“Rise Up” by The Parachute Club

"Rise Up" came off the Parachute Club's self-titled 1983 album as an upbeat plea for peace, celebration and the freedom to love whoever you choose, with Lorraine Segato singing lead. Segato, Billy Bryans, Lauri Conger and Steve Webster wrote it, filmmaker Lynne Fernie added words, and Daniel Lanois produced and engineered, with Bryans on drums, Webster on bass and Dave Gray on guitar. Its reggae and soca-tinged rhythms made the national hit Caribbean music's first big commercial breakthrough in Canada.

Segato meant it as an anthem of freedom and equality for everyone, not any one group, and Fernie drew partly on West Coast First Nations rituals in which girls rose at dawn to take their adult names. It debuted live at Toronto's Pride parade in 1983, and activists have since claimed it for feminist, anti-racist and gay-rights causes and the New Democratic Party.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.