kcpr3 Wrote:If you're gonna put something together, I'm going out on a week-long canoe trip in Algonquin this spring as soon as the temps come up a little bit.. I'd be more than happy to donate any pics that I will be taking to the project... You can check out my stuff from an earlier day trip to Algonquin on my website: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://threeflavours.tripod.com">http://threeflavours.tripod.com</a><!-- m --> just click on the Algonquin link!
Thanks, haven't figured out the art aspect yet... not quite sure of copyrights and all that jazz... but I did take my 70-300 telephoto to the school beside the McMichael gallery to attempt to shoot Thompson's cabin two weeks ago. Didn't work... looks like I'll have to pay the $2 admission fee.
Keep me posted, I'd like to get some shots of the Cairn at Canoe Lake. Sounds like a cool trip, I wish I had the time (and know how) to do the same.
Raw and unedited... but thar she blows:
Nautical Disaster
Kingston, Ontario is a military turned college town at the intersection of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The latter waterway defined trade, commerce and culture in Canada for nearly two hundred years. The lake, during times of both battle and bi-lateral trade, has separated the former dominion from the Empire to the South. Both waterways were essential to Canada’s early survival, and occupied privileged space in the Upper and Lower Canadian psyche.
Kingston reaches out to the water. Her British fort, her 19th century open air market, and her most famous landmark –an imposing colonial penitentiary– are all teased by the Ontario tide. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that water imagery has become a favourite lyrical device of The Tragically Hip.
Whether it is a literal reference or a metaphor, the sea and those who owe her a living have often appeared in song. 1989’s “Up To Here” featured Another Midnight, a lament which told us that the “the river don’t sleep as the water runs cold.” That same album reminded fans that the city of New Orleans is actually sinking. 2002’s The Dire Wolf brought us a pugnacious ship with an indefatigable crew. 2000’s Lake Fever took us back to Lake Ontario after 1994’s Daredevil had sent us “plunging over the falls.” But without question, the bands best-known sea chanty is the unlikely anthemic and perennial diehard favourite: Nautical Disaster.
A murky guitar riff develops over a submerged bass line. Heated words and reconciliation unfold over the screams of men left to die at sea. The Tragically Hip created this sad, enduring and heroic rock ballad amidships. It developed in the middle of New Orleans is Sinking and its meaning became the most contested work in the Hip’s catalogue. Many fans were sure their analysis of events was being relayed within the song. Dieppe, the defining Canadian tragedy of World War Two was suggested, as were the Titanic and Lusitania disasters of earlier years. Gord Downie told the authors of the Can-Rock tome Have Not Been The Same that the songs nautical theme is in fact based on the doomed German battleship Bismarck.
Nautical Disaster is a Freudian trip. It may have been a now defunct fan web page that first explored the link between the Bismarck and the pain that seems to be influencing the songs protagonist. The song opens as our narrator finds refuge in sleep after suffering –as the song later reveals– a hurtful development is his relationship with Susan. As he begins to dream, our everyman is about to come face to face with the heartless reality of war at sea off the coast of France.
The Bismarck was more than just a battleship. Adolf Hitler had named the 46,000-ton widow-maker after Otto Von Bismarck, the founder of the German Reich. It was an attempt to create a quasi-personal connection between the statesman and the madman. The largest, most heavily armed and most heralded ship in the German fleet, the Bismarck was captained by Ernst Lindemann.
A respected veteran of the seas, Lindemann insisted the Bismarck be referred to as a “He,” the usually feminine description being unsuitable for his ship. Baron von Mullenheim-Rechberg, a survivor who was later held prisoner in Bowmanville, Ontario, recalled that the crew named the ships turrets Anton, Bruno, Dora and Caesar. The ship was the only German vessel to travel with a full military band. From the moment she was laid down on Canada Day in 1936, to her vicious final battle on Victoria Day weekend 1941, the Bismarck was the Reich’s floating symbol of Aryan supremacy.
