The Great Canadian Road Trip: Song #47/250…Could I Be Your Girl? By Jann Arden

Jann Arden is a Prairie girl. She was born in Calgary in 1962 and has lived and worked in Western Canada for most of her life. That having been said, she has come a long way since those early high school days when she was singing Tina Turner songs in cover bands in Vancouver and Whistler, B.C. Since the release of her debut album Time For Mercy in 1993, Arden has had seventeen Top Ten hits, including five #1 hit singles in Canada. She has won 8 Juno Awards, countless Western Music Association Awards, she has a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, has been invested into the Order of Canada, she stars in her own online podcast with fellow Canadian personality Arlene Dickinson, she has authored numerous biographical books, she has appeared as guest host for a variety of awards shows and has been the star of her very own television show, too. Through it all, Arden continues to release new music. She is easily one of the most dynamic and successful of modern Canadian entertainers. This is her story.

When we are young and still in our formative years, there is often only so much we can do when it comes to dealing with adversity. This is especially true when that adversity comes from within your own home. Jann Arden grew up in a household in which addiction and abuse were constant features of daily life. Her father was an alcoholic and was physically and emotionally abusive. Her brother would end up being convicted of first degree murder for a crime borne from the fallout of growing up in such an environment. Arden’s song “Hanging by a Thread” is about her brother. How a young person deals with such things is not for me to judge. Surviving with your self-esteem and physical being intact is no small feat. For many young people who find themselves in this position, surviving until they are old enough to leave the family home becomes goal number one. For Arden, this meant leaving home in her late teens and heading west over the Rockies and into British Columbia. To say that she has been a survivor from an early age would be an accurate statement. Much of her survival instinct manifested itself in her writing and then, in time, in her singing. As stated above, her singing career began as most do, by playing in local cover bands. It was while singing songs by Tina Turner, Billie Holiday and even, believe or not, Led Zeppelin that she was noticed by a record producer named Neil MacGonigill. For the next decade and a bit, MacGonigill served as manager for Jann Arden and helped facilitate her formal entry into the music business. 

Right from the release of her debut album, Time For Mercy, Jann Arden has wowed audiences with the power of her voice and the emotional impact of her songs. She had a string of hits early in her career such as “Insensitive”, “I Would Die For You”, “Good Mother”, “Unloved” (with Jackson Browne) and “Could I Be Your Girl?”. Her song catalogue places her firmly in the Adult Contemporary category on the musical spectrum. Not surprisingly, she has toured as co-headliner with fellow AC acts such as Michael Bublé. However, one characteristic of Arden’s that has helped keep her in the public eye even when she is between albums is her personality and her versatility. She has a terrific sense of humour and appears at ease speaking in public. At one point in her career, Arden was voted as being the Canadian most likely to have her own TV talk show. When I used to have an account on Twitter, one of the celebrities that I followed was Jann Arden. I always found her to be very down-to-earth and approachable. Sometimes, celebrities give off a folksy vibe that proves over time to just be a marketing tool. However, with Jann Arden, I always found her to be refreshingly forthright and candid in a way that many famous people are not. This was particularly true when she found herself having to care for her own mother who had been stricken with Alzheimer’s Disease. As you may know, Alzheimer’s Disease attacks the brain and incapacitates its victims. One of the most common symptoms is complete memory loss. I remember following Arden on Twitter as she was going through this time in her life. She often came online for her own support. She would admit how hard it was to have her mother not know who she was. Her public show of vulnerability always came across online as being sincere. To me, this made her stand out as being one of the most “real” people I have come across in my online world. Arden wrote about her struggles to care for her mother in a book released in 2017 called Feeding My Mother. This book is one of four memoir-style books that Jann Arden has authored since 2002. If talking about your emotions and having a strong support network in place is a model for maintaining good mental and emotional health, then Jann Arden is a poster girl for the cause. Good for her. We all have our personal and professional issues that we deal with in life but for most of us, we get to have some measure of privacy as we go through it all. Not someone like Jann Arden. I have a lot of respect for how she handles her business as she does with the spotlight shining down upon her at all times. 

Jann Arden is a singer, songwriter, book author, actress, spokesperson, podcaster, television personality and online media star. She is one of the most successful examples of a Canadian multi-media artist. Her climb to the top began in 1993 with the chart success of a song called “I Would Die For You”. Two years later, she would win the Juno Award for Song of the Year for “Could I Be Your Girl?”, and she has never looked back. You can find her books at all major retail book stores. You can find her out on tour quite often, with ticket prices still on the reasonable side of pricey. You can find her online with a podcast that is called The Business of Life. You can watch her television show called Jann on CTV, which is loosely based on her own life and is billed as a comedy. If you remain on social media, you can find Jann acting as an advocate for many progressive causes, the highest profile of which for her is stopping the practice of selling horses for food and cosmetic use overseas. All in all, Jann Arden keeps herself very busy. I tip my hat toward her for doing so much and doing it all so consistently well. She is definitely a Canadian success story.

The link to the official website for Jann Arden can be found here.

The link to the video for the song “Could I Be Your Girl?” by Jann Arden can be found here. ***The lyrics can be found here.

The link to the trailer for the television show Jann starring Jann Arden can be found here.

The link to the website where her books, including Feeding My Mother, can be purchased can be found here. ***While this link is one method you can use to find her books, I recommend shopping through a local book seller if possible. Supporting a local retailer is always a good thing for your community. 🙂 

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