Run With Us b/w Hold Back Tomorrow

Lisa Lougheed is a Canadian singer, dancer, songwriter, and voice actress whose recording career connects two very different corners of Canadian pop culture: the late-1980s CBC animated series The Raccoons and the early-1990s Canadian dance-pop scene. Although her discography is relatively small, her work has had an unusually long afterlife, particularly through “Run With Us,” one of the most fondly remembered Canadian television themes of its era.

Born Lisa Dawn Lougheed in Etobicoke, Ontario, she began performing at an early age. She started tap dancing as a child and later studied dance at the Etobicoke School of the Arts, where her training included ballet, modern dance, and highland dance. While still in high school, she spent summers performing as a lead vocalist and dancer in revue-style productions at Canada’s Wonderland, gaining early professional experience as both a singer and stage performer.

Her first major national exposure came through The Raccoons, the Canadian animated series created by Kevin Gillis. Lougheed was hired as a singer and voice actress while still a teenager, contributing vocals to the program’s soundtrack and voicing Lisa Raccoon. Her signature recording from the series, “Run With Us,” written by Kevin Gillis, Jon Stroll, and Stephen Lunt, became the show’s best-known musical theme. With its dramatic synth-pop arrangement and hopeful chorus, the song eventually outgrew its original television setting, becoming a nostalgic Canadian pop landmark for viewers who grew up with the series.

Lougheed’s debut album, Evergreen Nights, was built around music associated with The Raccoons and released during the original CBC era of the program. The album included “Run With Us,” “Ain’t No Planes,” “Here I Go Again,” “Stop the Clock,” “Don’t Fear the Fire,” “Growing Up,” “All Life Long,” “Hold Back Tomorrow,” and “New World.” Although tied to an animated series, Evergreen Nights has become one of the most collectible Canadian television soundtrack albums of the 1980s, prized by fans of The Raccoons, CBC-related vinyl, and Canadian synth-pop. Its scarcity helped build its reputation over time, especially while much of the series’ original music remained unavailable through regular commercial channels.

The two early Run Records singles are similarly prized. “Run With Us” backed with “Hold Back Tomorrow” appeared in 1987, followed by “Ain’t No Planes” backed with “Growing Up” in 1988. Both singles were connected to CBC Enterprises and the Evergreen Raccoons production world, carrying the same Kevin Gillis and Jon Stroll creative imprint that defined the album. Together, Evergreen Nights and the early Run 7-inch releases form the core collector period of Lougheed’s catalogue.

After The Raccoons, Lougheed continued to work as a performer. In 1989 she was involved with Youth Beat, a Bell Canada-backed anti-drug touring campaign that performed in Ontario communities. She also sang commercial jingles, continued developing demo material, and worked toward a broader recording career beyond television soundtrack music.

That next phase arrived with World Love, released in 1992 through Warner Music Canada. The album repositioned Lougheed as a contemporary dance-pop artist, moving her away from the children’s television context and into the MuchMusic, club remix, and Canadian radio landscape of the early 1990s. Unlike Evergreen Nights, World Love gave Lougheed a larger role as a songwriter, with most of the album co-written by her. The title reflected an optimistic social message, with songs built around themes of connection, change, and personal empowerment.

World Love produced her most visible mainstream pop period. The title track received national attention, while “Love Vibe” became one of her key dance-pop singles. Its video, directed by David McNally, won Best Dance Video at the 1992 Canadian Music Video Awards, placing Lougheed within the Canadian video culture of the MuchMusic era. The album also included “Love You by Heart” and showed her working in a polished early-1990s pop/dance style that balanced radio accessibility with club-oriented production.

Her third album, Peace + Harmony, followed in 1993. Recorded in several major music centres, including Toronto, New York City, Chicago, and New Jersey, the album pushed further into dance, R&B, and club-pop territory. Lougheed collaborated with a wide group of writers and producers, including Mike “The Hitman” Wilson, David Morales, Christopher Max, Paul Scott, and Shank Thompson. During the album’s development, she reportedly co-wrote a large body of material in a short period, with the final release shaped into a ten-song album.

The key single from Peace + Harmony was “Won’t Give Up My Music,” which became her most important release from this phase. The song extended her dance-pop profile and later received JUNO recognition in the Best Dance Recording category for its club mix. Lougheed toured across Canada to promote the album and remained visible through television appearances, youth-oriented programming, and public events, including Niagara Falls New Year’s Eve broadcasts.

By the mid-1990s, Lougheed’s public recording activity slowed, though her voice continued to surface in other contexts. Her later credited vocal work included appearances connected to major international artists, but she gradually stepped away from the Canadian pop spotlight. Her catalogue remained compact: three albums, several singles, and a handful of recordings that continued to circulate through memory, collectors, and fans of Canadian television music.

Lougheed’s legacy rests on more than nostalgia. Evergreen Nights and the Run Records singles preserve a distinctive late-1980s Canadian synth-pop sound tied directly to CBC animation, while World Love and Peace + Harmony document her attempt to move into the more competitive early-1990s dance-pop world. Few Canadian artists of her era moved so visibly from children’s television soundtrack work into major-label pop, and fewer still left behind a song as enduring in Canadian popular memory as “Run With Us.”

-Robert Williston