Among the Allied navies, fear was afforded the Bismarck the instant she slipped into the sea. International fame arrived early and unexpected. After colliding with the lead tugboat on her maiden voyage, the Bismarck sailed into a far more distinguishing encounter with the British Battleship Hood on May 24, 1941.
If the untested Bismarck already had a reputation as Germany’s flagship, the mighty Hood dwarfed her by comparison. The Hood represented the British Empire’s indestructible reputation at sea. After the briefest of encounters, amidst only six full minutes of firing, the Bismarck shocked her crew, her officers, and most assuredly the Allied forces, when she easily dispatched the legendary British battleship.
The sinking of the Hood bolstered a dangerous new confidence in Hitler and his followers. For the first time, His Majesty’s reign over the sea had not only been challenged, but severely undermined. Winston Churchill now had a new public enemy, a supreme nautical vendetta. Hitler considered the Bismarck an instant idol.
In order to refuel and repair damage sustained in the battle with the Hood, the Bismarck set a course for the French port of St. Nazaire. Her return voyage would be anything but routine. Churchill, a former head of the admiralty, had deployed four battleships, two battle cruisers, two aircraft carriers, three heavy cruisers, ten light cruisers and twenty-one destroyers to find the Bismarck. It was a seek and destroy mission unlike anything in history. A lethal game of cat and mouse set across more than a million square nautical miles.
On May 26, a squadron of British Swordfish torpedo planes broke through the Atlantic fog that had been concealing the Bismarck. One of the aircraft, flying at less than 50 feet above the water, dropped a 1,600-pound, 18-inch torpedo armed with 450 pounds of TNT. The projectile struck the Bismarck’s Achilles heel, the only part of the ship not encased with double thick armour: her twin parallel rudders. The attack did not harm the ship itself, but the Bismarck was now unable to steer, and headed straight into enemy fire.
By the morning of May 27, with no ability to alter her direction, low on fuel and helplessly headed towards an inevitable attack, Germany’s Grand Admiral Erich Reader wrote in his diary: “Given these circumstances, the ships situation is hopeless.” Hitler personally wired a message to the ship telling the crew that all of Germany was with them, and no matter the circumstances, the Fuhrer expected them to fulfill their duty to the end. At 8:54am, the British battleship Norfolk spotted the Bismarck and opened fire from 20,000 metres away.
While her steering capabilities were non-existent, the guns that made such short work of the Hood were still in perfect working order. A ferocious naval battle ensued and lasted more than ninety minutes. By 10:40am, British ships Norfolk, King George V, Rodney and Dorsetshire had blasted the Bismarck with torpedoes, aircraft fire and 2,876 shells. The firing became so intense that the paint on the Rodney began to blister; the vibrations of her guns ripped her deck. The British became frustrated with the Bismarck’s stubborn refusal to sink. Finally, it was the Dorsetshire –a boat that will play an important part with our dreamer– which fired the last torpedo into her side.
As the Bismarck sank, many sailors dove headfirst over the rails, breaking their necks on the lower decks or the frigid, unforgiving Atlantic itself. While the song references the crew being “picked, in order” as part of a disciplined scuttling, this is pure poetic license. In reality, chaos reigned on the Bismarck as she sank. Some Luftwaffe pilots, armed with military issue pistols, shot themselves in mid jump rather than face the icy waters below. Other soldiers saluted the flag and sung the national anthem before leaping from the hulking wreck.
Once in the ocean, the Bismarck’s men found themselves immersed not in salt water, but in gallons of oil which had been spewing from the ship for over an hour. Some choked; others expended too much energy trying to find open water and simply drowned. At 48o ’09 north, 16o ’07 west, Captain Lindemann, thousands of his loyal seamen, technicians and soldiers, all fell into the Atlantic on board their ship. It took thirty secretaries, three full days to notify all the next of kin.
It’s at this point where Nautical Disaster begins. Our dreamer finds himself among the few sailors who managed to successfully commandeer one of the Bismarck’s lifeboats. He remarks: “I relished the fray/and the screaming filled my head all day.”
