The segment on Day for Night in Mike Downie’s superb documentary No Dress Rehearsal is so concise and informative that I felt that quoting the participants was the best way to present the controversy surrounding the album.

Motivations and Results:

• Rob Baker: “We didn’t want to make a record again like we had done with Fully Completely. While that record had been wildly successful for us, the experience of making “Road Apples” was so much more an enjoyable experience. It felt like a band event. Everyone was connected and we were relaxed and happy. So much came out of jamming. So, we decided to make a record that was more entirely stemmed from jamming.”
• Paul Langlois: “It sort of became the most experimental we had ever been, but we were confident that this was us. This is us, you know. Nothing’s changed. We’re just playin’ different sort of songs right now.”
• Johnny Fay: “It’s a pretty aggressive record. If you think about the sounds, there’s a real darkness to it.”

Management Response:

• Allan Gregg: “They delivered the record, and I just said. ‘You guys have to go back into the studio. This isn’t finished.’ And it’s like a big, long silence. And I said, ‘It just isn’t. I mean, you’ve got two tracks here. We’ve got ‘Nautical Disaster, which we can go with. And ‘Grace, Too’. All the rest is shit. It is B-side crap.”
• Jake Gold: “I remember him saying it to me, and he said it to them. They didn’t want to hear it.”

What We Have Here Is a Failure to Communicate:

• Gord Sinclair: “Radio singles. That was the be-all and end-all at that stage of the game in the early 90s. That equals stardom in their minds. And that’s always been part of the business. And we weren’t in it, necessarily, for the business.”
• Denise Donion: “They don’t call it the music business for nothing. If you start compromising, you know, your songwriting, your integrity to try and fit someone else’s model of what they think you should be doing, then you compromise your art.”
• George Stroumboulopoulos: “If they’d come up with another Fully Completely, I wouldn’t have thought they were artists.”

If Allan Gregg was trying to warn the Hip that the Day for Night would be a commercial disaster, he shouldn’t have bothered. The Hip had little interest in chart success, but they got it anyway: Day for Night debuted at #1. Part of that performance undoubtedly had to do with the momentum from Fully Completely, but the fact that Day for Night eventually went 7x platinum indicates that record buyers who may have been initially put off by the album’s darkness and rough textures managed to get over it.

If all this sounds to you like a replay of Nirvana’s nearly simultaneous experience with the commercial breakthrough album Nevermind and the much rougher follow-up In Utero, you would be 100% correct. When Nirvana presented In Utero to their record company masters, the brass considered it “unreleasable,” and lo and behold, In Utero topped the charts in both the U.S. and the U.K. Most honchos in the music biz think that what record buyers want is predictability, and while that may have worked for ABBA fans, I think Hip fans would have been sorely disappointed with the same-o, same-0.

As a long-time punk aficionado, I’m not put off by gritty music, but I do have some problems with Day for Night, mainly with the recording quality. The mixing process for the album was somewhat haphazard due to too many cooks in the kitchen, and occasionally the EQ levels are either too trebly on Gord’s vocals or too dull on Johnny’s drums. Compared to the studio versions of “Grace, Too,” “Nautical Disaster,” and “Scared,” the live recordings of those songs on Live Between Us are cleaner and pack more punch. Despite a few quibbles with the production, I firmly reject Mr. Gregg’s claim that the songs on Day for Night are “b-side crap.”

I have to admit I was puzzled to read that the title was borrowed from a Truffaut film. My mother has every Truffaut film available on DVD, and I thought I’d seen them all. It turned out I had seen the film, which I knew by its French title: La Nuit américaine. Another puzzle entered the picture when I tried to tie the lyrics and music to La Nuit américaine. Truffaut’s film (which is about filmmaking) falls somewhere between farce and satiric melodrama, and the songs on Day for Night are generally darker, occasionally hinting at film noir. From that perspective, Truffaut’s Confidentially Yours would have been a more appropriate fit for the album title, but I guess it sounded too much like Fully Completely (and once management realized they had another hit on their hands, they might have demanded that the Hip place at least one adverb in every album title going forward).

I’ll close the intro with a message to listeners who are afraid of the dark (in the musical sense). The album’s darkness is balanced by Gord Downie’s remarkable compassion and concern for other human beings. We can’t avoid the dark experiences that sometimes invade our lives, but caring for others during those tough times can help ease the pain for both the victim and the caregiver.

