#all three of these were like thirty bucks!!!! i feel like i robbed this goddamn place blind!!!

[piimpf]

ABSOLUTELY INSANE RECORD GRAB TODAY LADS

[thisnewdevilry]

The Tragically Hip, a reflection

They shot a movie once, in my hometown Everybody was in it, from miles around Out at the speedway, some kind of Elvis thing Well I ain't no movie star But I can get behind anything Yeah I can get behind anything

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We don't go anywhere Just on trips We haven't seen a thing We still don't know where it is It's a safe mistake

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In November of 1984, Gord Downie, Rob Baker, Gord Sinclair, and Johnny Fay got a band together in Kingston Ontario, with Paul Langlois joining them a little after.

Also in November of 1984, I was born.

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Don't tell me what the poets are doing On the street and the epitome of vague Don't tell me how the universe is altered When you find out how he gets paid, all right

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If you can make me scared, if that's what you do If I'm unclear, can I get out of this thing with me and you If you feel scared, and a bit confused I got to say, this sounds a little beyond anything I'm used to

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I’ll be turning thirty-three next month.  One of the odd things I’ve noticed about growing older in this world has been the realization of a strange sort of parameter for measuring life and age and growth: when you measure your life in new constants, in things you have always known and experienced, you’re young… and when the constants you’ve always known suddenly stop, or expire, or die, then you’re old.  For example – I’ve never lived in a world without the Apple MacIntosh computer.  I’ve never lived in a world that didn’t have CD players.  I’ve never lived in a world without the AIDS virus.  I’ve never lived in a world that didn’t know Ghostbusters, or The Terminator, or Indiana Jones.

I’ve never lived in a time that didn’t have the Tragically Hip.

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I had my hands in the river My feet back up on the banks Looked up to the Lord above And said "hey man thanks" Sometimes I feel so good I gotta scream She said Gordie baby I know exactly what you mean She said, she said, I swear to God she said...

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We're forced to bed But we're free to dream All us human extras, All us herded beings And after a glimpse Over the top The rest of the world Becomes a gift shop

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Fifty-three.  Younger than my parents.  Jesus.

A relative of mine died of the same cancer years back.  Jesus.

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Just give me the news It can all be lies Exciting over fair or the right thing at the right time Everything is clear Just how you described The way it appears, a world possessed by the human mind

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I come from downtown Born ready for you Armed with skill and it's frustration And grace, too

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I wasn’t the biggest fan of the Tragically Hip.  I don’t own a single album.  I’ve never been to a concert, even though they played one in my slightly-out-of-the-circuit Canadian city a little over two years ago.  Put me on the spot and I would probably struggle to identify one of their typically poetic lyrics by the correct song name.

But I still knew them.  It was next to impossible not to.  The moment Gord’s twangy wail of a voice started up, wavering like the guitar riffs that adapted to whichever poem they were communicating this time… no one else sounded like the Hip.

I liked their music.  I liked the way lyrical veins of bitter history and sad truths braided themselves with nostalgia and anger, with the sound of tires on gravel and the scent of a city in winter.

And I knew them because they were always there.  I heard them in theme songs of Canadian TV shows, on soundtracks.  I saw them cameo in our movies, our sitcoms.  They released 15 albums, 58 singles, and Downie made 6 albums of his own.  Whether watching MuchMusic and seeing their videos when I was in high school, or catching Downie’s interviews on the Strombo Show when I was in college, or hearing a song on the radio as I drove from home to university to work and back – the Tragically Hip were there, in that sort of way that you never really notice or quantify.

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So there's no simple explanation For anything important any of us do And yeah the human tragedy Consists in the necessity Of living with the consequences Under pressure, under pressure.

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They don't know how old I am, They found armor in my belly Passion out of machine revving tension Lashing out at machine revving tension Rushing by the machine revving tension

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You take it for granted.

It’s like walking up the stairs without paying close attention to your feet, until suddenly you take that step and the stair isn’t rising up with you anymore.  It’s stopped.  There won’t be more.

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When I left your house this morning, It was a little after nine It was in Bobcaygeon, I saw the constellations Reveal themselves, one star at time

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Tired as fuck I want to stop so much I almost don't want to stop See now then Can't and won't Will and can

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I wasn’t surprised when I read the headline, when I turned the keys in the ignition and fired the car engine and the radio to life together to hear song after song on every radio station, all variations on that poetic twang that spanned thirty goddamn years.  We all knew this was coming.  1/3 of Canada tuned in to listen to Gord Downie commandeer his own goddamn wake.

I didn’t go to any of the concerts on that last tour.  When the last one, the finale in Kingston, was broadcast live across the country (no, you don’t understand, no one else has ever done that), I was driving my wife and a friend down a prairie highway, windows cracked just enough to alleviate the August heat without interfering with the music.

“Little Bones” was the song.

It was just as it had always been, the Hip stepping into the soundtrack of my life, and then out again.

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Two-fifty for a decade And a buck and half for a year happy hour Happy hour, happy hour is here

I can cry, beg and whine To every rebel I find Just to give me a line I could use to describe

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Driving down a corduroy road, Weeds standing shoulder high Ferris wheel is rusting off in the distance At the hundredth meridian At the hundredth meridian At the hundredth meridian Where the great plains begin

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In the time it took for me to write this, the Wikipedia page for the Hip moved Gord Downie from ‘members’ to ‘past members’.

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Come in, come in, come in, come in From thin and wicked prairie winds, come in It's warm and it's safe here and almost heartening Here in a time and place not lost on our imagination

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Wheat kings and pretty things Let's just see what tomorrow bring Wheat kings and pretty things Oh, that's what tomorrow brings

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I’ve never lived in a Canada that didn’t have the Tragically Hip.  On Wednesday, social media statuses declared, ‘There’s been a death in the family – Canada is closed today.’

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His tiny knotted heart Well, I guess it never worked too good The timber tore apart And the water gorged the wood You can hear her whispered prayer For men at masts that always lean The same wind that moves her hair Moves a boy through Fiddler's Green

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Stare in the morning shroud and then the day began I tilted your cloud, you tilted my hand Rain falls in real time and rain fell through the night No dress rehearsal, this is our life