It was 2011 when Ottawa’s The Cooper Brothers released ‘That’s What Makes Us Great.’ The love letter that recognized all that makes Canada special, as Dick Cooper branded it, was enjoyed by some — even radio stations played it — but then the fame of it faded away.
That was until recently when the song made a rebound on social media given recent events unfolding in the United States and President Donald Trump’s related calls to make Canada the 51st state.
“There’s close to a half a million views on Facebook at 470,000 or something like that. I must have just put the song out at the wrong time, I guess, because now everybody’s freaking over it,” said Cooper. “But oftentimes, that’s what happens in music.
So what makes it stick today?
“Instead of this flag waving thing, it’s tongue in cheek,” said Cooper. “It’s also humorous. We talk about poutine, Tim Hortons, and maple syrup. It makes us laugh at ourselves, but it’s also a very patriotic song.”
There is also a subtle swipe at the United States. The song begins with the lines, “We don’t need no Trident Missiles. We got no subs to put them on. We don’t mind keeping the peace. We try to get along.”
The piece of music also makes mention of Don Cherry, universal healthcare, and 40 below winters.
Cooper’s inspiration for the song came after meeting troops who recently returned from serving in Afghanistan at a hockey game. They made a great impression and went out for a beer together afterwards.
“They were just great. I have to admit, I was kind of a little bit prejudiced about soldiers beforehand. But these guys were just the opposite of everything I thought,” admitted Cooper. “They were inspiring. They wanted to go back to Afghanistan to help people and to help farmers.”
There is no questioning Cooper’s success as a musician. Two of his albums with his Ottawa-based band charted on the Billboard Top 100. The Cooper Brothers also toured with The Birds and opened for The Doobie Brothers, Joe Cocker and Charlie Daniels.
But in 1980, their label Capricorn Records folded, and so too did the band. Cooper went on to work as a screenwriter for ‘You Can’t Do That on Television’, then had a career as a creative director for video games.
In 2006, The Cooper Brothers got together for a second act and released a “best of” album. Then new songs followed. Last September, the music group celebrated their 50th anniversary with a concert held at Centrepointe’s Meridian Theatre.
Cooper admits it’s hard to believe fans are still listening to their music all these decades later.
“Usually with a band, you get three or four good years, and then life just happens – people get married, have kids, life gets in the way — unless you have like monster success right out of the gate,” he said. “When we got back together, it was like ‘Oh, cool, we’ll finish this on our own terms.’ We weren’t doing it because we had to pay the rent. We were doing it because we wanted to. That makes our music a little more honest.”