How I Failed My New Year's Resolution But Found The Tragically Hip
Also: The Relationship Between Music and Stories
I’ve failed at my New Year’s Resolution already. Not really, I’ve still been listening to a new artist every day. But I haven’t been documenting my thoughts on them, and sometimes I listen to just one song. I didn’t send you this newsletter on time. And I’m not going to share all the artists I listened to in this email and with a playlist like last week, but I will mention that I checked in (pun unavoidable) on the Czech rap scene and 7krát3 is super interesting. Also the YG Teck Gangsta Grillz tape 4th Quarter is well worth a listen.
What I want to talk about is how last night I discovered a band I’d never heard of, and it sent me down a thought-spiral about a larger music discovery topic.
The band that’s making me think a lot about stuff is called The Tragically Hip. If you’re reading this in Canada, you might be thinking, “What the fuck, eh?” The Tragically Hip is apparently one of the most popular and critically acclaimed bands ever in that country. Justin Trudeau was recorded on video in 2017 crying when their lead singer, Gord Downie, died of brain cancer at the age of 53.
The top three comments on the above video are all digs at the Canadian Prime Minister, about whom the only thing I know is he once did blackface and/or brownface and seemed to get away with the years-later ensuing backlash relatively unscathed. The fourth comment, at least, agrees with what Trudeau says (I think, I didn’t actually watch the video): Gord Downie was a big inspiration who will be tru-deauly missed.
The way I discovered The Tragically Hip was by looking for albums that would fit the theme of an upcoming episode of my podcast, which is: “Tours.” My co-host Lee selected Wing’s Band on the Run, an album I’ve never listened to despite being aware of the titular hit single. I thought that choice was perfect, though. What are tours if not bands on the run?
I needed to choose a comparably fitting album, so I started thinking about all the tours I’ve seen over the years. Like Kanye on the Late Registration tour in my hometown of Champaign, IL. His set then was as elaborate as it is now, but also cheesier and more theatrical, with multiple outfit changes, and he performed “Roses” while kneeling next to a prop intended to be his mother’s hospital bed. I had a seat that gave me a gossipy angle on two of my fellow 14-year-old peers who attended on their first date. I missed the Glow in the Dark tour with Rihanna and N.E.R.D. in 2008, but I still managed to get some shutter shades. I have a lot of complicated feelings about Kanye, but I haven’t liked his past couple albums and I definitely haven’t liked the political, antisemitic direction his provocation veered in his middle age. So like Justin Trudeau, I wanted to ignore my past and not podcast about an artist who I’d once easily cite as a favorite of all time, no matter how familiar I was with his many tours.
Aside from Kanye, I couldn’t think of many other classic tours. Maybe I could talk about the first concert I attended: Pearl Jam in Champaign in 2003 on their Riot Act Tour. Nah. I know there are a bunch of other incredible tours that I didn’t attend, especially within hip-hop in the 80s and 90s. Every major artist has a major tour that major fans are familiar with, whether or not they were there. Nothing was popping out to me, but I knew that I needed to bring more than just a great album to the podcast recording. I needed a good story.
My pursuit of a good story led me to wonder whether there were any groups that had a particularly grueling tour that culminated in their disbandment. Not a faux “farewell” tour like LCD Soundsystem, et. al. A tour where the people weren’t planning to break up but did because they ended up hating each other after being crammed into a bus laced with those intangible explosive devices known as egos.
I couldn’t find any such tour, though I remain certain that it has, in the vast history of touring musicians, happened. If you know of any instances, please let me know.
What I did find was a Reddit thread posing the question “Are there any examples of a band actually doing ONE LAST TOUR?” The top comment there is not about Justin Trudeau, but another Canadian phenomenon: The Tragically Hip.
As I was scrolling through the band’s Wikipedia page, skimming through their albums, learning they’re commonly referred to as “The Hip,” and reading Reddit forums of people talking about how great and popular they were, I wondered if the internet was playing an elaborate prank on me. How I had I never heard of “The Hip”? Canada isn’t that far. Surely “The Hip” had some crossover success. It’s fascinating that countries can be so close physically and culturally but still have profound differences.
