5. Movin' On
Album: Just a Game (1979)
Writer: Gil Moore
Lead vocals: Gil Moore
Chart History: None
Video?: Yes
Lyrical category: Rocking out
@Uruk-Hai this is the song I was discussing with you over PM.
The spirit of Grand Funk Railroad is so strong in "Movin' On," the opener to Just a Game and my highest-ranked song sung by Gil Moore, that Triumph may as well have called it "We're a Canadian Band."
As mentioned earlier, the first Triumph song I ever heard, via a video on MTV, was "Say Goodbye" (#13), a Rik Emmett-sung tune that is as close as they ever came to power pop. The second Triumph song I ever heard, thanks to the fortuitous decision of the band to shoot four videos from Just a Game on a soundstage in 1979 despite 24-hour music video channels not existing yet, was this one. Something about it struck me and inspired me to keep paying attention as I came across their other videos.
First of all, it's a completely different sound from "Say Goodbye," a sign that this is a band whose influence and talents stretch pretty broadly.
Second of all, it's sung by the drummer, who was not the lead singer on the other song I had heard. In 1982 I had only seen Phil Collins and Ringo Starr do that, so it was another sign that this was not your typical band.
Third and most importantly of all, it is such an adrenaline-pumper that you can't help but buy what the band is selling. To drive home the point, the first minute of the song is overlaid with crowd noise despite not being a live track.
The intro, with some insistent hits of cowbell and a riff that's a supercharged version of Argent's "Hold Your Head Up," immediately signals that this is "boogie rock" at its finest. Some ringing slide guitar notes overlaid by Rik Emmett and punchy bass notes from Mike Levine build up some tremendous momentum, and then Moore begins his tale of life on the road, a PG-rated version of what you'd hear from Grand Funk. In typical polite Canadian fashion, he sings about how hard they have worked and how far they have come, rather than about their offstage exploits (if they had any; I have no idea.)
I may be right or wrong
The story's in my song
It sure seems like we've
Come a long, long way
We've been through so many changes
All along the way
Maybe that's the reason we're here today
Movin' on, movin' on
(Movin' on) every day
(Movin' on) keep on movin'
Movin' on, tomorrow is another day
Our problems have disappeared
Vanished one by one
We've got to keep on movin'
Until we're done
The band is on the loose
Runnin' 'cross the land
So try to make the most of a one-night stand
Movin' on, movin' on
(Movin' on) every day
(Movin' on) keep on movin'
Movin' on, tomorrow is another day
On and on and on
You've got to keep on movin' on
On and on and on
We've movin' every day
We got to keep on movin'
We're movin' on
Movin' on, movin' on
(Movin' on) every day
Movin' on and on
The chorus is so enthusiastic and passionate that you would think they were singing about world peace being achieved as opposed to working hard while on tour.
The second verse and chorus follow the same structure as the first except that Emmett interjects some vibrato runs in some of the breaks between lyrics, setting the stage for what is going to be a spectacular solo. That solo, which comes after the second chorus, is melodic and powerful, reflecting impressive skill but not coming off as offputting. It leads beautifully into the coda, in which Emmett, Levine and a gaggle of session vocalists majestically wail "on and on and on" before the song returns to its main riff and Emmett gets off some final thrilling fills before the fadeout.
I mentioned earlier that I recently watched a YouTuber doing a deep dive on the Never Surrender album. He said that he preferred when Emmett sang to when Moore did, just as he prefers Mark Farner singing over Don Brewer when it comes to Grand Funk. But, he said, "even so, Don Brewer was the one who sang 'We're an American Band.'" So there you have it, I'm not the only one in the Triumph fanbase to make the Grand Funk comparison.
You'd think a song this well-suited for the arena would never leave the setlist once introduced, but sadly that was not the case. It debuted (along with three other songs from the album) about 2 months before the release of Just a Game, but it fell out of the rotation once the tour for Just a Game was completed, and it never returned. You'd also think that with that intro, it would be a natural to open shows, but it usually appeared third in the setlist, with "American Girls" (#27 on my list) usually leading off.
Video (leotard alert):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYLASkPH3Fc
What remains are the Big Four Rik Emmett-sung Triumph songs, all of which were taken by at least one person in the Worldwide Countdown. At #4, the band's most popular track on Spotify, but the reason why it has the most listens has nothing to do with anything that happened during the band's lifetime.