The Dorsetshire immediately approached to rescue the Germans who’d been lucky enough to survive the onslaught but were still left struggling in the water. The Dorsetshire steered for the thickest concentration of survivors and let fly with lifelines, docking ropes and nets. Some Germans came achingly close to safety before being bounced off the Dorsetshire’s sides or losing their grip on a lifeline. Eventually, a small raft was lowered into the water. Men used it as a base, a spot to catch their breath before giving all their energy to one last ascension.
Then, in what many consider an unnecessary and uncaring act; action which German historians still vociferously condemn, the Dorsetshire began to pull away. Men screamed for one more chance at the lines. Sailors desperately scratched and clawed at the hull of their departing savior. Nautical Disaster sums up the simple and inconsiderate manner in which the condemned were doomed for a second time: “and those left in the water/got kicked off our pantleg/and we headed for home.”
A U-boat sighting was given as the official justification for the desertion of the men at sea. Records would later show that no U-boat’s were in the vicinity at the time. Given the circumstances, the hazy weather conditions, the fresh memory of a sunken Hood among the British fleet, and the German and British souls now at risk aboard the Dorsetshire, survivors such as Mullenheim-Rechberg consider the movement justified.
So what could bring about a dreamscape of such horrific consequence? Well, a woman of course.
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, histories most famous dream weavers, agreed that moving experiences and emotional trauma could evoke vivid dreams. Freud believed that the unconscious would link up to the day’s residue once an individual had left waking life. While Jung hypothesized that dreams were a projection of the soul, our deepest innermost feelings that could only be expressed by our unconscious. For our man to have dreamt such a dreadful scene, his waking moments must have been imprinted with some unforgivable deed.
Freud wrote that in dreams, hallow objects on water such as ships, often-represented women and the womb. Our woman, the Susan dismissed in the last verse, must have deeply scarred our dreamer.
A disturbing or unpleasant experience in everyday life often projects itself through similarly unpleasant imagery in dreams. The person responsible for this ugliness is often represented by a symbol that displays disproportionate evil. A ship, abandoning her position with chilling neglect for men left in the water, could easily represent Susan for our jilted narrator.
Just as the dream reaches its point of chilling, outstretched hands, it is interrupted. “Then the dream ends/when the phone rings.” It’s her, and Susan wants to talk. As she speaks, visions of a nautical disaster remain fresh in our man’s head. He realizes that his pain can’t compete with the hardships of a previous generation. Infidelity and heartbreak are among the smallest of injustices and tragedies that can take place in a world capable of war. He knows that life hands out hell at times, but for all its sham, drudgery and broken promises: it’s still a wonderful world. Being heart broken sure beats being abandoned at sea.
Our man interrupts his lovers appeal with a curt “Anyway, Susan…” Having been illuminated by a tragedy, he has a new perspective. But just why exactly has he interjected, what does he have to say? The interpretation of the final lines in Nautical Disaster has drawn many Hip Heads into interpretive arguments. He has obviously been hurt, the nature of his dream tells us that, and now he’s ready to speak his mind.
Some see the “…if you’d like/our conversation is as faint a sound/in my memory/as those fingernails/scratching on my hull” passage as proof that our man has decided to forget whatever was said, throw the past overboard, move full steam ahead with his relationship.
I’ve always heard a more unreceptive tone in the lyrics. My reading has our protagonist realizing that he’d be better off without Susan, and fully prepared to leave her in his wake. But my interpretation may simply be due to the striking and aggressive image of finger nails scratching a hull –coupled with Downie’s angry delivery– breeding a hostile explanation of the lyrics.
Regardless of whether you find an anchor or a casting off at the end of Nautical Disaster, you’ll invariably notice Bobby Baker’s mourning guitar. The strings cry out in despair as the band constructs an instrumental finish that evokes images of the Bismarck’s final stand and her sailors last gasps.