*****

“Grace, Too”:  The album opens with Johnny playing a light shuffle on the kit, soon joined by Sinclair, who establishes the theme by playing the dominant notes of the E and A chords high up on the bass fretboard. Langlois and Baker duplicate the theme, then switch to gritty counterpoints as the volume gradually increases in preparation for Gord Downie’s entrance. The understated opening is unusually compelling, reflecting the Hip’s sterling record of opening albums with a song guaranteed to grab the listener’s attention. Gord’s voice is emotionally strained as he introduces the dialogue between a man in a hurry and his skeptical female companion:

He said I’m fabulously rich
Come on just let’s go
She kind of bit her lip
“Geez, I don’t know”

Interpretations of this song vary; in The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip, Michael Barclay argued that the pair were involved in planning some kind of nefarious crime. Some Hip fans have claimed that the song bears a resemblance to the plot of Double Indemnity, which makes me wonder whether they actually watched the movie. Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) was an insurance salesman who hardly qualified as “fabulously rich.” Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck)  uses her feminine wiles on Neff to get him to join her in a scheme to murder her husband for the insurance money, but here the woman’s initial response to the man’s impatience is the opposite of seductive. The story definitely has a noir feel, but it has nothing to do with Double Indemnity. I agree with Barclay that a crime is involved, but the crime is neither a con job nor a murder-for-insurance play.

After Gord sings the first line in the second verse, things start to heat up with Johnny adding more drum power, the guitars more punch, and Langlois providing background vocals. I could be wrong, or I could be right, but my take is that all the narrative that follows the opening verse is from the point of view of a real pro: a professional prostitute.

But I can guarantee
There’ll be no knock on the door
I’m total pro
That’s what I’m here for

I come from downtown
Born ready for you
Armed with will and determination
And grace, too

So, yes, she’s a hooker, but a hooker with pride and grace. Her riposte to his aggressiveness can be translated as, “I might let you fuck me, but I don’t let anybody fuck with me.”

The boys cool down as they restate the main theme, then shift back into overdrive for a few bars to prolong the suspense. They maintain the high power level in the first line of the subsequent verse, pull back for the second and third lines, then power up again for the last line and beyond. The dynamic changes serve to highlight the verse as the most important passage in the song, where the courtesan explains her curious reluctance to provide services to a fabulously rich guy.

The secret rules of engagement
Are hard to endorse
When the appearance of conflict
Meets the appearance of force

If there is one thing we learned from the Epstein revelations, it’s that rich guys think they can get away with anything, and they often do. There is a long history of rich men who abused women,  turned them into sex toys, or even killed them, and usually got off scot-free. Fatty Arbuckle in the 1920s. Howard Hughes and his starlets. Mohamed Al Fayed, head of the Harrods empire. Every sex worker has to be able to assess each potential client’s risk factors, and though a big wad of cash is tempting, wealth is a big red flag.

After repeating her guarantees and reminding him of her professionalism, our pro makes one small change to the lyrics before she departs from the scene: “Armed with skill and its frustration and grace, too.” I don’t believe she’s talking about sexual frustration, but the frustrating dynamics of a still-illegal practice. What follows is an extended jam that increases in intensity and darkness, coming close to blowing up the speakers. At the start of the jam, we hear Gord moaning and crying out in a series of wordless vocalizations that leave us wondering if the guy is abusing the pro or if Gord is mimicking the moans and groans of sexual contact. If you close your eyes during that phase, it’s easy to picture Gord dancing and sweating his way through the performance. Whether the relationship was consummated or not, “Grace, Too” is one fucking great song, no matter how you choose to interpret the lyrics. As Barclay noted when introducing Downie’s lyrical approach on Day for Night, “Downie’s lyrics are among his most elliptical as well—which is saying something.”

“Daredevil”:  The Hip lets it rip in an all-out attack with subtle chord shifts from F# to F5 dominating most of the proceedings. The scene is set in Niagara Falls, Ontario, where a group of tourists has gathered to watch someone descend the falls in a diving bell, debating whether the daredevil should be respected for his bravery or dismissed as a publicity-seeking idiot.

