The Hip

By Scott Keith on 18 October 2017

Hi Scott,

I just found out that Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip passed away.

Aside from a rare SNL appearance and a couple of songs that made waves south of the border (i.e. Bobcaygeon), I can't speak of their true legacy. Can you please explain how big of a loss this is for Canadian music?

Thanks,

Really, Bobcaygeon was a hit down there? That's a pretty random one.

It's a pretty big loss for Canada, obviously, because they were like the Canadian version of a big touring band like U2 but just for us. When I was in high school, the local rock station in Edmonton would play their first album constantly ("Last American Exit" and "Highway Girl" were the big songs off that) and when they released their first proper studio album, "Up to Here", they did a major shift to a full-on rock sound that was pretty great. I actually remember getting a sampler cassette from HMV and the first song was "Blow at High Dough", which is a great song to blast while driving. I think "New Orleans is Sinking" made some waves down there as well, but never really pushed them over the top. I felt like the whole Road Apples album was overplayed on radio, and "Locked in the Trunk of a Car" from the next album was where they really lost me as a fan, because it was a great song but they were becoming too much "poetry for poetry's sake" rather than making great music. I've been listening to the old stuff again, since we've had a lot of lead-up time to process everything and they even did one last arena tour last year, and I'm just glad Gord was at peace with everything.