Gordon Sinclair’s bass line charges the entire song with a steady introspection, a sad souvenir of that misty morning in 1941. Johnny Fay’s drums beat a cannonade of thudding shells and crashing symbols. Gord Downie’s voice etches the song with both the panic below deck and the fear above water. Paul Langlois’s guitar charts a course for this intelligent tune with his unmistakable rhythm. But it’s Bobby Baker’s guitar which brings the story of those neglected warriors back from the depths. This collective effort makes Nautical Disaster a genuine musical masterpiece.
It is such an incredible song. It carries much deeper meaning now that the story behind it is revealed. It is obviusly my favourite in the Hip catalogue. Hence, my username.
Quite apart from the lack of evidence (Have Not Been the Same disqualifies itself by virtue of gross inaccuracy on other points) that the Bismarck has anything to do with this song, why is it that fans always want to hang the interpretation of a song on externalities, instead of on a reading of the lyric itself?
This is an awful lot of words to shed very little light on the lyric.
For starters, there are three people here: a first-person singer, the person he addresses (referred to as both "dear" and "Susan), and the person on the phone, who is male: "he said it's out there." Very few people seem to have noticed this.
What conversation is faint? The telephone conversation? How, then, does this relate to the sound of the (male) sailor's fingernails scratching on the lifeboat's hull? How are we to interpret the abandonment of the sailors in this light? Why did he relish the fray, and what does the lighthouse have to do with it?
skippy the wonder dog Wrote:Quite apart from the lack of evidence (Have Not Been the Same disqualifies itself by virtue of gross inaccuracy on other points) that the Bismarck has anything to do with this song, why is it that fans always want to hang the interpretation of a song on externalities, instead of on a reading of the lyric itself?
This is an awful lot of words to shed very little light on the lyric.
For starters, there are three people here: a first-person singer, the person he addresses (referred to as both "dear" and "Susan), and the person on the phone, who is male: "he said it's out there." Very few people seem to have noticed this.
What conversation is faint? The telephone conversation? How, then, does this relate to the sound of the (male) sailor's fingernails scratching on the lifeboat's hull? How are we to interpret the abandonment of the sailors in this light? Why did he relish the fray, and what does the lighthouse have to do with it?
#1: Because Gord said it was about the Bismarck, and Gord has said it was about the Bismarck in at least two seperate interviews that I found.
I also asked him if the song was about the Bismarck and he gave me a direct answer: "yes."
Also, the poetic liscence that is evident in all of Gord's work is evident here... Wheat Kings says "20 years" even though Milgaard rotted for 23. Does that mean Wheat Kings can't be about Milgaard. No, of course not. Lyric and literal, as I'm sure you're aware, can meet with imperfections.
And #2: The "he" is because he is answering her. The conversation is explained by the nature of the dream: cause and effect. It all seems pretty straight forward to me.
But as I always said, and as the book will say: The greatest thing about the band is that they allow the listener to come to their own conclusions. The music says: here's my song, now find your message.
And hey, feel free to add to this thread by writing your own description.
Obviously, nobody's stopping me from writing my own description. What's equally obvious is that you're off on an ego-stroking exercise in which you post stuff and bask as everyone tells you how good it is. It's only a first draft, but apparently it's not open to criticism. Well, sorry, but I'm not going to gratify you by joining in the group fellatio.
I don't give a shit if it's the Bismarck or not, because it's not really relevant. You're ignoring the real point I made: you've got a whole lot of words there about everything but the song.
"He" because it's the singer responding? Downie suddenly decides to shift from first to third person, but there's no significance to that? And what about the "dear?"
It's time to stop approaching lyrics by searching for external references and then fitting the song to the available facts. Anything you need to know is already in the song.
When you posted earlier re Freud I thought you'd come up with something better than this. If a water rescue might represent women, their genitalia, or the womb, what might thrash like parasites in your blood? And then what might you take from the suggestion that three people are involved?
The strength of Nautical Disaster as a lyric is that it's open to multiple interpretations. I'm not trying to nail it down to one. I'm simply suggesting that offering a road map to what's in the lyric itself is more valuable than a thousand words on the Bismarck sinking, among which the single relevant fact is the order to abandon the survivors.
