Andrew Listens to... Enter the Haggis
In honor of my favorite band's farewell tour, I bring you twelve of my favorite songs from the discography of Enter the Haggis.
On Monday, March 3, 2025, I said goodbye to my favorite band of the past 15 years, the indie roots-rock quintet with a Celtic bent and a punk soul, Enter the Haggis. Originally formed in 1995, the band now moves on to new projects, family care, and perhaps a long-earned rest. I was originally introduced to the band in 2012 by a girl I was obsessed with, it became a band I loved deeply on my own after she was gone, a gift of burned cds of the band helped start my friendship with Alex, together we’ve seen them more in concert than any other band, and we slow danced to one of their songs at our wedding. As I’ve moved through the transitions of life, Enter the Haggis has moved with me. And today I want to share them with you.
Andrew Listens to… Enter the Haggis (linked to Spotify)
Gasoline
The Litter and the Leaves
Can’t Trust the News
Let Me Go
Cameos
Unsteady
Salonika
Mrs. Elliot
Dryden Mine
Swallowed by a Whale
White Squall
One Last Drink
The List
One of the most popular ETH songs, “Gasoline” is a riotous indictment of the modern world. Frontman, singer and fiddler Brian Buchanan brings a blistering energy to the story of a “former farm boy,” who becomes overwhelmed by the smoke, political indecision, and “casualties of retail”. When this wayward lad asks what it all means, he’s told that “cars and trucks need gasoline”. To me this song is about feeling lost in the world, noticing how everything seems to be broken and awful, and being told that this is just the cost of living. But the thesis of the song is that this is bullshit. The theme of rioting in the face of injustice is a common one to Enter the Haggis, as is the idea that collectively we have the power to force change. In concert the whole audience shouts 1-2-3-4! And for a moment I wonder what we’re capable of.
The spiritual successor of “Gasoline” is an upgrade in almost every way. “The Litter and the Leaves” starts with blaring bagpipes from band founder Craig Downie, before Brian bellows, “Another link in the chain getting rusty breaking/ Down in the gutter with a smile”. It’s a song about fighting against the injustices of capitalism, of denying owners and politicians by creating communion in loud bars and out in the streets. And there is a certain fierce joy to this song, best captured in the refrain, “With a smile on my face and a bottle in my hand/You’ll find me in the gutter in the morning”. The idea of a gutter anthem speaks to the deeply proletariat vision of Enter the Haggis. Just people coming together and declaring, “We will deny them, this will be our anthem/ We will defy them, till the bitter end”. Perhaps most interesting to me is that the song doesn't end on a triumphant note, instead, the rest of the band fades out and only Brian is left with his keyboard, singing about how this gutter anthem will be with them until all who sing it are dead. It’s a good reminder that all riots do eventually end in silence.
Enter the Haggis excels at writing narrative songs, specifically under the direction of guitarist and lead songwriter, Trevor Lewington. In 2012, ETH produced The Modest Revolution, a concept album with songs all inspired by articles from a March 30, 2012 edition of The Globe and Mail. Alongside “Letters”, which I’ve written about here, another important song is “Can’t Trust the News”, the album’s first single, which was inspired by a 65-year-old woman’s decision to refuse to be grounded by the traumatic events in her life and to instead climb the highest peaks on each continent. The article was only 150 words long, but in Lewington’s hands it became a soaring celebration of the resilience of the human spirit. Downie brings that triumphant sound on the trumpet, which is the second instrument on this playlist that he features on, with more to come. It is unfortunate that the title implies that we can't trust news outlets, but, as Trevor clarified at the concert, this is less “Fake News”, and more “you can’t tell me what to do”. In any case, the oh-oh-ohhhs are exceptionally satisfying to sing in a crowd and really make you feel like anything is possible.
