"Echo Beach" is a song recorded by the Canadian group Martha and the Muffins in 1979. Written by band member Mark Gane, it was released as a single from their album Metro Music in 1980 and won the Juno Award for Single of the Year. It was certified gold in Canada on 1 October 1980, a month after Metro Music achieved gold status. It was the band's only significant international hit, although they had several others in Canada. It reached No. 10 on the UK Singles Chart, and No. 6 on the Australian Singles Chart. In 2003, Q magazine listed it among the 1001 best songs ever. In 2005, "Echo Beach" was named the 35th greatest Canadian song of all time on the CBC Radio One series .
Background
Echo Beach, as mentioned in the song, does not refer to a real beach, but rather a symbolic notion of somewhere the narrator would rather be, somewhere "far away in time". The song was created while Gane was working checking wallpaper for printing faults. He found the work rather dull and his mind drifted to times he would like to live over again. One such time was an evening spent at Sunnyside Beach on the shoreline of Lake Ontario in Toronto in summer. Echo Beach was a reference made to a faded time and place gone in the lyrics of the song "Hiroshima Mon Amour" by the bandUltravox. "Echo Beach" was only the third song that Gane had written. The map shown on the cover of one version of the single is of Toronto Islands, while another single shows the north-western end of the Fleet Lagoon and the bar of Chesil Beach, the location of Abbotsbury Swannery in Dorset.
30th anniversary version
In 2010, the band released a "30th anniversary version" of "Echo Beach." A commentator described the new version as "definitely a different song compared to the previous version; it's slower and the famous guitar riff that introduces the song is acoustic. was also good to be danced to, whereas the new one is darker and languid." Mark Gane explained, "We wanted to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the song, by not trying to replicate the version that we originally recorded, but as musicians who've experienced three decades of living. We'd like to refer to the new recording of Echo Beach as our 'grown-up' version."
Other versions
The song was covered by British pop star Toyah in 1987, reaching number No. 54 in the UK Singles Chart, and was also released in Germany. Gabriella Cilmi also covered "Echo Beach", which was used as the theme song for the soap opera of the same name and appeared exclusively on the deluxe UK edition of her 2008 album Lessons to Be Learned.
French adaptation
An adaptation of the song, titled 'Egoiste', was released by French singer-songwriter La Grande Sophie for her 2005 album 'La Suite', in which the lyrics have been changed, while the music and layout of the song remains the same.
