"And if Venice Is Sinking" is a song written by John Mann and

Geoffrey Kelly Geoffrey Kelly (born October 23, 1956 in Dumfries, Scotland) is a Canadian rock musician. He played guitars, flutes and bodhrán for the folk rock band Spirit of the West, for whom he was also the lead vocalist on some songs: Geoffrey Kelly and J ...

for the Canadian folk-rock band

Spirit of the West Spirit of the West were a Canadian folk rock band from North Vancouver, active from 1983 to 2016. They were popular on the Canadian folk music scene in the 1980s before evolving a blend of hard rock, Britpop, and Celtic folk influences which ma ...

. Spirit of the West recorded the song on their studio album ''

Faithlift ''Faithlift'' is a 1993 album by Canadian band Spirit of the West. It is the band's best-selling album, and includes their biggest Canadian Top 40 hit, "And if Venice Is Sinking." The album peaked at #27 on '' RPMs Top 100 albums chart the wee ...

''. It also appeared on their greatest hits album ''

Hit Parade A hit parade is a ranked list of the most popular recordings at a given point in time, usually determined either by sales or airplay. The term originated in the 1930s; ''Billboard'' magazine published its first music hit parade on January 4, 1936 ...

'', both in the original studio single and as a live recording with the

Vancouver Symphony Orchestra The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) is a Canadian orchestra based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The VSO performs at the Orpheum, which has been the orchestra's permanent home since 1977. With an annual operating budget of $16 million, it is ...

Content

The song is about Mann's honeymoon in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

with his wife, Jill Daum. Infatuated with the city, Mann expresses his desire never to leave by alluding to the sinking of the city and asserting that he'll go down with it: "And if Venice is sinking/Then I'm going under". The song also references Marino Marini's sculpture “L’Angelo della Città”:

''We made love upon a bed''
''That sagged down to the floor''
''In a room that had a postcard on the door''
''Of Marini's Little Man''
''With an erection on a horse''
''It always leaves me laughing''

Several of the band's friends and family members, as well as producer

Michael Phillip Wojewoda Michael Phillip Wojewoda is a Canadian record producer and musician. He has been nominated for eight Juno Awards and has received one for Recording Engineer of the Year and one for Producer of the Year. History Wojewoda began recording bands ...

, also appear on the track as backing vocalists on the song's final chorus, and are credited in the album's liner notes as "Venetian Choir". Daum herself can be heard laughing in the background after the word "erection".

Chart performance

It proved to be Spirit of the West's most successful single on the Canadian pop charts, reaching #30 on the ''

RPM Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or with the notation min−1) is a unit of rotational speed or rotational frequency for rotating machines. Standards ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a unit of rotation as the dimensionl ...

'' Top 100 singles chart the week of November 20, 1993, and #12 on the

adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quie ...

charts the week of January 31, 1994; it was also the band's only single ever to appear on the magazine's country music charts, peaking at #93 in the week of October 9, 1993. However, some radio stations played an edited version with the words "with an erection" blanked out.

Year-end charts

Awards

Douglas Koch Douglas Koch is a Canadian cinematographer who has won honours at the Canadian Screen Awards and Canadian Music Video Awards. Koch is from Vancouver and studied film at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, finishing in 1983. He went on to ...

won the cinematography award at the

MuchMusic Video Awards The iHeartRadio MMVAs were an annual awards show broadcast on Much to honour the year's best music videos that was last held in 2018. Originally debuting in 1990 as the Canadian Music Video Awards, the awards were renamed in 1995 to the MuchMu ...

for the song's video. The video was also a nominee for Best Video."Much Music video award nominations announced". ''

Hamilton Spectator ''The Hamilton Spectator'', founded in 1846, is a newspaper published weekdays and Saturdays in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. One of the largest Canadian newspapers by circulation,''The Hamilton Spectator'' is owned by Torstar. History ''The Hami ...

'', September 7, 1994.

References

{{authority control 1993 songs Spirit of the West songs Venice in fiction