When I was 19-20, I was obsessed with death. Partly this was a reflection of my declining mental health. But also, I was encountering the concept of a “good death” for the first time from popular culture. I was reading about the character of Death of the Endless in the graphic novel Sandman. I was listening to Flying Lotus’ You’re Dead!, working my way through the platformer, “Play the End”, and reading about psychopomps in the web cartoon Gunnerkrigg Court. And then I heard ETH’s “Let Me Go”, a New Orleans-eque celebration of dying with dignity (“When the warm wind blows to carry my bones/Let me go, let me go, let me go”). And that brought me a lot of peace. The first time I saw ETH in concert (at a bar in Downers Grove), I ran into Brian in line for the bathroom and told him that this song had been really important to me as I returned to regular life after my hospitalization. And in the second act, they changed their set list to include this song and dedicated it to me. It was one of the coolest moments of my life. Years later, I would run into Brian again before a show and tell him we danced to “Letters” at our wedding, and again they would dedicate a song to Alex and me. Who else can say that they’ve had their favorite band dedicate two songs to them in concert?
My first summer with ETH was back in 2012. I had just been introduced to the band by a girl I was obsessed with, and when she returned to Iowa and I to Massachusetts, I listened to Gutter Anthems a lot. I looked for understanding of her by hunting for clues in the lyrics. In retrospect this was insane, but the outcome was that I actually found a lot of myself in this music. Most notable in my favorite song from that summer, “Cameos”. I was grappling a lot that summer with my identity as a theatre artist, knowing that I loved the medium, the culture, and the people that make theatre, but feeling outside of it all. This song is about feeling transported by theatre, about recognizing that the space and people are transformed by the act (“ I thought the set was real/ Until our friends went to their dressing rooms/And I felt the cardboard trees”) But to me, it was also about how the community that is created by theatre lasts long after the show closes (“ The doors we close behind/They're never locked and always drafty/ Hands, hearts, and brains/ Are irreparably changed”). I don’t listen to this song much anymore, but when I do, it’s a good reminder.
In 2014, ETH sought to rebrand themselves, retire the Haggis moniker, and reflect the move in the band's sound away from Celtic rock to one more inclusive of other influences. Under the name of Jubilee Riots they recorded the album, Penny Black. While this decision was wildly unpopular with fans and they reversed course within a year, I think this album really showcases the band's songwriting, diversity and eclecticism while exploring some new musical territory. My favorite song is “Unsteady”, a song about a failing relationship. Heather Robb’s voice comes with such richness. And I love the lyric, “Whatever else you are/ You're my favorite scar”. There are a lot of love songs, and a lot of break up songs, but I think this song captures the feeling of “oh this relationship SHOULD end even if we still love each other” in a way that is pretty unique.
ETH, especially on later albums, leaned hard into stories, particularly relating to Canadian history. “Salonika” is about the women who joined the nurse’s corps in World War II, come from rural communities, shipping off to London then to France and to the shores of Salonika in Greece. There they got blood on their hands and saw the worst of war. As a history buff, I really appreciated the specificity of this song and for the subtle politics of feminism that pervades the song. ETH knows how to take a moment in time and find all of the deep pathos.
Off the same EP, Broken Arms, comes the absolute banger of “Mrs. Elliot”. Another narrative song, this time focusing on the tragic life of the titular character. Her infant son dies of a hideous disease, then her husband takes an early grave, then her adventurous younger son is shot and killed by her older son, who, after many years in prison, returns to Mrs. Elliot and immediately dies of pneumonia. As Brian sings, “In this twisted game of life we play, you lost”. What could be maudlin and slow actually is driving and fierce. At one point Brian lets out a feral scream that wouldn’t feel out of place in much harder music. And Downie back on bagpipes to remind us that the instrument was originally designed as an organ of war, sending warriors screaming in battle. When this song comes on in the car, Alex and I each shout-sing the lyrics. For a song about death and heartbreak, listening to it makes me feel so alive.
