Diodes – Tired of Waking Up Tired

"Tired of Waking Up Tired" is the most famous song from pioneering Canadian punk band The Diodes, although they had more chart success with "Red Rubber Ball" (#97 on RPM Top Singles in 1977/1978) and "Burn Down Your Daddy's House" (#21 on RPM Alternative 30, twenty years posthumously, in 1998).

Though met with resistance from many radio programmers, "Tired of Waking Up Tired" is often listed among the best Canadian songs of all time (#17 in Chart 1996, #8 in Chart 2000, #23 in Bob Mersereau's The Top 100 Canadian Singles in 2010, #41 in Mar*Star in 2011) and was welcomed with warm reviews by the international music press:

• Ken Barnes, in New York Rocker, September 1978, called it "aggressive pop-rock of the first order."
• Greg Shaw, in Bomp Magazine, October 1978, called it "an amazing power pop single that shuts down anything that's come out of England lately."
• Jon Savage, in New Musical Express, 11 November 1978, said "It's a good song, well played, with just the right amount of naive unselfconscious enthusiasm."
• Sounds magazine placed it #36 in its singles of the year list.

When we were in Newfoundland in 2014, we went picking mussels in Duntara with our come-from-away artist friends Karen Fletcher, John Hofstetter and Catherine Beaudette, and Catherine's friend David Clarkson – the Diodes' original bassistClarkson was gone before the Diodes recorded "Tired of Waking Up Tired," but he did play on their first 45 (and probably Canada's first punk recording), "Raw/War.". David and I had a great time talking about the beginnings of punk in Toronto and life at the Ontario College of Art and Design, where the band were all students, while enjoying a boil on the beach.

Click below for:

• the original 1978 version
• a live from the Peppermint Lounge version

Click on the heading below to toggle more information.

Personnel