11-16-2017, 09:04 PM
For lyrical reasons pointed out by Clark, I'm firmly in the feels-like-end-of-winter camp. Definitely the ice storm of '98 lingers over this one too -- in its lyrics (Something On) and when some of it was recorded. In the radio premier, I love Gord S's joke about the band having to steal a generator from the local hospital in order to power up the studio so they could record the album. :lol:
The "It's the end of rent-a-movie weather" line always pops into my head in early spring -- although funny to think the concept of renting movies now dates this song. Maybe if it was written today the line would be, "It's the end of binge-watching weather..."
The other weather related verse I love from Membership is:
"By the time the ice-huts hit the bottom
We were already home in bed
The most worthy men and the fiercest architects
Couldn't fight the current they couldn't save,
They couldn't save the sheds"
I grew up in ice-fishing country and there would always be ice hut drama, especially as winter wore on and the weather got warmer. This verse conjures up images in my mind of the fishermen and locals figuring out how to rescue those ice huts that occasionally broke through the ice. Now I don't know what Gord was thinking when he wrote this, but I see the "worthy men and the fiercest architects" as a tongue-and-cheek yet reverent nod to these guys -- working class men dressed in their plaid jackets, wearing toques, smoking darts working to haul out a sunken ice fishing hut. For me this is an example of why Gord's lyrics resonate so deeply with Canadians. Of course, a major part is the overt references to Canada (hockey, specific places, etc.) but I think it goes so much deeper than that. It's an awareness of the geography that defines Canada and its people. The seasons, the landscape. Gord evokes images of these things and the emotions they generate. I hear him speak to these things with reverence. They're important. They define us. And it's all open to interpretation, of course, which makes it great poetry. Again who the hell knows what he was thinking when he wrote this, but for me it paints a picture of something I specific I identify with - something perhaps uniquely Canadian. A lot of Gord's lyrics do that.
The "It's the end of rent-a-movie weather" line always pops into my head in early spring -- although funny to think the concept of renting movies now dates this song. Maybe if it was written today the line would be, "It's the end of binge-watching weather..."
The other weather related verse I love from Membership is:
"By the time the ice-huts hit the bottom
We were already home in bed
The most worthy men and the fiercest architects
Couldn't fight the current they couldn't save,
They couldn't save the sheds"
I grew up in ice-fishing country and there would always be ice hut drama, especially as winter wore on and the weather got warmer. This verse conjures up images in my mind of the fishermen and locals figuring out how to rescue those ice huts that occasionally broke through the ice. Now I don't know what Gord was thinking when he wrote this, but I see the "worthy men and the fiercest architects" as a tongue-and-cheek yet reverent nod to these guys -- working class men dressed in their plaid jackets, wearing toques, smoking darts working to haul out a sunken ice fishing hut. For me this is an example of why Gord's lyrics resonate so deeply with Canadians. Of course, a major part is the overt references to Canada (hockey, specific places, etc.) but I think it goes so much deeper than that. It's an awareness of the geography that defines Canada and its people. The seasons, the landscape. Gord evokes images of these things and the emotions they generate. I hear him speak to these things with reverence. They're important. They define us. And it's all open to interpretation, of course, which makes it great poetry. Again who the hell knows what he was thinking when he wrote this, but for me it paints a picture of something I specific I identify with - something perhaps uniquely Canadian. A lot of Gord's lyrics do that.