The Tragically Hip Trivia Questions & Answers : Music T-Z

This song describes the disappearance of Bill Barilko, a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs who scored the winning goal for the team during the Stanley Cup Finals in 1951. A few months after, he went on a fishing trip with a friend and the plane they were flying in mysteriously disappeared. The plane wreckage, with his body, was discovered 11 years later by a helicopter pilot. Bill Barilko's disappearance story wasn't well known at all until the band told it in this song. As a result of that, the story was shared in a book about The Toronto Maple Leafs and a short documentary film was made that was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award.

"...So there's no simple explanation
For anything important any of us do
And yea the human tragedy
consists in the necessity
of living with the consequences
Under pressure, under pressure"

These lyrics are a direct paraphrase from Hugh MacLennan's "The Watch That Ends the Night" and reflect the fact that in tragedy we must often live with the consequences of our actions. In 1957, MacLennan had written his famous book in the midst of personal tragedy that he had been suffering. In particular, he had fallen into a deep depression as the result of the death of his wife Dorothy Duncan. During this period, MacLennan contemplated suicide. It was his courage to not go through with his suicidal thoughts that inspired the song "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan). "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)" is suggested to expose suicide for what the band believed it to truly be, a selfish and impractical act.

Don Cherry delivers chicken to the group. Don is known for his outrageous suits and high collars and is a fixture on "Coaches Corner".

The Tragically Hip formed in in Kingston, Ontario in 1983. The group started with Rob Baker and Gord Sinclair, who were both students at Kingston Collegiate. These two then met Gord Downie and Johnny Fay, the same year. They sang in the area locally for two years and then picked up guitarist Paul Langlois in 1986.

Procrastinate: To put something off; E.g., Wait until the night before to complete a project (something I certainly never, ever did, ever).

This song seems to have been inspired by the birth of Gord Downie's children. It also references a band called Eric's Trip. Specifically, he notes that he played the album "Love Tara."

Canada has many famous bands including The Guess Who and Neil Young.

The band was formed in 1983 and the band members and their families still reside in the greater Kingston, Ontario area.

The Tragically Hip are incredibly famous in Canada and there are multiple cover bands, including one called "Little Bones" hailing from Ottawa.

"Little Bones" was the lead single for the band's second album "Road Apples." Did you know though, that the term "road apples" is actually slang for horse manure left on the road?

"I've got a job, I explore, I follow every little whiff
And I want my life to smell like this
To find a place, an ancient race
The kind you'd like to gamble with"

These lyrics make a suggestion that an old race within Canada (the Aboriginal people) were being exploited and taken advantage of by the Europeans upon their arrival to North America (specifically the Canadian region). Through historical documents and studies, it has been shown that initially European contact was not intended to be destructive, but rather for fur and lumber trade. Over time, however, cultural genocide would take place through the Residential schools established throughout Canada following independence in 1867 and was a large reason for the decline of Aboriginal culture within the nation.

"Jacques Cartier, right this way,
I'll put your coat up on the bed
Hey man you've got the real bum's eye for clothes
And come on in, sit right down,
no you're not the first to show"

It was explorer Jacques Cartier who initially made contact with the native peoples of the St. Lawrence region of Canada in 1535. Invited into the homes of the natives, the Europeans began to outnumber the local people. Within seventy years, further contact with the natives by Samuel de Champlain and establishment of positive relations would be made in 1608. With them came weapons and disease. These initial contacts with the natives were the beginnings of the slow decline of Aboriginal populations in Canada.

Strange as all these sound, they are indeed Hip songs.
"Butts Wiggin" was on the album "Trouble at the Henhouse", "Locked in the Trunk of a Car" appeared on "Fully Completely", and "Blow at High Dough' was on "Up to Here".