Hey! I’m a DJ in the US (public radio volunteer , NOT a big deal, seriously) and I’m doing an all Canadian theme (call it resistance) on my show. I am, of course, including the Hip and thought about using Fifty Mission Cap because I thought it was very Canadian and has a guitar riff that is MESMERIZING! But, you know, I am NOT Canadian and so I don’t know jack about squat about what’s Canadian. I have to keep it to Music@Work and back because the show is a classic Rock format and I’m looking for something with a beat (Wheat Kings lost in the prelims).

Any suggestions?

Cavalier Tool&Manufacturing interview on CBC and a great painting of Gord behind him.

Hi. Anybody guitarist here able to help me figure out what is being played on the into of Fight (live at the Roxy)? Specifically it's the part at about 00:14-00:18 in?

Hey, I'm new here and newish to the band. I remember my mom playing some of their songs from a burned CD her friend made, and hearing the hits like Poets, Courage, Blow at High Dough. Couple months ago my favourite little brewery had a Hip cover band play and things changed for me that night. The energy of the band, the singer, the crowd (all 50 of us) and something just clicked. I'm realizing i haven't been that good of a Canadian not having really listened to the Hip. Couple days after the show, went to my local book shop, and the owner also buys and sells CD'S. I got 9 albums that day. Self Tiled and Up to Here have been on repeat. Killing Time has been a favourite so far.

Long of the short, any deep track recommendations to really set off my experience of discovering The Tragically Hip?

I got a chance to see the cover band 2 weeks ago for the second time and will probably try for a third when they are back in March.

Not sure if these "top listened too" lists are welcomed in this sub, but here's my top 10 from 2024. Not just my top 10 hip, but top 10 songs in general (spoiler they're all hip).

1. Get Back Again
2. Wait So Long
3. When the Weight Comes Down
4. Vapour Trails
5. Putting Down
6. Nautical Disaster
7. Titanic Terrarium
8. Everytime You Go
9. Chagrin Falls
10. Thugs

As chosen by fans, listeners and members of the media. Song # 37 is "In a World Possessed by the Human Mind."

I usually stick with Up to Here or Fully Completely. Listened to Phantom Power today, and was once again struck by how great that track is.

A bit pricey but couldn’t resist. I went looking for a 50 Mission Cap…. In my mind a slightly worn looking ball cap like the Ahead by a Century cap but with a big 50 on the front and Tragically Hip along the snap back. Didn’t find such a thing - but there’s an idea for you Jake!

This’ll do for now ;-)

I'm trying to find out if there is a recording of this show for a co-worker. Does anybody have any insight?

Does anyone have an older tragically hip shirts they are willing to sell im trying to build my collection :)

I was pretty young but had been watching the show for several years when they played Grace Too on SNL. It would be an understatement to say it changed my life. I went out the next day day and took a walk to the local store. Shout out to Ear X Tacy. Got myself a CD copy of Day For Night. Met the entire band a couple of years later and they could t have been more incredible. I think a lot of us here remember Dan saying “my friends”. I just remember seeing it live that night and being so entranced by how fucking weird everyone in the band was. That’s me ! I am also that weird ! They really gave teenage me some inspiration. Edit to say I’m from the south in the US so all of this was foreign to me.

https://youtu.be/o6QDjDPRF5c?si=qN7ejbk-9ymzY9q2

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tragicallyhip/bobcaygeon.html

Hello everyone, I hope all is well. Today we are going to be talking about one of the band’s most beloved songs which is “Bobcaygeon”, the fourth song and single from the band’s sixth studio album Phantom Power.

This song really needs no introduction, this is one of the band’s signature songs and could easily be on any fan’s top ten or even five songs list from the band. But why is this song so great?

Well it could be for its music. Listening to the song is the equivalent to a warm hug for your ears. This partially due to Rob’s open G guitar tuning that sounds especially nice on the acoustic guitar. But this isn’t a simple acoustic ballad, it’s much more. If you watched the recent Amazon Prime documentary you might have seen the album’s producer Steve Berlin talk about this song’s creative process. He heard the song as an old school Hip song but gave it a R&B flare. You can especially hear that in the bass and drum groove of the song and the keyboards that get especially jammy during the song’s outro. Paul’s electric guitar is subtle but not one note is wasted and every instrument falls into place perfectly.

Now the love for this song also seems to come from the title which of course is Bobcaygeon; a small town in the Kawartha Lakes region, northeast of Toronto. Now the song wasn’t picked because Gord wanted to write a song about this cozy Canadian destination, but more so because it’s the only name he could get to slightly rhyme with the word “constellation.” But despite that, Bobcaygeon celebrated the fact that one Canada’s biggest rock bands named a song after them. The town would be seen as quintessential cottage country destination and the band performed there in 2011 for the first time. During the band’s last show in 2016, the town held a public viewing of the show’s broadcast on its main street.

But it’s not just the song’s location that makes the song beloved, it also has to do with the song’s overall message and lyrics. Now when the song starts off, it seems to be a simple love song. You see a person leaving someone’s else house, possibly a lover’s house in the morning. The lyric “coulda been the Willie Nelson, coulda been the wine” is just a classic Gord lyric that’s an double entendre about Willie’s music but also weed. We then see this person driving back home from Bobcayegon with working on their mind. They contemplate quitting work as they go back to bed staring at the “dull and hypothetical sky.”

