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Full Version: Hip's Greatest Song: Nautical Disaster
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FighterAndLover Wrote:
grooveless touque Wrote:Wow, you just HAD to start one more thread. You didn't think people looking in the finals poll would notice this? You somehow thought people would appreciate yet another unnecessary thread to say something easily discernible from your previous thread?

grooveless sounds angry, like :rambo:
dude put down those guns

must still be mad about the leafs beating the sens :lol:
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That version @ the motown show was awesome. Hell of a show. My best hip show of all time.

Mick
NateNantais Wrote:When I was at the concert in Detroit a month ago and they played Nautical Disaster, even though Gordo seemed to skip a verse, I thought man this has to be one of the best rock'n'roll songs ever...
Anyways the week after that I was listening and realized it never really occurred to me before that the song has no chorus. I think that is pretty interesting.

Nate

Whoa that's crazy, not only was I at the Detroit show, but about 2 hrs ago I was just thinking about the song having no chorus, and hwo if I ever wrote a song I dont think I'd have one because it works well... that is weird, man. Yeah, I was a lil thrown off when he skipped 1/2 a verse, it is my favorite song of all time.
Maybe Nautical is, in essence, the very reason we all like the Hip? No chorus, no standard verse borders nor tedious rhyme-scheme... (not that it is completely void of rhymes nor what could be considered 'verses') but this song defies the stencil of your usual song; it's not like others as verse, chorus, verse, chorus, break-down, chorus-to-end. Although, the "best Hip song" has been largely debated and discussed and no one song could ever appease everyone's tastes (and I myself don't believe it to be the 'best'), it is the Hip themselves. That song is the Tragically Hip. Unconventional, keep-the-ambiguity, music-for-the-sake-of-music, this-song'll-bleed-into-your-everyday-lives sorta song.

When I first heard Nautical, I thought it to be sad; an actual "Nautical Disaster", drowned people floating around on the video. But, as with my site and me actually picking apart the Hip's catalogue, it's victorious and brooding and arrogant and dreary. It's a relationship gone awry, it's fumbling for the phone cuz she's calling for reassurance, it's being taken away by the beauty of humanity, it's everything all at once. It's not like typical songs where the singer is literally talking to the audience about their emotions or what they did or experienced... very few songwriters write songs about other stuff nor put themselves in other's shoes.

They say "write what you know" so the majority of songwriters write about their lives or themselves... The Hip have time and time again proved that the "write what you know" advice is wrong... "write what other people might've known" and "write what's not to be forgotten" is where it's at.
lord brazle Wrote:They say "write what you know" so the majority of songwriters write about their lives or themselves... The Hip have time and time again proved that the "write what you know" advice is wrong... "write what other people might've known" and "write what's not to be forgotten" is where it's at.


You mean, "i hate everything about you, why do I love you?" isn't great songwriting. C'mon man, it's the perfect way to express a love-hate relationship. (Sarcasm hopefully detected)

That's why I consider Gord a truly great songwriter. He's different and I'll admit I don't know what he's saying most of the time but his lyrics are clever. They are very intelligent. There is a LOT of thought put into them and he uses metaphors that most people can only dream of using so flawlessly. Gord is very unique in his style and approach. He doesn't have the Chad Kroeger, "i like your pants around your feet" style of horrible writing. Smile Gord also seems to write his lyrics without coming across as self indulgent or pretentious. He's not trying to prove how "deep" or "intelligent" he is, but just writing from inspiration and dilligence.

It's been said that the difference between Young and Dylan was that Dylan wrote about "what's outside" while Young wrote "what's inside". Dylan writes about world events while Young writes about feelings. There are a lot of different approaches to songwriting and obviously Gord isn't the stature of these two legends but among contemporaries Gord is right at the top.
lord brazle Wrote:..."write what other people might've known" and "write what's not to be forgotten" is where it's at.

Word, Brazle; profund! :thumb:

tigerthelion Wrote:...Gord also seems to write his lyrics without coming across as self indulgent or pretentious. He's not trying to prove how "deep" or "intelligent" he is, but just writing from inspiration and dilligence...

I love the part in "Heksenketel" when Gord, talking to David Milgaard, explains how he didn't want to presume that he knew what it was like to be wrongly convicted and spend twenty years in prison, but he felt so strongly about the importance of Milgaard's story that he worked on the song for a long time to try to convey how he might have thought about it.

For anyone that knows The Hip, the tragedy of Milgaard's life, or simply understands how flawed "justice" really is, that sequence is probably one of the most powerful moments in film.
Uh, most of the time I'd say that Downie is writing what he knows. I'd venture to say that Nautical is a case of writing what he knows. After all, everyone has experienced problems in their relationships at one time or another -- he's not dealing in some fantasy world he could never have experienced.

Downie's lyrics are fundamentally introspective, and songs such as "Wheat Kings" or "38 Years Old" are very much in the minority. For the most part his subjects are simple moments in everyday life.

What makes Downie's lyrics stand out is their eloquence and their intelligence.
Alright people, I apologize for posting a total of 13 polls, and 14 threads, for the sole purpose of finding out the general favourite songs of the group. I guessed Nautical Disaster in the beginning, this proves it of course. Anyways, needless to say I obviously got a lot of complaints over it. I have a few rebuttals:

1) If a staff member pm'ed me and said stop doing this, I would. I have never done something like that before, and am not planning on doing it again. I thought it was an interesting idea, and I carried it through

2) Get your stick out of your ass. Like I said, it was a one time thing. I am deeply sorry I made users "search" through my polls to find other threads. I also apologize for disrupting the "flow" as someone said. It probably made your time on this forum much more difficult, and wasted a lot of your time, and for that I am sincerely sorry.

3) To sum up point 2. Lighten up.
It's not really a big deal. It just seemed like a bit much is all, I guess. Anyway, I'm sure I overreacted as we all do from time to time, but that stick shall remain firmly lodged in my ass.

Jeff
intothenight Wrote:3) To sum up point 2. Lighten up.
I guess 99% of my reason for having a problem with your posts was that in the past couple of months there have been way too many polls on way too many stupid topics. I feared your polls might open a whole 'nother can of worms. That hasn't happened. I think you made everybody sick of polls, so they've all gone away for a while :lol:

I'm kidding, of course. But seriously, I suppose it might have been worth doing once, and since the polls have died down, I can let it slide. I certainly don't hold anything against you personally.
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