54:40 "Since When" 09/15/98

Since When contained "Since When", "Stormy", "Playground", "Greatest Mistake", "Runaway John" (the song of said quote), also "Pay For My Living", "Angel in My Bed".

For a priceless bit of history behind the name (with respects to this context), 54:40 was derived from the slogan, "Fifty-four forty or fight". Given the origins of the band in terms of location (Tsawwassen), this dispute could have made the bandmembers American as opposed to Canadian, as the inaugural President of the time was using the slogan to demand all of what was then the shared territory of Oregon. What is interesting about said dispute is that the tip of Vancouver Island, namely Victoria, was the exception to the determination of the 49th parallel becoming the border (the compromise that was reached), remaining Canadian rather than becoming American. This was in no small part thanks to the campaign efforts locally of the man running Victoria's newspaper, "The Times Colonist", who was such a personality he changed his name to Amor de Cosmos ("Lover of the Universe"). He went on to become British Columbia's second premier, being too much of an iconoclast to get the job first. And you begin to realize this sort of thing may be more typical than atypical, eh? As well as more than a little interesting.What's also interesting is this is one of the instances where US attempted to invoke "Manifest Destiny" in their claim to what remained and became Canada was actually theirs through some sort of Divine ordinance.

Note: I notice the wiki page "defends" Polk in the sense of asserting that "54:40 or fight" was not really Polk's electoral campaign slogan, that this a common historical mis-conception. Interesting, but why would I trust a page that has already committed the negligent bias of making no mention of an American with his American Gatling gun to help suppress Riel's Northwest Rebellion is Saskatchewan? Even the fact that he is an "American" and the United States incorporated this as their name is symptomatic of the mentality of "Manifest Destiny" and the desire to control as much of North America as possible. With the moniker, the expansion and addition of states into the American union could prove nigh un-limited; they were "American" anyhow. -Rather astute.