Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
At the Hundredth Meridian (1992)
It's Canada Day, which for the uninitiated, is Canada's version of the 4th of July. I'm a proud Canadian, even though I haven't lived there in 43 years. Plenty of Canadian musicians have transcended the border and become big stars down here in the lower 48. Still others have been fairly huge up there but haven't been able to cross over.
One of those bands is the Tragically Hip, a quintet from Kingston, Ontario that formed in 1984. Bassist Gord Sinclair and guitarist Rob Baker had been playing music together and teamed up with singer Gord Downie, drummer Johnny Fay and sax player Davis Manning. The group played covers of songs by the Rolling Stones, Them and the Monkees in local bars and built a following. In 1986, rhythm guitarist Paul Langlois replaced Manning and the band played across Ontario before they eventually caught the attention of an MCA executive.
A self-titled EP was released in 1987, followed by their 1989 debut album Up to Here, which contained nods to the band's roots rock influences but also branched out with folk, country and hard rock sounds. Downie's lyrics elevated the group beyond your run-of-the-mill bar band, as did the Hip's live shows, which featured Downie's trance-like and sweaty improvisations during longer jams. The album featured a few songs that got some rock radio play in Boston, including "Blow at High Dough" and "New Orleans is Sinking." I bought Up to Here on vinyl and enjoyed it, but really became a fan when I was visiting Toronto in the summer of 1990 and saw a Hip concert recorded at The Misty Moon in Nova Scotia on MuchMusic, the Canadian version of MTV (I've since seen that show on YouTube and it's being included as part of an Up to Here reissue coming out later this year).
The band's second album, 1991's Road Apples, was recorded in New Orleans and saw Downie's lyrical references getting more literary and obscure, as he wrote about Canadian artist Tom Thomson and political tensions in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. The band was getting tighter and more potent live; I caught them at the Paradise in Boston on this tour on a weeknight and there were only about 30 people there, but man, what a show. The album went to #1 in Canada but didn't chart in the U.S.
For their third album, the Hip traveled to London and worked with producer Chris Tsangarides, who was well known for his work with hard rock acts like Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest and Gary Moore. The album, Fully Completely, came out in October 1992 in Canada but wasn't released in the U.S. until January of the following year. I was visiting Toronto in the fall of '92 to catch some Blue Jays games and heard the first single "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," but wasn't able to buy it for a few months after I returned home. The album was again chock full of Canadiana, including references to author MacLennan, explorer Jacques Cartier and Bill Barilko, the Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman who scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in 1951 and then died in a plane crash.
"At the Hundredth Meridian" was the album's third single, referring to the 100th meridian west, a line of longitude that separates much of Western Canada from the Central and Atlantic regions of the country.
"Me debunk an American myth?/And take my life in my hands?/Where the great plains begin/At the hundredth meridian/At the hundredth meridian/Where the great plains begin/Driving down a corduroy road/Weeds standing shoulder high/Ferris wheel is rusting/Off in the distance."
In addition to being a geographic divider in Canada, the 100th meridian could also be seen as the dividing line between the conservative-leaning west and the liberal east.
"Left alone to get gigantic/Hard, huge and haunted/A generation so much dumber than its parents/Came crashing through the window/A raven strains along the line of the road/Carrying a muddy, old skull/The wires whistle their approval/Off down the distance."
In concert, the band would stretch out the song and introduce newer songs in the middle. And similarly, the Hip's version of its 1987 B-side "All Canadian Surf Club" from the Live at the Roxy May 3, 1991 album (released two years ago) featured a few key elements that would end up in "At the Hundredth Meridian" a year later.
"I remember, I remember Buffalo/And I remember Hengelo/It would seem to me/I remember every single fucking thing I know/If I die of vanity, promise me, promise me/They bury me some place I don't want to be/You'll dig me up and transport me/Unceremoniously away from the swollen city breeze/Garbage bag trees, whispers of disease/And acts of enormity/And lower me slowly, and sadly, and properly/Get Ry Cooder to sing my eulogy."
Fully Completely was a huge hit in Canada, but not so much south of the border. I remember hearing "Courage" playing in a March Madness bumper going to commercial on CBS, but then not hearing the song much after that. As it turned out, MCA stopped doing U.S. promotion of the album after a whole two weeks.
Instead of doing a normal tour for the album, the Hip put together a traveling summer festival in Canada called Another Roadside Attraction, which also featured Midnight Oil, Hothouse Flowers, Daniel Lanois and Crash Vegas. The festival didn't come down to the U.S., but I actually saw the Hip at the Middle East downstairs in the spring of '93 and then saw Midnight Oil, Hothouse Flowers and Ziggy Marley at Great Woods in Mansfield a few months later.
As the '90s rolled on, the Hip continued to do big business in Canada, playing arenas up there while playing clubs and small theaters here. They tended to do pretty well in college towns and near the border, attracting plenty of Canadian ex-pats like me and roadtripping current Canucks as well. In 1995, they were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live thanks to the lobbying of fellow Kingston resident Dan Aykroyd. They also were the first band on day 2 of Woodstock '99.
The Hip's sound evolved as well, moving away from the bluesy rock of the early albums and earning comparisons to bands like R.E.M. and Midnight Oil.
The band continued releasing albums until 2016's Man Machine Poem, which had its release delayed after Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in December 2015. The Hip didn't release news of the diagnosis until the announcement of the album in May 2016; they also announced they would be doing one last tour across Canada. The final concert was broadcast and streamed live by the CBC and viewed by an estimated 11.7 million people. Downie, who had released four solo albums prior to the diagnosis, ended up releasing two prior to his death and two posthumously. He died in October 2017 at the age of 53.
The Tragically Hip ended as a recording and touring entity with Downie's death, but the surviving members have been releasing archival material and reissues since.
No comments:
Post a Comment