We then transition to the dramatic bridge where the lyrics take a bit of a turn. You see, Gord has talked about the song being about two cops who fall in love and sometimes about two gay cops who’s fallen in love. Although this isn’t apparent in the first couple of lines of the bridge. Gord sings about one night in Toronto at the Horseshoe Tavern with its “checkerboard floors.” You have the cops riding on their horses and keeping the order restored as the British folk punk group The Men They Couldn’t Hang play their song “Ghosts of Cable Street.” We know this because the lyric about the Aryan twang eludes to the song’s story telling of a Nazi rally in London.

The bridge and its incredible dynamics leads us to one last verse where Gord sings the uniquely romantic lyric “in the middle of that riot, couldn’t get you off my mind.” Now this is most likely a reference to the Christie Pits Riots of 1933 that happened between Toronto’s working class Jewish community and anti-semitic Swastika clubs. This makes sense as it follows the Aryan themes from the bridge. But it’s possible that these lyrics were also inspired by a riot that happened a few years before this song’s release between the Heritage Front and the Anti-Racist Action in Toronto.

Either way, these darker themes give this romantic song a ton of different layers. And I think that’s also why this is a lot of fan’s favorite song. This isn’t just another “Long Time Running”, this song tells a story that you don’t hear much in music. But there’s also something relatable about this song as well. When haven’t we all thought about quitting our jobs to move out the country? Especially when there’s a love one involve. Not to mention this song has so many iconic lyrics and imagery that might be some of Gord’s most poetic words without being buried in Canadian culture. Although if you think about it, just the song’s title is based in Canadian culture.

This song became a live staple, one of the band’s biggest singles and one of their most loved songs for plenty of good reasons. Musically this song sounds timeless. It has the perfect blend of acoustic bliss mixed with that uptempo comforting groove. And it has those moving lyrics from Gord that are delivered with some of his best melodies and most melodic singing. Lyrics that dip into universal emotions we all feel to events and places that inspire some of the song’s more complex lyrics. For me, it’s a song I could never grow tired of and one day I hope to visit Bobcaygeon to pay my respects to one of the best songs of all time written by one of the best bands of all time.

But what do you think of this song? Is this one of the Hip’s best songs ever? What do you think the song is about and what does it mean to you personally? Favorite lyrical and musical moments? And have you ever seen it live?

Hey everyone

Does anyone else remember seeing the music video for "Machine" from the MMP album? I can't seem to find it online.

I remember it had a bunch of cool assembly line-esque shots and I'd really love to see it again.

This is a place to discuss their comments on Grace, Too in the new book. Go!

I don’t have the book. The book is expensive (worth buying will buy, yes). All I’m asking is for someone to inform me about what they say about Grace, Too in the book. Do they mention who wrote it? How it came about?

I could swear that a few years ago I was listening to a live album and in the middle of a song Gord starts singing a portion of a Johnny Cash song. I feel like it was on one of the vault albums but I haven't been able to find it. Does anyone know which recording this is from, or if I'm just going crazy?

Edit: I found it, on "Blow at High Dough" from the 5th volume of 'Live From the Vault' Gord Downie starts ad-libbing 'When the Man Comes Around'

Hi all, I figured this was a good place to ask this, I really hope I don’t get roasted in the comments. Anyway, I’m a huge music fan, former semi-professional musician, I went to college for music production etc I like to think I have good taste in music (and everything) I’m usually the person people come to when they want to get into some new (or old) band they just heard about. I was the guy that had a thousand cds and piles of external hard drives and could make anyone a mix cd of whatever they wanted. I say all that to preface that the Tragically Hip have somehow evaded my antennae these past 40 years and I want to know where I should start with them. By all accounts they have a varied and deep catalog, do I just start at the beginning and run through all the albums? So far I’ve only hit the most popular 5-10 songs on YouTube, I clicked on Grace, Too on a whim while going down a YouTube rabbit hole and was BLOWN away, then listened to another 5 or so of the songs with the most views. How have I never checked this band out before?

If it helps you let me know which album to start with, my favorite bands are The Beatles, Steely Dan, Talking Heads, Bowie, REM, I like 70s prog like Genesis, Rush, weird stuff like Captain Beefheart. I like singer songwriter stuff Nick Drake, Ryan Adams, Tom Petty, as for more recent stuff I like the usual 90s bands, Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Folds.

Thanks for any advice - A New Fan

I love this part, would like to know what exactly he is singing though.

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As chosen by fans, listeners and members of the media. Song # 38 is, "Springtime in Vienna."

Now I know a lot of people on here are not too keen on talking about politics, and this post is not meant to open a can a worms in that regards. But in light of Elon Musk’s recent actions and Nazi tendencies, the mods on here have decided to follow suit with many other subreddits by banning any links to X/Twitter.

This sub will always be a safe place for everyone and we will not tolerate that type of hate here. These type of basic human rights have been displayed by the band countless of times over the years and with the band and Gord’s accounts joining the new social media website Bluesky, I think it’s safe to say that they would approve with this change to this subreddit. Let’s continue to support and respect one another and be the change that we want to see.

“When the Nazis find the whole place dark, they'll think God's left the museum for good.”

Hi. Now knowing that a faster version of So Hard Done By was originally recorded during the Fully Completely sessions, has there been any comment from the band about them using the same riff for Fully Completely (the song) on that album, but keeping a slowed down version of the riff for SHDB on Day for Night.

Are the songs somehow linked? For 30 years it’s seemed odd that the same riff is used on consecutive albums. Of course, the faster demo version wasn’t available back then to link the two in my mind and I don’t really know of any other examples where it’s so obvious. They have enough talent, so this can’t be a case of running out of ideas during their absolute peak 😁.