[edgoffin]

I wonder if we'd be interpreting this song in a negative way if the songwriter's marriage hadn't failed? We're still happening as we speak erases any negative connotations I might have. I don't hear drip, drip as anything other than the medicine...he's bringing her back to life.

Just another opinion (of course).

For sure, I'm totally biased by what happened after the album release. I just find the theme to be far more about regret and breakup. Even At Transformation, where I always focused on the "I want to help you lift enormous things", that's countered by "I only say this now because I didn't when it was happening".

Streets Ahead -- "You were streets ahead, I couldn't sleep a wink /Staring in the dark, by the light of your skin / At myself sitting, on a suitcase"

NFPA: "I'll stay till the wisteria fades"

About this Map: "We've come too far, to just feel like this", "Territories shifted, and things get renamed"...and actually the whole song, again from my pessimistic POV.

[Killer Whale Tank]

I'd agree that even if you knew nothing about the singer's personal affairs, the album's overall tone is at best an *embattled* one when it comes to relationships. Even "Man Machine Poem," with that awe-inspiring final verse, is overshadowed by the imbalance in the earlier dialogue, whereby he is pleading and she is pouring cold water on his attempts at optimism. There's an unease at the centre of this album's 'relationship' songs and you don't need a gossip columnist to tell you that.

(I try not to think about the last few years of GD's life: wife with cancer, followed by divorce, followed by the death of his father, followed by the discovery of brain cancer on the same day he buried his dad. The final tour and accompanying achievements, one hopes, redeemed these struggles somewhat, gave him some sort of peace).

[SRK]

I feel like a terrible person for saying this, but Gord's divorce is a source of curiosity for me in the "what happened?" sense. (Same thing with Neil and Pegi Young.) I know we have no right to know, but Gord being so public about her struggle with cancer (and his challenges in dealing with that) and then everything post his diagnosis and finding out they'd split prior to that just leaves an itch I can't scratch. And I feel awful for wondering, but it's there nonetheless.

[Killer Whale Tank]

There is probably little to discover there that you wouldn't find in any other divorce. Granted, life on the road does create huge opportunities for infidelity, so there's that, but ultimately it would likely be a boring domestic drama little different from our own lives.

What I personally have trouble reconciling is the image GD presented in public and in song - of a diligent, empathetic, deep-thinking, patient soul committed to nourishing loyalty and intimate connection with the people around him - and the idea of a guy whose marriage is breaking up. His persona doesn't seem like the "divorcing" kind, if that makes any sense.

But I don't lose sleep over it. None of my business. And I treat it as incidental information relative to the songs, since I don't think we should automatically assume song lyrics are autobiographical.

[edgoffin]

And I treat it as incidental information relative to the songs, since I don't think we should automatically assume song lyrics are autobiographical.

I think he became more autobiographical as their career progressed, or at least biographical in referencing people in recognizable situations, even as his writing got more abstract. Usually he's referred to in the press as a poet for his "Canadian reflection", which was definitely more a focus in the earlier years. In the last half of the career, he has some incredible writing covering becoming a parent, being a parent, dealing with death, and relationships.

But overall I agree -- he played a role when he was on stage, I've assume he also assumed a role or a perspective other than his own when writing. I do find it interesting that the "marketing story" for this album was about recovery and relationships, where I have a totally different takeaway from much of the album. Even when the album was released, I had a hard time connecting that marketing story with what I was hearing and reading, though that memory has likely been tainted over the years.

[potsie]

Always interesting to hear how some songs can be interpreted in so many different ways. I always took this song as complete opposite to that, I always felt this song was more about the incredible strength and bond in a relationship.

As I mentioned earlier, I know Gord said the song was written before his wife's diagnosis, But the line "The Smartest Guy In The Room, might as well be on the moon, or in his tower or his tomb, cause all I'm hearing is you", I just picture a couple getting this bad news from a doctor, that numb feeling and not being able to think about anything else but that other person".

Plus the line "all our friends gave us a week, we're still happening as we speak" I took as being together through thick and thin, even beyond points where others would not have made it through.

Not saying I am right obviously, just the way I always heard the song.

I never had really thought of it as a breakup song until the past year or so. But the way I now interpret it is as either a perception or memory countered by today's reality. For example:

Perception: And all our friends gave us a week
Reality: Drip, drip (a positive memory, we overcome but in reality it's falling part)
Perception: And we're still happening as we speak
Reality: Drip, drip (it's falling part slowly)

Mostly I was stuck on what the words drip, drip, drip meant, I equated it with a negative and then started to think about dripping as "slowly falling apart or decaying". So there had been a bond and strength, but it was falling apart. Add in there the anger that Gord seemed to channel live in the drip, drip, drip. That's my sort of bleak, dark view on the song.

The beauty of poetry is we can all have different readings, and know that likely none of them are what the authored intended.

I agree with your take. I can't wrap my head around this being a love song.

The narrator describes his feelings as being mutual with his partner through use of the word "we", but when I listen to the song that "we" feels hollow, and at times false. Not that this is on the level of an unrequited love, but more that the narrator's love and desires are not fully reciprocated and matched by his partner ("I was just happy you gave a f**k"). "Tick, tick" is the sound of a relationship that has a small, and finite amount of time remaining or represents the "bomb" that is ready to go off and end it for good. "The Smartest Guy in the Room" feels self-referential (and self-deprecating given the Enron nod) and points to the idea that the narrator has squandered this relationship. The "cricket, cricket, cricket" at the end is the sound of being alone... this doesn't end well for the narrator. That's what I take from it.

