@Mike S - I read this on FB today, and thought yup, this summarizes The Hip and Gord and their relationship to Canadians perfectly.
Dear Rest of the World:
You’re probably looking at Canada (if you look at us at all) and wondering how an entire nation can be consumed with grief over the death of a singer. A rock singer, no less.
“Seriously, Canada? And even your Prime Minister was crying? And now some people are talking about a state funeral for this guy? What’s up with that?”
It’s ... hard to explain. But let me try.
First, we’re not ashamed about any of this. You see, The Hip was Canada’s house band and their frontman was our defacto poet laureate. To put it another way, if there was a World Cup of Rock, Canada would send The Tragically Hip.
Second, The Hip taught us about ourselves. Gord and the band were unabashedly Canadian without being jingoistic or wrapping themselves in the flag. How many people learned of Hugh MacLennan or David Milgaard through Hip lyrics? How many people across the country were sent to atlases to locate Bobcaygeon or Algonquin Park? And then there were all the hockey stories: Bill Barilko, references to the 1972 Canada-Russia series.
If there isn’t already an undergraduate course that teaches Canadian history, politics, geography and sociology using the lyrics of The Tragically Hip, it’s just a matter of time.
Third, we learned to appreciate Gord’s often obtuse and opaque lyrics. They stood up to repeated listening, often revealing new layers with repeated listening. His writings (including his sundry non-music poetry) is worth study the same way we look at the works of Leonard Cohen, Michael Ondaatje and Al Purdy, one of Gord’s heroes.
But hey, Rest of the World, you did have a chance — multiple chances! — to get in on this action. But for some reason, you chose not to. (You people along the border in the U.S. and some folks in western Europe and Australia are exempt. You know who you are.)
After a couple of failed attempts to break into the American market that were thwarted by record company politics, bad luck and other things beyond the band’s control, The Hip retrenched and super-served their domestic fan base which responded with even more devotion.
In fact, it was perhaps because they couldn’t break it big in America that we embraced them even more. You didn’t want ’em, so we hung on even tighter. They were ours.
They sold millions of albums and hundreds of thousands of concert tickets from coast to coast. We travelled from gig to gig, often outnumbering the locals when The Hip played U.S. cities and were stunned more of you didn’t attend. Couldn’t you see what you were missing?
But unless you’re Canadian, you probably won’t understand.
— Alan Cross is a self professed professional music geek, broadcaster and founder of @musictechto@alancross