I can’t imagine how you feel and this is how you feel
You say your name like your no longer convinced
But now they’re strapping you in and closing the lid
And they’re dropping you in what’s done you did
The bell’s picking up speed there’s water leaking in
That ol’ equilibrium just starts to spin and spin

Do you like to be judged or liked
Do you like it inside a barrel
Plunging over the falls
Curious and grim we wrestle at the rim
We wonder all about him and the point of it all

The middle verse is a bit tricky, but if you translate the line “The plague is exhumed” as “Oh, shit! This barreling down the falls thing is becoming a fad again,” it all makes sense—especially when the daredevil justifies his thirst for recognition:

I’ll be short and brief
And to the point
The fighting has resumed
In that tone of voice
The plague is exhumed
He said “what I’m going through”
Is essentially all true
Made no less amazing
By the fact that it’s see-through”

Having identified the trend as a plague, the closing line would seem to celebrate the existence of common sense in the bulk of the populace: “And the real wonder of the world is that we don’t jump too.” Story told, the Hip rock out like there’s no tomorrow with layers upon layers of rough stuff driven by exceptionally strong performances from the rhythm section of Fay and Sinclair.

I confess that I have never visited Niagara Falls on either side of the border, but if I ever get the itch, you can bet your lucky loonie that I’ll be heading for Niagara Falls, Ontario. This promise is partly driven by my current anti-American stance, but mostly by having watched Marilyn Monroe’s breakout film Niagara, where nearly everyone who is anyone in the cast croaks at the end.

“Greasy Jungle”: The title and opening lines likely gave listeners the impression that Gord Downie was preparing them for a musical version of film noir (“Greasy jungle metropolis noir/Easy tangles the easiest so far”), but those lines only describe the overall mood of a Toronto night, colored by understandable emotion at a specific moment in time. The story presented in the song deals with the larger issues of the human condition and “the human tragedy” mentioned in “Courage.” From “LETTER: The Tragically Hip have a really special place in my heart” written by Leslie McKay on Stittsville Central.CA. on August 20, 2016, two days before the beginning of the Hip’s final tour.

When my Dad (Bill McKay) was awaiting his double-lung transplant in Toronto (waited 18 months 1991-93) he lived with Gord Downie’s wife Laura’s parents Nancy and Barry Usher in Toronto. Nancy is a Bradley (daughter of Muriel & Grant Bradley) from here in Stittsville and was a nurse.

Just thought you might like to know that The Tragically Hip wrote two songs in 1993/94 on their Day for Night album for my father. They wrote Inevitability of Death and Greasy Jungle for him. IofD was written for when he received his lungs from Terry (the donor) and when he passed away from his double-lung transplant, hence the ending of the song. GJ was written after they attended his wake and funeral in 1993 at Tubman’s Funeral Home (my cousins by the way) and coming to our house.

At the time, my sister was on the gymnastics team at Queen’s – lyrics “soulful gymnast above the snow” in our backyard. They also made a really special t-shirt for Dad which I have and the notes they wrote when he received his lungs.

While in hospital, the guys would come to visit Dad, and we could always tell when they were there. The nurses and doctors came from all over the hospital to see them to get pics and autographs. Dad loved these guys so much. He went to Gord and Laura’s wedding and they took him to concerts with them on the tour bus and everything. He had a great time with them all. But Gord was like the son he never had.

Doing this tour just shows the true ‘Courage’ he has and how much he loves Canada and the devoted fans who have followed them all in their adventures in life throughout the years.

Now you know what I meant about the balance of darkness and compassion in Day and Night. I can’t read that letter without breaking into tears, followed by a rush of gratitude that I finally made my way to the Tragically Hip. What a great bunch of guys!

The music is slightly upbeat, and the chord pattern is as simple as it gets: two chords, D and C.  The guitar fills are melodic and slightly crunchy, and the Hip are as tight as ever. Gord’s vocals (including the wordless vocals between the verses) may seem unusually detached given the circumstances, but if you remember that the first stage of grief is denial and marked by a feeling of numbness, you can assume that he was simply trying to process an experience that always comes as a shock, no matter what the circumstances. The lyrics depict a man who takes in everything around him, but is unable to fully fathom all that it means—the classic man in a trance:

I drove down your road
to Hazeldean where I tasted
your funeral home’s sandwiches and coffee
I saw your hands melt into one another
I saw you grieve and grow
care a lot about one another

I stood at your sink
and I felt your warm water
I washed your dishes
and I looked out your kitchen window where I
saw a soulful gymnast
melt in the air and shudder
just above the snow
making moves that just weren’t there

I have no doubt that when he moved to the next stage of grief, Gord would have appreciated “I saw your hands melt into one another/I saw you grieve and grow/care a lot about one another.”