[potsie]

What I personally have trouble reconciling is the image GD presented in public and in song - of a diligent, empathetic, deep-thinking, patient soul committed to nourishing loyalty and intimate connection with the people around him - and the idea of a guy whose marriage is breaking up. His persona doesn't seem like the "divorcing" kind, if that makes any sense.

I have similar feelings. Many of the remembrances following his passing alluded to the effort he put into maintaining relationships with friends and family. The divorce runs counter to this idea and to my own image of Gord (which matches your above description) that I've cultivated in my head over the past 25+years.

[FourPistols]

I agree with these sentiments. I've wondered as well. They're together through her triumphant victory over cancer, and the relationship falls apart after? That seems strange to me, but I've heard that battles like that can change a person greatly. I didn't like knowing that they were divorced while the final tour was happening. Because you're seeing Gord on top of the world on stage, and while he's got his kids, something came apart with his marriage that clearly meant a great deal to him. It's his business and the details probably were mundane. But it was just one more thing that made me feel for what he was grappling with.

[Chris Tanz]

Was going to write a longer post dealing with the same sentiment as expressed in the three posts above -- the unease and question marks about Gord being divorced, and while I agree that not all songs are necessarily autobiographical, I can't help but feel the story is (perhaps obviously) somewhere in Vancouver Divorce --> More Me Less You --> We Want to Be It --> Coco Chanel No. 5 ... (and, maybe, Yer Ashore)?

The resignedness of "In absentia we were better off / finding new places to stand" is a very mature conclusion even if it is not the ending anyone may have wanted.

ct

[sean.bonner]

There was no divorce...
Temporary break / separation is my understanding.
I hate talking about this private stuff, but I feel like we are purporting misinformation / "fake news" in this thread. I get that its within the context of the music, so to serve the songs I just wanted to post what I heard and understand as the reality of the situation.

[Killer Whale Tank]

OK, separation. That's still not good marital news, is it?

In any case, it doesn't matter, artistically speaking, what GD was enduring in his private life. What matters is that the lyrics themselves do not offer a picture of relationship bliss, but rather something closer to relationship struggles. No song better captures what we're talking about than "Done and Done."

Done and done
I never get my way
You always get your way
I never get my way

Well, that's pretty standard 'bad relationship' bitching, isn't it?

Done and done
Talk about me
I'll listen for hours
'Cause I don't know how it ends

Here we get a glimpse of a concern with where this is all going. The bad end implied here is cashed out in the chorus:

We're through, through and through

And then the lyrical coda:

Done and done
Days/night accomplished
If I had a wish
It'd be for more of this

The idea of a short bloc of time being 'accomplished' suggests either the plodding chore of keeping the relationship wheezing on for yet one more day, OR the soul-rattling chore of ending a broken relationship finally being 'accomplished.' But the final couplet expresses all the regret: he doesn't want it to be over, even though it is.

I don't get how anyone can listen to the songs on NFPA and NOT hear this melancholia and ambiguity running through the relationships being portrayed.

[edgoffin]

I don't get how anyone can listen to the songs on NFPA and NOT hear this melancholia and ambiguity running through the relationships being portrayed.

Not to quote myself....but I will (I think for the second time in this thread): "there's a lot of regret in this album".

In the previous WATS discussion and voting, I listened to that album more than I had in recent years. Frozen in my Tracks is a pretty bleak lyrical point of view as well, which I had never really caught before. I think that theme continued in a more pronounced way in NFPA, and then (for later discussion) also dominates in MMP.

[andrew sharpe]

What matters is that the lyrics themselves do not offer a picture of relationship bliss, but rather something closer to relationship struggles.

It's possible there's both, but I just remember GD was doing a lot of press for this album and a lot of the talk was around his wife's recovery. I just remember he painted a very loving picture in those interviews. Not saying everything was perfect but neither do I think it's likely that NFPA was meant as a "breakup album".

"And she's got it. She always had it, but it diminished at that moment a little bit. And you realize how much you need it. How much I rely on it. And she's got it back."

[andrew sharpe]

Probably a lot of my resistance is discomfort with thinking about Gord suffering. The music is such a comfort to me that I don't want anything associated with it to be negative. That certainly colours my interpretation of the lyrics...which I really am no good at doing anyway.

[loach]

Interesting discussion, thanks everyone.

At the time this came out, I was interpreting many of these lyrics through Gord's comments about his wife's battle with cancer and how that can be a rough ride. It's hard to not reassess the lyrics knowing how it all ends, even though we know very little in terms of details.

I don't hate this album - I don't hate any Hip album - but it's consistently at the bottom when I rank albums, with just the EP below it. It's unlikely to move up, even though I've enjoyed getting deeper into this album again with this forum and to prep for the upcoming weakest link. There's lots to dig into this album, but it's hard to not think that these lyrics are more autobiographical as a whole than perhaps Gord wrote for other albums. It's a pretty bleak album with glimpses of hope and restoration sprinkled here and there.

I think At Transformation is a fantastic song. Beyond that one, I really like the Lookahead and now appreciate We Want to Be It and Man Machine Poem a lot more than when the album first came out. But, there are relatively few songs here that I absolutely love, even compared to later albums like WATS, WC or MMP.