Top 10 “Tragically” Underrated The Tragically Hip Songs
After hearing the sad news regarding Gord Downie, of course I’ve been listening to a lot of The Tragically Hip music.
Everyone who knows me is well aware that I’m a HUGE fan. This band has literally been the soundtrack of my life since my late teenage years. I was trying to remember how many times I’ve seen them in concert, and while I’ll never be able to calculate the exact number, my guess is between 15-20 times. So it got me thinking about my top ten favourite underrated Hip tunes. By “underrated” I mean that I think they’re not generally known by the casual Hip fan. By reading this list and my reasons for picking each, I hope it’ll provide some insight into why I love this band so much, and maybe even encourage someone to check a few of these tunes out.
In addition, for each song I’ll attempt to accentuate a few of my favourite lines from the song. This is my way of paying homage to the brilliant and poetic lyrics that Gord Downie consistently pens.
Rules of this list:
We all know the major hits, so these ones are obviously excluded from consideration
The list excludes all of the “Up to Here”, “Fully Completely” and “Day for Night” albums (because every Hip fan knows these songs and how great they are)
This is list is NOT in a particular order, because ranking these tunes against each other would just be impossible
I could spend hours debating this list to myself. There hasn’t been a single Hip song I haven’t liked. That being said, I tried to span this list across most of their catalog, for the sake of variety
1. Silver Jet
This is a standout track from the “In Violet Light” album. It features a super crunchy, garage-band-sounding main guitar riff, and a very rhythmic melody line from Gord.
I have a very specific memory of seeing this song performed live when my friends and I were camping at Darien Lake. I wanna say it was around the year 2002. If I’m remembering correctly, I think they opened with this tune. I recall the stage being lit up in a violet colour, to symbolize the album’s title.
“A silver jet, way overhead You’re an archipelago, a satellite, a green star A silver jet, so far off already With your I-need-you-and-here’s-why flying to the next part”
2. Man Machine Poem
This is a track from The Hip’s most recently-released album, "Now For Plan A." Coincidentally, this song’s title is also the name of their forthcoming yet-to-be-released album, as well as the name of their upcoming final tour. *tear* :( I find this interesting, since this backward-referencing is something the band has never done before.
As with most Hip songs, I can only speculate what the hell the title and content of this song means. Most of Gord’s lyrics read like poetry, and in many cases it’s virtually impossible to definitively say what a given song is about. That’s one of the things I love most about his lyrics - it can mean entirely different things to different people.
“See It works In monkeys You’re right Again But it is a thin win Man Machine Poem”
3. Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park
The content of this particular song fascinates me. It pertains to a real-life news story about a polar bear (named Gus) living in Central Park that was diagnosed with depression. Many experts were trying to figure out what was wrong with the poor bear. The working theory was that it was due to its captivity, and no longer being an intimidating and feared force in the wild.
Also … the main guitar riff in this tune is KILLER! It’s a song I’ve jammed on my guitar, on more than one occasion.
“Is that what’s troubling you, Gus, the mere mention of the name Used to be enough to make every bird stop singing Is that what’s troubling you, Gus, no one is afraid?
What’s troubling, Gus, you sound demented Is it because someone talked and she told me He no longer thinks anything that moves and Everything he sees is something to kill and eat”
4. Family Band
Not much to say about this track. It’s awesome. If one were to write an entire intro and verse surrounding one chord only, this would be the way to do it.
The song appears towards the end of the underrated-as-a-whole album, “World Container”. Many people hated this album, because it was produced by Bob Rock and resulted in a more polished sound than usual. But in my opinion the difference was subtle, and didn’t warrant the backlash it received. It bothers me when people complain about a band wanting to try new things, maybe even to change their sound up a bit, and try working with new people. But, this rant may be the subject of a future blog post.
“We’ll load out through the snow Through small groups of people smoking Hey, get that kick drum loaded Into the backseat folded down We’ll go perfectly unnoticed What’s gripping the city ain’t hitting the town”
5. Emperor Penguin
This song ends the album “Phantom Power”, which is probably up there within my favourite Hip albums of all time. This tune is a song of two halves, the first being a more ballad-style soft song, while the latter half picks up in intensity and distortion. The end of this song exemplifies the style of the band: it’s over a minute of pure jamming, with Rob Baker’s slide guitar over top simple strumming of open chords. And it works. A great way to end the album.
