The inspiration for “At the Hundreth Meridian” comes from the sign on the TransCanada just before Winnipeg that inspired the powerful refrain: “At the hundredth meridian where the great plains begin”.
As Downie notes in Barclay’s book: “I probably put both images in and just couldn’t take either out, so I had to figure a way to loosely stitch these things together the stitching that provides any kind of meaning” the final line of the song serves as an enigmatic reminder of that stitching process, as the hockey card is carefully folded into the cap: “I worked it in to look like that”. One of the band’s most famous and most Canadian songs is “Fifty-Mission Cap,” based on a strange text in which Downie combined two completely unrelated ideas: the story of the mysterious death of the Toronto hockey legend Bill Barilko, taken from the back of a hockey card, and a reference to the fifty mission cap which was given to bomber crews during WWII when they completed fifty bombing missions. Most of these songs feature strong and distinctive Canadian content: “Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)” inspired by the latter’s novel Watch That Ends the Night, “Wheat Kings” referencing the David Milgaard story and “Looking for a Place to Happen”, with its surreal appearance of Jacques Cartier at one of the Hip’s tour stops. The album is to the Hip what Ten is to Pearl Jam, both albums from 1992.
The first fruits of this impact, was the title song “Fully Completely” that was built up from “a simple one-chord riff which gathered into fury around a brief Downie interpretation of existence,” writes Barclay.įully Completely contains some of the band’s greatest songs. Downie had recently discovered The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera which had a big impact on his “stream-of-consciousness writing,” as noted in Barclay’s book. The Canadiana aspect is particularly apparent in their fourth album Fully Completely from 1992.
#GORD DOWNIE 1989 FULL#
“I started using Canadian references not just for their own sake, but because I wanted to pick up my birthright which is this massive country full of stories,” says Downie in Michael Barclay’s book Have Not Been the Same: The CanRock Renaissance 1985-1995. Their songs are mostly simple riff-driven songs in the tradition of the Rolling Stones, often with interlocking patterns in the guitars or “circular bass,” often organized in strophic or verse/chorus forms that build to a repeated refrain or chorus and then resolve onto a guitar break to serve as conclusion.īeginning with their third album Road Apples from 1991 their songs begin to make reference to Canadian places, events and people, such as the mysterious death of the painter Tom Thompson in “Three Pistols” and the on-going language debate in “In the Water”. Many of the Hip’s songs originated from Gord Downie’s practice of ranting to the audience during the middle of songs, these rants, in turn, becoming new songs, as Reebee Garofalo and Rob Bowman note in the Canadian edition of their book Rockin’ Out. Their first album, Up to Here, is essentially their touring repertoire up to 1989 and features several of their best-known songs, “Blow at High Dough” and “New Orleans Is Sinking”. Although the EP was not overly successful, the band built up a solid fan base on tour, one town at a time. The band was discovered by Allen Gregg, the political pollster and music impresario, and the Toronto band manager Jake Gold.Ī successful audition at Larry’s Hideaway in Toronto, led to an MCA recording contract and the release of an EP in 1987, which they then took on the road. Although the latter greatly influenced their early repertoire, he left the band and was replaced by Paul Langlois on rhythm guitar and vocals. The band was formed in Kingston by two childhood friends, Rob Baker and Gord Sinclair on lead guitar and bass, who were joined by Gord Downie on lead vocals, Johnny Fay on drums and Davis Manning on saxophone. The following is an op-ed from Kurt Markstrom, associate professor in music history and musicology in the Desautels Faculty of Music.Īlthough known as the ultimate Canadian band because of the numerous references to Canada in their songs, the rock equivalent of Gordon Lightfoot and Stompin’ Tom, the roots of the band are clearly in post-punk indie or alternative rock and as such, their songs tend to have dark undertones that go considerably beyond simple nationalism.
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