sullivand Wrote:A Guided Tour Through The Grand Bounce with Gord Downie Himself
By Alan Cross
Since the internets always seem to misplace things:
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While the Tragically Hip takes a break, Gord has gone on another walkabout with his personal muses. The result is a third solo album to go with Coke Machine Glow (2001) and Battle of the Nudes (2003). This new record is called The Grand Bounce and once again, he’s joined by My Dinner Is Ruined, who work as The Country Miracles when they’re backing Gord in the studio and on the road.
Production on this record was handled by Chris Walla, the guitarist in Death Cab for Cutie. Gord and Chris met at the Pemberton Festival out in BC last year. After that encounter, Gord somehow came to believe that they were destined to make a record together some day—and after an impetuous phone call, it came to be. Chris drove—yes, drove—all the way from Portland to be part of the project.
A word of warning to anyone who slept through their literature, film or history classes: you will miss the subtleties, references and tributes to people like the late poet Al Purdy, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn and a few more literate things.
With the release date still three weeks off, here’s a Gord-approved track-by-track preview of what to expect from the thirteen tracks. (I had him help me with these descriptions after I wrote them; his comments are included, albeit slightly paraphrased.)
The East Wind (4:28)
After some distant studio chatter, the song begins with one of the most astute meteorological observations I’ve ever heard in a song: “An east wind is the laziest wind/It’s doesn’t go around you/It goes through you.” This is certainly true if you live around the Great Lakes. Not only is an east wind cold and miserable, it often harkens worse weather to come. That imagery aside, this is actually a happy, big-sounding song with lots of aggressive strumming on acoustic guitars. (Gord: “There are lots of literary and movie references in the song, including The Ox-Bow Incident. See the film from 1943.”)
Moon Over Glenora (3:10)
For those unfamiliar with Ontario geography, Glenora is a village east of Picton (where Gord has a place) in Prince Edward County in the eastern part of the province along Lake Ontario. It’s a scenic place, right next to Lake on the Mountain Provincial Park. A vocal from Eric Tripp’s Julie Doiron floats in and out over a subtle line on a Fender Rhodes. I’m guessing that it was inspired one of the nights of the two-week recording session for this album that took place last August. You can practically smell the campfire and the charred Shopsy’s hotdogs. (Gord: “That’s about right...”)
As a Mover (4:16)
Chris Walla’s touch is apparent with the long, slow, gentle lead-up that would not sound out of place on a Death Cab for Cutie song. Brushes on the snare and cymbals clickity-clack below long, languid Hammond organ chords. (Gord: “When Chris Walla mixes, something happens every four bars: something gets added or something gets subtracted, so you get this wonderful layering of sounds.”)
The Dancer and Its Disappearance (3:49)
A rather Hip-like (i.e. rockin’, uptempo) reflection on the life of a dancer and the art of dancing inspired by a quote in a program for a performance created by choreographer, Crystal Pite. I’ll bet you didn’t know Gord was into modern dance, did you? (Gord: “We all need to dance more. It’s an art that’s in trouble and we need to pay closer attention to the artists who bring it to us.”)
The Hard Canadian (3:28)
Like “The East Wind,” the song was inspired by an off-hand comment made about a year ago by a friend named Mike Clattenburg (Gord: “He’s the head writer for the Trailer Park Boys.”) who speaking of a particular type of Canadian attitude. (Gord: “I sort of knew he was subtlety challenging me to write a song about the “hard Canadian.” It’s an attitude held by regular people across the country. It’s their stories that need to be found and told.”)
Gone (3:53)
Deceptively happy song (again with Julie Dorion’s vocals coming through in the harmonies) about loss and regret. A distant solo (Gord: “That’s a theremin!”) echoes through the bridge and leads the song into its extro.
The Drowning Machine (3:25)
Crunchy mid-tempo rocker with a blistering solo showing up 1:30 into the song. Gord sings of ruined moments and begs to be spared from...something. (Gord: “This is a phrase inspired by something I heard from a firefighter in Calgary about a sluice gate on the Bow River. If you get sucked in, the current holds you down and you can’t escape and you drown. He called it ‘a drowning machine.’”)
Yellow Days (3:56)
Muted drums and more Fender Rhodes punctuate a contemplation of the fleeting nature of a Canadian summer in the country: “Still, summer’s always going.” More inspiration courtesy of Gord’s place in Prince Edward County. You can feel the heat enough to make you think of reaching for a beer. Interesting line: “Sweat of Johnny Cash/Hot knife to the hash.”
The Night is for Getting (2:37)
Another uptempo rocker. A play on “the night is ‘forgetting?’” (Gord: “Actually, the original phrase is ‘War is for getting’—as in ‘The purpose of war is for getting more.’”) Lots of piano flourishes dot the song that begs for another round from the bar to go along with the “don’t worry, be happy” vibe.
Moonslow Yer Lashes (3:11)
A Farfisa-style organ makes an appearance in a two chord Smashmouth-like pop song with hand claps and cowbell. (Gord: “Yep.”)
Retrace (3:46)
Midtempo acoustic guitar strummer with the narrator singing of once again retracing his steps through life, appearing to be on the verge of some kind of serious regret or sadness. We spoke later of things Gord would like to retrace in his own life, and he says he personally prefers to focus on the moment and the possibilities of the future.
Broadcast (5:11)
Slow 6/8 time ode to sunrise, sunset, morning dew, the light on the water, etc. Best bit: the long, dreamy extro that runs close to two minutes. (Gord: “I love that bit at the end. As far as I’m concerned, it could go on and on. With the Country of Miracles, that’s one of our signature things.”)
Pinned (4:40)
Sparse, quiet and slightly distorted piano fades in with rumbly sound effects of the interior of a train that acts as an epilogue to the record. The piano and singing disappears at about the three-minute mark, dissolving into what sounds like a muted and hard-to-make-out conversation between two or three people before fading out. (Gord: “I was on a VIA train coming back from the funeral of [Hip drummer] Johnny Fay’s father, a giant of a man—a heart surgeon. I was feeling pretty down and devastated. I had the laptop open to Garage Band where my daughter had recorded this nice piano melody. I liked it, so I opened another track and hunched over, quietly singing into the mic. The train whistles appear in real time—they just punctuated things perfectly—so I didn’t have to do anything. The conversations you hear at the end are other people around me in the rail car.”)
Thanks to Gord for graciously making the time to talk about the record.
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