I really have no idea what this song is about. The title seems self-explanatory, but in listening to the lyrics, there’s really only one section that eludes to anyting penguin-related. So your guess is as good as mine.
“You’d be tossed up or washed up, the narrator relates In a spartan antarctican walk for many days Meet with Emperor Penguin, devotion to the egg And their women are swimming from half an ocean away”
6. 700 Ft. Ceiling
One of the “heavier” Hip tunes, if you can call any of their songs that. Love the jam session at the end of this tune. Classic Hip. And the drum sound on this album and this song in particular, is just lethal.
The album “Trouble At the Henhouse” is best known for some Hip classics such as “Gift Shop”, “Ahead By A Century”, and live-favourite “Springtime In Vienna”. I consider this song a hidden gem.
“It’s part hard, hard to remember It’s part hard to say Parts unknown, unknown forever And those parts fade away”
7. Cordelia
One of my all-time favourite vocal tracks every recorded by Gord. HIs voice just wails with intensity. And for some reason his vocal pitch sounds unlike anything else he’s ever recorded.
One of the earlier Hip tracks, (and the earliest on this list), it is the third track on the “Little Bones” album. This is back when the Hip were a little more pure rock band, and a little less progressive-sounding. It’s the third track on the album, right behind two of the best Hip songs of all time - “Little Bones” and “Twist My Arm”. So how do you follow those two songs on an album? With a slow build, followed by an epic full-band drum fill lead-in. When the whole band kicks in at about the 0:50 mark, I get chills.
“Angst on the planks, spitting from a bridge Just to see how far down it really is Robbing a bank, jumping from a train Old antiques a man alone can entertain”
8. Lake Fever
This is one of those “it grows on you” tunes, where the first time you hear it you’re like “meh”, but after say the 5th or 6th time you’re like “ohhhh”. I find that is the case with a lot of The Tragically Hip music. I feel it’s almost like a reward for listening to a lot of it - the more you listen, the better it gets.
To me this is a “feel good” track. Driving around in the summertime with the windows rolled down.
This is a standout track on what is, in my opinion, probably the Hip’s weakest album, “My Music At Work”. Not a bad album by any stretch, but not their finest work either.
Again, I have absolutely no idea what this song is about.
“Just telling you a story about the lake fever Or we can skip to the neutral fury You didn’t say yes or no neither You whispered hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry”
9. Something On
I have a very specific memory of this song. It reminds me of my last year of high school, and the summer leading into my first year of college. At that time I didn’t yet own my own car, and I’d drive around in my parents’ red Chevy Cavalier. It had a cassette player only, so I’d recorded a tape version of this album from my CD. So I’d pop in this cassette and blare this tune, while cruising the country roads outside of Milton! At this time I felt I was quite possibly the coolest human being on Earth. Sweet, baby!
“Outside there’s hectic action The ice is covering the trees And one of them is interconnecting With my Chevrolet Caprice”
10. Love Is A First
Ok ok I know - “underrated? this is the lead single off an album!” But my hunch is that despite that, most casual fans don’t know this track, and I don’t think it was that successful either.
This is kind of an odd, almost comical song. It has some of the most wry, eyebrow-raising lines ever recorded in a Hip song - “and I don’t have the strength to pluck a grape”, “Love is a curse, get what you cannot desert” ???
Is it too obvious a guess to think this is about Gord somehow getting screwed over by love? Or is there some deeper meaning? I almost can’t believe it’s that obvious, since it’s very un-Gord-like to be so. That’s why I like the mystery of this song.
And the best thing about this song is that it has a classic Gord Downie rant, (usually reserved for live shows only), right in the middle of the recording!
“I’ve been interpreted and shrunk I’ve been as touchless as a drunk This is as bad as or worse, as bad as or worse This is as bad as or worse, as bad as or worse Love is a curse, be her world, all it deserves Love is a curse, get what you cannot desert”