This is what I did learn:
In July 2016, The Tragically Hip embarked on a 15-show tour behind their thirteenth LP, Man Machine Poem. They announced the tour in May 2016, just one day after publicly declaring that singer Gord Downie had been diagnosed with brain cancer. According to this CTV News article, Downie’s doctor described his brain tumor as “treatable,” but, ultimately, “incurable.”
The Man Machine Poem Tour began in Victoria, British Columbia and traveled across Canada, culminating in a final show in the band’s hometown of Kingston, Ontario that was streamed on CBC to 11.7 million viewers. Gord Downie wore shiny and sparkling suits. The Tragically Hip didn’t declare the tour to be their last ever, but it was, as fans predicted it would be. Demand for tickets was exceedingly high as a reaction to Downie’s diagnosis, and sold out almost immediately. Scalpers drove up the prices, ultimately leading Ontario to pass a law banning ticket-buying bots.
According to a Redditor named missemilyjane42, the tour was an example of a band who actually let their fans celebrate their work, despite the tragic circumstances, one final time. “He let us say goodbye to the band AND made sure to spread one last message of reconciliation to millions of Canadians who never completely understood or even cared about indigenous issues before Gord said anything,” missemilyjane42 wrote. This is an allusion to the solo LP (+ graphic novel and animated film) Downie also released in 2016 called Secret Path. It’s a concept album which because I don’t feel confident to speak on Canadian issues despite their unfortunately parallels to American issues, I’ll let Wikipedia describe: “about Chanie Wenjack, a young Anishinaabe boy from the Marten Falls First Nation who died in 1966 while trying to return home after escaping from an Indian residential school.”
Clearly Gord Downie was, like the name of a standout song on Man Machine Poem, a “Great Soul.” Beloved by many for activism on indigenous affairs like this, and also (again according to Wikipedia, I just learned about the dude, give me a break) environmental issues. People also liked him for his evolving musicianship and his poetic lyricism. Canadians in particular seem to adore him, because he apparently wrote and sang about the Canadian experience in a way other popular artists do not. OK, I watched the Justin Trudeau video now, and you can watch it too to see how much Downie cared about and embodied Canada, as a whole. Analogies would be Bruce Springsteen to New Jersey, or U2 to rich boomers. Downie was, it seems, Canada.
I know nothing about the Canadian experience except I went to Toronto once and enjoyed some delicious poutine even though that dish comes from Quebec. I also had a nice morning at Tim Horton’s across the border from Detroit in Windsor. The border agents were intimidatingly pleasant when I drove back across to New York.
Listening to The Tragically Hip, though, I understand why the band would be cherished anywhere. They are as big and over-the-top as Bruce Springsteen or U2, but Downie’s voice makes them more fragile and intimate. I’m sure someone who has known about the group for more than 12 hours can explain it better, but you hear it when you press play.
Because I was looking for an album to choose for my podcast episode, the theme of which is “Tours,” I started my Tragically Hip listening experience at the end, with Man Machine Poem.
In classic ignorant American fashion, I immediately heard an association between The Tragically Hip and indie rock darlings from the Great White North that were also huge in the U.S. like Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene. I saw that Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew was a friend and collaborator with Downie, so I wasn’t totally wrong. After digging deeper into their discography, I realized how much their sound has changed from album to album, and Man Machine Poem is an anomaly.
Their 1989 debut Up to Here is more straightforward rock, like Rolling Stones-esque, with shrieky guitar solos and big gruff choruses. 1992’s Fully Completely has songs like “At The Hundreth Meridian” that reminded me of softer alt-rock of the time like R.E.M. or the Barenaked Ladies, who I just learned via a quick internet search are also from Canada. (irrelevant side note: I was just rocking out to “If I Had $1,000,000” on a Road Trip playlist on my way to Disneyland last weekend.) By 1998’s Phantom Power, The Tragically Hip were veering more into the disaffected indie rock sound of Pavement, with Dinosaur Jr. style riffs thrown in. They are both always of their time and timeless, somehow separate from the concept of time. (Again, this is a broad declaration for only having known about them for a time of under 12 hours, but it’s true-doe like Justin).