In the closing verse, Gord reveals that he was not prepared for Bill McKay’s passing by defining himself as “callow” (as in out of his depth). He then pays a visit to his wife, who is learning that it isn’t easy to sleep when you are grieving:

Velvet callow with wet hands
I turned out the lights and
breathing shallow hesitated
then went upstairs where
I picked up your housecoat
dried my hands and
touched your hair
and just then you awoke
you could never really barely care

Much to my surprise and delight, “Greasy Jungle” became the Hip’s highest-charting single at the time (#8). I wouldn’t have thought that a song containing the words “funeral home” would have attracted that many buyers, but in addition to its exceptional poetry, it is a well-executed piece of music with an easy melody and a solid beat. Oddly enough, Barclay didn’t even mention the song in his commentary on Day for Night, but I got the impression he didn’t think much of the album anyway.

“Yawning Or Snarling”: Both the Hip Museum and Michael Barclay are in agreement regarding the inspiration for this song, but Barclay provides a bit more information:

“Yawning or Snarling” was written about a gig in El Paso—a Texan border town along the shores of the Rio Grande—where armed cops went into an over-capacity club crowd at a Hip show to stop a mosh pit. The Canadians were worried. “Imagine these guys wrestling around in the pile with their guns on, and all I could think about was some kid grabbing one and firing off a few shots,” said Gord Sinclair. “I mean, these cops seemed really anxious to start something, and they were all pretty young guys. Being from Canada, seeing that armed panic is a dangerous, dangerous combination.”

Barclay, Michael. The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip (p. 120). (Function). Kindle Edition.

There are three fundamental problems with that interpretation. First, it completely ignores the first verse, which takes place outdoors during daylight hours, so to argue that the song is “about a gig in El Paso” is quite a stretch. Second, Gord Downie devotes only four lines to the incident in Club 101 in the second verse before veering off to describe happenings that couldn’t have possibly taken place in the club: “And the tourists turn their T.V.’s off/And a bat sees a bug with the sound of a linger.” Third, after the bat and bug depart, Gord returns to the daylight scene, painting a picture of El Paso that was unlikely to please the management of the El Paso tourist board. Here’s the first verse in its entirety, with the lines repeated in the second verse underlined:

One day in El Paso
The cops go into the crowd
Under a glaring bladder of light
And the music is so loud
And the tourists take their T-Shirts off
A busload of kids gives you the finger
Afternoon when the sidewalk’s hot
And the shadow’s too chilly to linger
Walk past damaged goods and ugly trends
Past a strawman making a purchase
Downtown where the river bends
They’re just waiting for you to resurface

“Yawning and Snarling” is really about the negative vibes the Hip experienced in El Paso, and the incident in the club was just the icing on the cake. As if the constant police presence and kids flipping them the bird weren’t enough to give them the jitters, Gord provides a picture of one of the residents to emphasize the ugliness of the scene:

Take a look at this photograph
Clearly his teeth were bared
He coulda been yawning or snarling
The story was never clear

Yuck!

The music adds another layer of fear and loathing with a dark, grungy arrangement featuring Gord Sinclair’s filthy bass runs. “Yawning and Snarling” is hardly a pleasant listening experience, but it is a stunningly effective mood piece.

“Fire in the Hole”: “Fire in the hole!” was the phrase shouted by a miner to warn fellow workers that dynamite was about to blow inside a rockface. The phrase also serves as a metaphor, warning people that an unseen danger is near at hand. The Hip Museum explained the meaning of the metaphor as it applied to a contemporary danger in Canada:

When performed live, The Tragically Hip version of the song was usually preceded by Downie’s “This is the song I hate, or is it a song of hate . . . ” rant. At the time of the song’s release, it was believed to be a reference to the then resurgent neo-Nazi movement in Southern Ontario. The CBC’s Fifth Estate ran an exposé on the inner workings of the white supremacist movement during the early part of 1994. The program included a look at the Heritage Front, a then-growing hate group, and their use of heavy metal bands to spread their word. The song’s angry tone, the possible reference to the Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will and its direct and attacking lyrics may be a reference to the band’s personal disgust with these people and their intolerant message.

