On the surface, there’s not much to say about “Till The Nights Done” (sic), the debut single from Justin Trudeau’s 17-year-old son Xavier.
Recorded under the name Xav, the song — released on streaming services Friday — is a perfectly fine, charmingly derivative attempt to emulate the icy, atmospheric sound of Toronto’s alternative R&B scene. “We could roll sum’, we could light one,” Xav whimpers over a brooding, downtempo beat produced by DUAVA, a 16-year-old from Ottawa.
The track is peppered with references to cannabis, which his father legalized back in 2017, but the single’s black-and-white artwork and its gloomy video feel like an attempt by Xav to firmly distance himself from the PM’s cringey, “Sunny Ways” optimism.
Musically, the song contains a slippery, almost unreal quality, as if it were generated by an A.I. model trained exclusively on the music of PartyNextDoor, The Weeknd and other pioneering R&B artists from Toronto’s suburbs. It’s not great, in other words.
And yet it sparks in me a gentle warmth — perhaps even a protective urge — toward young Xavier and his creative endeavours. “It’s not easy putting yourself out there,” I thought to myself “especially when your father is a historically unpopular prime minister.” Soon, old photos of Xavier and his father began to circulate on social media, and I felt my cynical nature starting to give way to warm fuzzies — a small sense of pride in Trudeau’s golden child.
But wait, where is this benevolence coming from? Why am I libbing out when our own country is on the precipice of an economic and environmental death spiral? Why these feelings now, amid a remarkably fraught political moment, spurred on by a trade war that has produced an unexpected resurgence of Canadian patriotism?
And what meaning — if any — might we glean from “Til The Nights Done” (sic)?
The answer, inevitably, is rooted in the chaos currently unfurling south of the border.
Like most Canadians, I’ve spent too much of 2025 doom scrolling through the news, wracked with a mixture of bewilderment and fear, as the newly emboldened Trump administration attempts to reshape the country before our very eyes.
It can be hard to keep up — from the looming threat of tariffs and Trump’s incessant taunts about making Canada the “51st state”; to the suite of brazen, often cruel executive orders taking aim at federal workers, the trans community and undocumented migrants; to Trump’s shocking proposals to annex Greenland and forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza.
On Thursday, I scrolled X with a burnt-out detachment as clips emerged from 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an event that quickly descended into a veritable circus of reactionary politics.
Look, there’s Steve Bannon calling on supporters to “fight for Trump” before flashing what sure looked like a Nazi salute! And now the audience is doing the “Trump Dance” as the Village People’s “YMCA” blares through the speakers! Uh oh, here comes Elon Musk, wearing dark sunglasses and a gold chain, and he’s wielding a chainsaw!
“Arrghhh! This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!” Musk shouts, pumping the power tool in the air like a WWE heel as the far-right president of Argentina grins along. “Chaaainsaww!”
My brain starts to throb. My mind wanders toward theories of accelerationsism. It’s a lot.
And then I remember there’s a big hockey game.
Indeed, if there’s one silver lining to this grim spectacle, it’s the way that Canadians of various backgrounds and political persuasions have come together in response to Trump’s threats to our sovereignty. We are a divided country, radicalized by a common enemy.
“We look forward to the United States beating our soon to be 51st state, Canada,” Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary, told reporters on Thursday, needling an already agitated nation ahead of the highly anticipated finale of the NHL’s new 4 Nations Face-Off, a tournament that had transformed from an exhibition into a deadly serious arena of geopolitics.
Just as the rhetoric reached unbearable levels, Canadians were gifted a splendid moment of reprieve, when Connor McDavid potted the overtime winner against Team USA, securing Canada’s rightful place at the top of the hockey podium, and uniting Canadians from coast-to-coast in a cathartic moment of national elation.
“Nickelback’s ‘Burn it to the Ground’ is blasting from Canada’s locker room right now,” TSN’s Claire Hanna reported shortly after the victory, as fans across the country erupted into an orgy of flag-waving and anthem singing.
It’s hard to overstate how unlikely this all feels — the full-throated, unironic embrace of mushy Canadiana and once-derided rock bands — given the very real division and political polarization that has creeped into Canadian politics in the waning years of the Trudeau decade.
Of course, flag waving will not save us, nor will it fend off the collateral effects of America’s crumbling empire and the slow dissolution of the neo-liberal global order, but there’s a genuine comfort, at least right now, in basking in the bland centrism of Canadian culture as the circus south of the border continues.
I woke up on Friday morning feeling groggy from my patriotic outburst.
As I scrolled on my phone, I found myself comforted by the news that the prime minister’s son had released a “moody R&B” song; one that sounded like a million other “moody R&B” songs created in the bedrooms of Canadian teenagers.
And I found solace in the fact that most Canadians, who are just as capable of cruelty as Americans, were resisting the urge to tease young Xavier, or run him through the mud. Beyond the usual suspects on social media, there were no accusations of nepotism, no attempt to denigrate Xavier’s artistic work over his ties to his absurdly unpopular father. In fact, many seemed to enjoy it.
No one will remember “Till The Nights Done” (sic) next year, or even next week. Musically, it is unremarkable. But as a cultural document it is significant — a reminder that the drab, ephemerality of Canadian culture can, in fact, be a bulwark against the dizzying extremism of American culture; that the mundane is sometimes better than chaos. Personally, I’m cheering for lil’ Xav.