Man Machine Poem finds The Tragically Hip altering course like Brand New by the time they reached The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me. It’s softer, more subdued, but still anchored by the main consistent throughline of their entire discography: Downie’s voice and striking lyricism. Of all the albums which I listened to in an incomplete, ADD track-jumping manner, it’s my favorite.
Man Machine Poem is a powerful album that after less than one day of listening I can confidently declare that I love, but I don’t know if I would feel that way if I had been a (presumably Canadian) fan who had been following their career since 1989. Listening to the album with the context I had just absorbed—Downie’s diagnosis, their final tour, and his death a year later—imbued its melancholic tone with a heightened sense of poignancy (sorry for this Pitchfork ass sentence, but it’s the best way to describe what I felt). On “Tired as Fuck,” for instance, Downie sings: “Tired as fuck / I want to stop so much I almost don’t want to stop.” Those are damn good lyrics on their own, and me relating them to his diagnosis and death could be a form of projection, but ultimately enhances my experience, as a previously-unaware listener.
I read several different rankings of Tragically Hip albums on various blogs. Some had Man Machine Poem as one of their “worst.” At least one had it at #3 best all-time, which was enough to confirm my opinion of it and select it as the album for my upcoming podcast episode, which you can listen to here in a week or two & hear me rehash everything I said in this newsletter.
This is a longwinded lead-up to something I’ve been thinking about ever since discovering The Tragically Hip and falling down the tragic rabbit hole: What is the relationship between music and stories? Why do I tend to like music when there’s a good story behind it? Why does that story so often involve tragedy or death? Is something wrong with me, or is everyone like this, despite recognizing everything gross about it?
It’s sad and disturbing that lyrics like “Tired as fuck / I want to stop so much I almost don’t want to stop” are more impactful to me with the context of the singer dying too soon after he penned them. I imagine the reaction of a seasoned fan of “The Hip” reading this would be similar to that of fans of Dilla or DOOM who were there from the beginning reacting to the younger generation discovering their favorite artist’s music on TikTok. Dilla and DOOM both have sizable audiences that didn’t discover their music until after they passed. In many instances, people find these artists because of their deaths. I suppose the same could be true of Nirvana, or Amy Winehouse, or Jimi Hendrix, or any popular artist who becomes an icon on an even more elevated level after their passing. This is a reason why I don’t like writing about musicians after they die. I prefer to write “Living Obituaries” (read one on Cold187 here and Bonnie Raitt here via Passion of the Weiss), to celebrate artists with clear definitive long-lasting legacies while they’re still alive.
But the thing I’m thinking about isn’t just death’s impact on an artist’s success. It’s also about the fact that I wasn’t just looking for a good album to play on my podcast. I was looking for a good story about an album. I guess that’s what music writing is, and why I like reading and writing about music. Sharing stories about music’s impact on other aspects of life. That can take on many different forms, from a personal essay to a reported piece on an artist or scene’s cultural impact. Music is never devoid of context. The context doesn’t always have to be sad.
But I’m beginning to suspect that, at least for me, the story of music is an element that draws me in about as much as the music itself. I’m not saying anything profound. This is the entire reason PR firms exist and artists hire writers to pen their bios. This is the foundation of the lucrative music blogging industry, of which I aspire to be a leading capitalist. Of course the music has to be good, by the way. But it gets better with a story.
I feel conflicted making this half-assed point with the specific example of The Tragically Hip because it makes me sound like I’m relishing in the story of a stranger’s death. I absolutely am not, and I detest that that trend permeates music fandom and criticism, whether participants are self-aware or not. I would much prefer that I discovered The Tragically Hip in 2024 and Gord Downie was still living. I would like to catch them on their next tour, and maybe drive over to Tim Horton’s after. I would like to not be so ignorant about Canada. I would like to listen to good music and sometimes a good story helps me find and appreciate good music, and I feel conflicted about that.
Anyways, here’s The Tragically Hip performing “Tired As Fuck” on their last tour: