The Great Big Sea song that turned out to be an unexpected hit

St. John's, N.L., folk-rockers Great Big Sea are celebrating their 20th anniversary with their aptly titled new compilation of songs "XX" available now.

Reflecting on their catalogue of iconic Canadian music, band members Alan Doyle and Bob Hallett revealed to Yahoo! Canada Music that there are a few tracks that surprised them during their original release.

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"There's a song on the collection called 'What Are You At' that is from our first record," Doyle said. "[It's] this dumb song about how Newfoundlanders say hello to each other, which is different than anywhere else. I don't know if anywhere else in the world says it."

"I wrote it and I thought it was kind of stupid and foolish and we thought it would be funny but that people would skip it and that would be it. It became the song of that summer and got a television commercial. It still gets played on the Newfoundland radio stations and it was just this foolish thing that I haven't played live in 18 years because it's so embarrassing and because it's so simplistic. [However,] we're going to play it on [our 2013] tour. That song, I never thought would have any kind of resonance beyond the foolish."

Doyle admitted that the tune "Walk On the Moon" from the band's 2008 record "Fortune's Favour" went in a different direction. The band thought it would take off but it didn't. "I thought that one would be massive and the biggest song of the summer and the Olympic theme song and was absolutely a jet engine. And it came out and it was another song."

Shining a light on why he thinks songs performed a certain way, Hallett said, "Chart success has largely eluded us. People sing these songs at weddings, funerals and birthdays and may learn them around a fire."

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"If the attribute to a song is that people learn the words and remember them, then we've done that 10 times over…I've heard people sing [our songs] at pubs, around fires and at parties. Not because I was there but because they really like them and that's a massive tribute to and more important than how it got to No. 27 or No. 12 on the hot hits. We've launched many a pub night."

One tune that was a stellar success and a track that Doyle says he could play for the rest of his musical career is the band's song "Ordinary Day" from their 1997 album "Play."

"Playing 'Ordinary Day' has never gotten tired to me and it's not just because people dig it," he said. "It's one of the only times I suppose I tried to write a certain kind of song, the hit or whatever, and I set out to do something and it ended up doing exactly what I wanted it to do and then had the result of it work the way I thought it would work in my mind."

He continues, "There's a satisfaction that comes with that song, partly because it's popular but partly because it so obviously was written for us."

"Ordinary Day," "What Are You At" and more can be heard live on Great Big Sea's upcoming tour, which might not feature an opening act so that the band can spend more time on stage.

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"If we play two sets it gives us two and a half hours worth of time, depending on the venue and the night, to play our songs," Hallett said. "That gives us enough time to do everything whereas if we take a support act, we're constrained to 75 or 80 minutes and that's not enough time to do everything that we want to do."

Highlighting what fans can expect on this tour, the musician said, "For us, this is a party. It's not just something that you just watch. If you go to a party with your friends, you wouldn't just sit in the corner and watch them having fun, you'd want to have fun yourself and that's the aesthetic we try to bring to any concert."

Adding, "People are going to sing with us, dance with us, clap and go home having done something, not just watch something, but having done something fun with other people who are having a great time, too."

To learn more about Great Big Sea's new "XX" collection and their upcoming tour, head here.

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