Le Rough Draft.
Can anyone help beef up the charity and community section? I'll send this with a simple chronological bio.
The Order For Canada’s Band
"The Canadiana references became guide posts into a song's depths, the resulting marriage of language and music became an invigorating experience that had never been so directly aimed at young Canadians."
- Have Not Been The Same, by Michael Barclay et al, 2001
"They are the musical chroniclers of our times"
-Peter Mansbridge, ‘Music Without Borders,’ October 21, 2001
Cultural Impact
During the summer and fall of 2002, inside one of the National Gallery of Canada’s airy and track-lit display rooms, rock and roll lyrics had been scrawled across an otherwise picture perfect wall.
Now, the gallery isn’t exactly a magnet for rambunctious teens. It’s not the sort of place young lovers document their affections in spray-paint. In fact, the writing wasn’t graffiti at all. It was part of a tribute to one of Canada’s greatest cultural enigmas, Tom Thompson. The lyrics, which simply read “Tom Thompson came paddling past/I’m pretty sure it was him,” were from Three Pistols, a song by Canada’s band The Tragically Hip.
Most folks breezed by the lyrics. They looked up, they moved on. You can’t blame them really; ‘The Jack Pine’ was waiting in the next room. But for me, seeing those lyrics was reason to smile. I’ve been a Hip fan for many years, and have long appreciated their music, generosity and commitment to Canada.
The music of The Tragically Hip goes beyond the recycled rebellion of pop rock. Their songs have an intriguing depth. They are full of terms and references that stand out and ask to be examined. The Hip write about me, about you, about Canada, about culture and community. They also write about history, politics and the education that is everyday life. Believe it or not, I was learning things from their music, and I wanted to learn more. When Peter Mansbridge called them ‘the musical chroniclers of our time’ I knew exactly what he meant.
Other Hip Heads have told me about their experiences with radio recognition. After hearing a line in a song, identifiable images or recollections emerge. This happens with many fans of various bands across different radio waves each day. But there is something undeniably ours, some collective knowing nod, at the mention of the “forget your skates dream” or a “bemused Trudeau.”
The Tragically Hip invite their fans to indulge. Beyond the riffs and crashing symbols stands a museum of citation, saga and society. From the stage, references to Cape Spear and Paul Henderson flow into reminisces of the wrongly convicted and First Nations. Questions of our crumbling common-bond mix with melodic movements of pounding bass and ringing rhythm. The Hip provide their fans with the type of blues and roots rock which appeal to both the adrenaline and academic junky.
This song writing style gently pushes rather than pokes. Personally, it nudged me to go further, to investigate. I’ve found myself reading Hugh Maclennan and listening to Eric’s Trip after hearing their names in respective Hip tunes. In my teens, The Hip’s music opened my eyes to aspects of culture that I knew little about. It brought me the horror of the Montreal Massacre and the unpolished realities of Jacques Cartier. In my twenties, the band continues to broaden my horizons.
With each trip to the dictionary or a history website, I continue to pick up new definitions and details. There’s something satisfying about listening to a Hip song after unlocking a particularly mysterious metaphor or reference.
Once you’ve realized that the Hip are Canucks who write layered songs dealing often with their homeland, you’re only just getting started. It’s at this point where the band and their front man step right into their greatest paradox: nationalism. It is both a souvenir and a suffering for The Tragically Hip.
Simply put, the band writes what it knows. They invoke images of Northern landscapes and legends. They’ve left, and continue to leave, a trail of exhausting and exciting live shows from The Rock to The Left Coast. This is how The Tragically Hip earned the reputation as “Canada’s Band.’
One of the realities of existing next to a cultural Leviathan is that your media, your schools and your role models can lack any in-depth reference to home. While the Canadian majority values our neighbour to the south and recognizes our intricate relationship, there is still a genuine appreciation for the recognition of little things Canadian, perhaps anything Canadian, within our mainstream culture.
There is of course a fine line between pride, patriotism and the divisive dirge of nationalism. By demonstrating their respect and awareness of Canada, The Hip were easy targets for those searching for a negative nationalist icon. Those who wished to define Canadian as ‘anything not American’ had found an unwilling patsy in the public domain.
Rather than cater to this increasingly accepted idea of ignorance, the Hip have stayed far away from fist-pumping comparisons and clichés. They don’t bluntly write hockey or Prairie songs for their own sake, or for their non-Yankee factor. The band acknowledges such aspects of the Canadian fact using historical reference and allusion. These winks to Canadian culture are found within songs that often carry a deeper message, or many messages intertwined.
These songs touch on events and individuals who represent both the positive and negative marks on our history. There is not a sterilized Dudley Do-Right impression of Canada within the music, but a reflection of a diverse and dispersed nation. The band invites the listener to discover that yes; there are truths and myths and magical aspects of Canada that don’t begin with “compared to them.” No, we’re not a cultural empire, but we are a rich cultural community.
The late novelist Pierre Berton, a fierce nationalist in his own right, said “a country has to have a mythology. There has to be a rich fabric and background that tells us what kind of people we are.” John Raulston Saul wrote that in Canadian culture “there is constant re-balancing between victimization and self-confidence.” The Tragically Hip remind us that we shouldn’t be afraid to examine this culture, not by balancing it opposite other national mythologies, but by allowing it to stand capably on its own. Like Berton, The Hip have successfully spun such tales onto the public record. And like Saul, they’ve done it with a confident stride that feels no need to diminish anyone else.
Community And Charity Work
The Tragically Hip are also committed philanthropists. For more than fifteen years they have supported Camp Trillium, an Ontario based summer camp for children with cancer. The Hip have performed numerous charity concerts, held benefit auctions, and participated in public events ranging from runs to golf tournaments in support of various causes.
In 1999, they christened Mississauga, Ontario’s new Hershey Centre arena with a concert benefiting Camp Trillium and Rose Cherry’s House. The band performed on behalf of Afghan Aid in 2001, and headlined a sold out concert at Toronto’s SkyDome after SARS had wounded the cities reputation in 2003. As recently as 2004, The Tragically Hip returned home to the shores of Lake Ontario and helped raise over $300,000 for the Community Foundation of Greater Kingston.
Their signatures and memorabilia are never scarce when there is a cause in need. Their collective or individual work has appeared on benefit albums for projects such as The 30 Hour Famine and The Buried Heart Project for the women of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side. Their most recent North American tour included an association with waterkeepers.ca, an organization committed to the conservation and protection of public waterways and natural resources.
The Order For Canada’s Band
The Tragically Hip are celebrating their twentieth anniversary this year. Over those two decades, they have greatly contributed to Canadian culture while consistently entertaining their passionate and devoted following. While touring the globe, they have proudly shown Canada; her heroes, stories and sufferings: to the world. They’ve allowed a generation of Canadian youth to share in a proud and accomplished culture that is all too often obscured. Their charity work is commendable and continuing.
The Tragically Hip are hard working, generous, caring, committed, prolific, profound and patriotic. Their work is intelligent and melodic, inspiring and illuminating. They are deserving recipients of the Order of Canada, and as “Canada’s Band,” they will undoubtedly continue to prove their merit and honour the Order.