rock sound of their first two releases. Opener “Hard Feelings” charges out of the gate like a track from the band’s earlier days, with the stinging, cynical line “Some people’s love isn’t strong enough”.
In addition, there are a few songs that harken back to the hardscrabble, blue-collar narratives, such as the powerful “Credit River” and “Brother Run Them Down”, which are as anthemic as anything on Shine a Light. However, tracks like “Our Age” and “Time Can Be Overcome” show that they weren’t giving up on the direct, subdued approach of Tournament of Hearts. Those two songs are two of the highlights on the record. After an acoustic EP that collected reworked versions of some of the band’s best songs, The Constantines called it quits.
The final song on Kensington Heights, “Do What You Can Do”, now reads like a farewell message from the band, with its line, “Do what you can do with what you got.” That could also be the thesis of Tournament of Hearts and its quiet, dignified stories of working-class struggles.