The Wikipedia article on the Heritage Front illustrates the danger they posed: “The group organized a series of white power rock concerts in Toronto and elsewhere. Immediately after one of these concerts, a Tamil man, Sivarajah Vinasithamby, 41, returning home from work, was beaten and partially paralyzed by several white power skinheads who had just left the concert.”

Other than the mention of Leni Riefenstahl’s film, the lyrics are oblique and contain no references to the Nazis or the Heritage Front. Gord certainly sounds angry, but the average listener would have a hard time trying to figure out what he’s angry about. The music is angry as well, with plenty of distorted guitar work and an insistent driving beat. Rob’s solos are quite inventive, covering a wide range of sound and pitch. My basic gripe is that if Downie was trying to warn his fellow citizens of the danger posed by a bunch of assholes, it would have been nice to know which assholes he was talking about.

“So Hard Done By”: I had never heard the phrase that constitutes the title before I engaged with this album. I learned that “so hard done by” is British and Canadian jargon for a person who feels unjustly mistreated.

To show you how quickly I can master a new phrase, I’ll use it in a sentence. I feel hard done by because there are plenty of tantalizing lyrics in this song that never gel into an understandable narrative. My best guess is that the narrator is a loser who can’t get laid, feels hard done by, and develops an addiction to strip clubs in the belief that he can find the manifestation of his hard-done-by-ness in a pseudo-cinematic experience. Like an alcoholic, he swears he’ll give it up someday, but though his quest for the perfect hard-done-by moment comes close to fruition, it is never fulfilled—even when his favorite stripper has a coughing attack and is unable to perform.

Interesting and sophisticated
refusing to be celebrated
it’s a monumental big screen kiss
it’s so deep it’s meaningless

one day you’ll just up and quit
and that’ll be it
just then the stripper stopped in a coughing fit
she said sorry I can’t go on with this

yeah that’s awful close
but that’s not why
I’m so hard done by

As film buff and student Gord Downie explains, the guy is looking for his Cinema-a-clef, but his Rosebud moment fails to materialize. It’s possible that Gord meant to convey that people who are hard done by love to play the victim, and that’s why the jerk’s attempts end in failure: he wants to remain miserable. I’d love to tell you that Gord could see into the future when a bunch of aggrieved white people in the States who felt hard-done-by would bond together to put a con man in the White House, but I doubt that Gord would have imagined that Americans would ever get that stupid.

Musically speaking, this is one of my favorite songs on the album. The intro establishes a Latin feel with drums and bongos, and when Sinclair enters with his big, booming bass, my hips grind and grind with the deep pleasure reserved for bass whores. I am pleased to announce that the Tragically Hip has received the most cherished honorific I can provide: “So Hard Done By” is the first Hip song to make its way into one of my fuck playlists.

“Nautical Disaster”: Gord Downie claimed that the inspiration for this song came from the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in WWII, but before we go there, we’ll travel  back in time to 1960, when the late great Johnny Horton closed his hit single with these words:

We found that German battleship been makin’ such a fuss
We had to sink the Bismarck ’cause the world depends on us
We hit the deck a-runnin’ and we spun those guns around
We found the mighty Bismarck and then we cut her down

From a military perspective, the Brits had to sink the Bismarck because the beast was destroying British battleships and, along with the U-boats, wreaking havoc in the Battle of the Atlantic. There is no mention in the Horton song about the deaths of the German sailors.

Q: And who in the hell cares if a few thousand Nazis died in the process?

A: Gord Downie.

The narrative is related as a dream sequence where the dreamer finds himself dressed in the uniform of the Kriegsmarine, serving aboard the Bismarck when all hell breaks loose:

I had this dream where I relished the fray
and the screaming filled my head all day. 

It was as though I’d been spit here, settled
in, into the pocket of a lighthouse on some
rocky socket, off the coast of France, dear.