But hey, if you want to write a lot of words about nothing, that's up to you, dude.
That's neat how you edited your post to make it less sarcastic. Sorry, but I'm not going to return the favour.
I suppose I'll have to start quoting your original text to keep you honest?
I'd be glad to run out and do any shots that you would need... I have a complete film and digital darkroom, and can do anything from film, slide, and 8mp shots... Here's a shot of the memorial to Tom Thompson at the Algonquin Visitor Centre.. As I was canoeless the last time I went up there, I had to settle for this...
after reading that, i wonder if Thompson Girl is related...tha album is called "PHANTOM Power"...just a thought
I can't get the inserted footnotes to post (When it comes to computers, I'm at a Wang, Atari2600 level of understanding) and I got some e-mails about the references, so here's the biblio for these two and the unfinished "Courage." And for all you English lovers out there, this is in decidedly un-MLA format and non-alphabetical order just for you. (Sorry Shannon
)
John Ralston Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin
William T. Little, The Tom Thompson Mystery
David P. Silcox, The Group Of Seven and Tom Thompson
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Arthur John Alfred, Hamlet: A Study in Critical Method
Otto Friedrich, Glenn Gould- A Life and Variations
Mark Starowicz, Making History
Pierre Berton, Quoted in Macleans, 12/13/04
Dr. Barry Berlin, The American Trojan Horse
S. Bernard Shaw, Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park, Tom Thompson and Other Mysteries
Rick Archbold, I Stand for Canada
David J. Bercuson and Holger H. Herwig, The Destruction of the Bismarck
Burkard Baron von Mullenheim-Rechberg, Battleship Bismark, A Survivors Story.
Michael Barclay, Ian A. D. Jack, Jason Schneider, Ian Andrew Dylan Jack, Have Not Been The Same
James A. Hall M.D., Jungian Dream Interpretation
Sigmund Freud, Interpretation of Dreams in Complete Works of Sigmund Freud
Hugh Maclennan, The Watch that ends the Night
Frank M. Tierney, Hugh Maclennan
Denis Gruending, Great Canadian Speeches
Charles Foran, Saturday Night, 06/96 <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1494/is_n5_v111/ai_18483403">http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... i_18483403</a><!-- m -->
And the "...Wonderful world" line in "Nautical" came from Trudeau's concession speech on the CBC, May 25, 1979. He himself was quoting a poet, haven't discovered who yet.
And the website mentioned is of course the good old burningchurch.
You forgot to cite the interviews in which Downie connects the song to the Titanic.
Oops! Bismarck, Titanic, same thing, right?
kcpr3 Wrote:I'd be glad to run out and do any shots that you would need... I have a complete film and digital darkroom, and can do anything from film, slide, and 8mp shots... Here's a shot of the memorial to Tom Thompson at the Algonquin Visitor Centre.. As I was canoeless the last time I went up there, I had to settle for this...
Very cool photo. Thanks for posting.
You have your own darkroom? That may just be the coolest thing I've ever heard... and I've heard Moose doin' it.
I'm a struggling photojournalist myself, never learned darkroom though... it was considered obsolete by the time I hit J-school (This was the same institution that admitted DireWolf74 though... so what'd they know.
) How'd you learn?
Thanks, man.. I wasn't really taking a clear photo there, it was in the visitor centre, and it was dark, and I didn't bring a flash.. Hehe..
I do indeed have my own darkroom, and I am/was thinking of actually selling it all, due to my possible defection to full digital. I bought the pieces, and basically read a lot, screwed up a lot of paper and film, and made some really great-looking prints! It's really easy to learn, and it's a lot more satisfying than digital when you make a really great photo.. There are photos of all the equipment that I am(not) selling, along with a bunch of my other photos on my website if you're interested, <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://threeflavours.tripod.com">http://threeflavours.tripod.com</a><!-- m -->
Thanks again,
Ron.