ETH’s last album was recorded in 2020, but due to the pandemic the associated tour was scuttled. Instead, they hosted a virtual listening party of Archer’s Parade, hosted by Brian. Listening to new music in community, even deep in the pandemic, helped me feel hope about the world someday returning to normal. Appropriately, my favorite song from that album is “Dryden Mine”, which is about working through the hard times to someday be able to see the light again. Blind Benny works in the mine (“And it's no sir, I don′t mind working in the darkness/ The eyes of a blind man ain't looking for the light”) while he and his brother save up money to go to a doctor in the city who can help Benny see again. There is a long transatlantic tradition of coal mining songs, balancing the pride and the pain of those who “sell (their)... share of daylight/ for a fair and steady wage”. When I listen to the song now, I, in a small way, a part of that tradition.
In 2023, ETH released what would be their last song, a single called, “Swallowed by a Whale”. It’s the story of a lobsterman off Provincetown, who sinks under the waves and is in fact swallowed by a whale. The song reminds me of an earlier ETH song, “Noseworthy and Piercy”, about two fishermen who get blown off the coast of Canada in a storm and end up off the coast of the old world. As a descendent of whalers myself, I’ve always been drawn to stories of the sailors who traversed the Atlantic and the trials and tribulations that they faced. “Swallowed by a Whale” is a fine addition to that genre. While the band was founded in Toronto, fear and awe about the sea is baked into the DNA of the band.
At their last concert in Chicago, Enter the Haggis closed their set with their cover of Stan Roger’s classic Great Lakes folk ballad, “White Squall”. Alex and I had debated before the show on which song they’d end with, but I truly believe this was the right choice. Stan Rogers is a legend of the Canadian folk tradition and ETH is deeply proud of their Canadian heritage. It’s a song about the dangers of deep and open waters, which, as previously mentioned, is a common theme in their oeuvre. Americans will argue about the relative superiority of Lightfoot’s “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, but I prefer “White Squall” in this regard. It’s about an old timer lamenting the cruelly casual drowning of a young sailor (“But I told that kid a hundred times ‘Don’t take the Lakes for granted/ They go from calm to a hundred knots so fast they seem enchanted.’/But tonight some red-eyed Wiarton girl lies staring at the wall And her lover’s gone into a white squall”) Again, it’s a deeply sad song. But in the ETH cover, the worst happens, the boy dies, and we’re left with Downie on a transcendently beautiful tin whistle (instrument #3 on just this list) and a 2 minute a chorus of just singing, no words. It ends up feeling hopeful. And it helps that drummer Bruce McCarthy fills this section with the most incredibly epic drum fills. It was a fitting final number.
But really, the song that I have to end this post on is “One Last Drink”. It feels like a singularly perfect summation of many of the favorite themes of the band. Old John on his deathbed cries: “Think I will wait 'til tomorrow to die”. On his last day, he throws a massive party, dances with all of the pretty girls, raises a glass with all of his friends, with never a tear in his eye, and carries on to five. As the chorus goes:
I've had a life that's full
Everyone's been good to me
So fire up that fiddle, boy
And give me one last drink
When the sun comes up
I will leave without a fight
The world is mine tonight
It’s a narrative song, it’s a song about refusing to surrender to sorrow, it’s about a good death, it’s about friends and community, and it’s about dancing and singing and toasting with the people who matter most. It’s got a bouncing rhythm on the drum kit, triumphant trumpet, dance-worthy fiddle, and an electric guitar that keeps the people coming back for more, the whole band firing on all cylinders. ETH has closed many a concert on this song, because we, the audience, get a chance to raise one last drink with each other and the band, and go out into the world. There is death and sorrow and tragedy in the world. But what Enter the Haggis tells us time and time again is that we don’t have to give in to that weight, we can have a smile on our face and a bottle in our hand, and we can choose to be together, because the world is ours.
Thank you for going on this journey with me.
Next Time: Andrew Listens to… DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS (Feat. Emma Gonzalez Roberts)