One afternoon, four thousand men died in
the water here and five hundred more were
thrashing madly, as parasites might in your
blood.

As will be explained in a moment, the next verse involves a bit of poetic license on Gord’s part, but it strengthens the theme of man’s inhumanity to man and the Sophie’s choice that war often demands of its participants:

Now I was in a lifeboat designed for
ten and ten only, anything that systematic
would get you hated. It’s not a deal nor a
test nor a love of something fated. The
selection was quick, the crew was picked in order
and those left in the water got kicked off our
pantleg and we headed for home.

The truth is even more inhumane. From the reference page on The Hip Museum:

As the Bismarck sank, many sailors dove headfirst over the rails, breaking their necks on the lower decks or the frigid, unforgiving Atlantic itself. While the song references the crew being “picked, in order” as part of a disciplined scuttling, this is pure poetic license. In reality, chaos reigned on the Bismarck as she sank. Some Luftwaffe pilots, armed with military issue pistols, shot themselves in mid jump rather than face the icy waters below. Other soldiers saluted the flag and sang the national anthem before leaping from the hulking wreck.

Once in the ocean, the Bismarck’s men found themselves immersed not in salt water, but in gallons of oil which had been spewing from the ship for over an hour. Some choked; others expended too much energy trying to find open water and simply drowned. At 48’09 north, 16’07 west, Captain Lindemann and thousands of his loyal seamen, technicians and soldiers, all fell into the Atlantic on board their ship. It took thirty secretaries, three full days to notify all the next of kin.

And Churchill lit a victory cigar. Given the circumstances, I can’t blame him. Hitler was determined to conquer the world and had to be stopped. Gord Downie was not protesting World War II, but war itself. By depicting the German sailors as human beings who suffered as much as the Allied forces did, he reminds us that war is not the answer to our many problems. No one should be subjected to such a horrible death, and no families should have to grieve because our leaders can’t get their shit together. Johnny Horton’s song celebrates the victory without considering the horrors of it all.

Our dreamer eventually awakens, still traumatized by the experience.

Then the dream ends when the phone rings,
you doing alright he said it’s out there most
days and nights, but only a fool would
complain. Anyway Susan, if you like, our
conversation is as faint a sound in my memory,
as those fingernails scratching on my hull.

The music is bookended with two reflective passages, with Gord singing the opening verse in a soft, uncertain voice as if he’s recovering from the dream. When the narrative shifts to the battle, the music increases in intensity as Gord musters all the passion he can muster in one of his greatest vocal performances. The extended fade continues in power mode, with Rob’s solo as the highlight, followed by the second reflective passage, which feels like a eulogy to all who lost their lives in the madness of war.

And here we are again, with the Americans in the role of the loose cannon.

“Thugs”: Following a song as powerful as “Nautical Disaster” would be difficult under any circumstances, but the Hip did the right thing by placing the weakest song on the album after the masterpiece. As Gord lifted the opening lines from a film and the closing lines from another song, I’ll expend the same amount of effort and move on to the next track.

“Inevitability of Death”: I should note that Gord Downie rejected the common perception that Day for Night was a dark album. From Georgia Straight: “That was an adjective that was thrown around when it first came out,” he said, “that it was pretty dark, but I don’t really see it. Some of the songs I would call downright uplifting. Even ‘Inevitability of Death’ is kind of a funny song more than anything. I mean, I thought it would be funny imagining radio deejays cueing it up and announcing it as people are driving off to work.”

I can relate to that form of irony. In the summer of 2016, my family had planned to celebrate Bastille Day on the promenade in Nice, but when we learned that my Irish grandfather had passed away, we cancelled those plans and made our way to San Francisco for the wake. While we were there, a madman drove a truck into the crowds at the promenade, killing eighty-six people and injuring over four hundred other attendees. On the flight home, my father commented, “You gotta hand it to Dad for croaking when he did, or we might be attending our own funerals as the star attractions.” We all burst into laughter and couldn’t stop—much like how Mary Tyler Moore couldn’t stifle her laughter during the funeral of Chuckles the Clown.

“Inevitability of Death” is not all fun and games. When Bill McKay finally received the go-ahead for his double-lung transplant, Gord felt hopeful that the operation would be a success, but also prepared for the worst:

I get a sense of connectedness
Exclusive tight but nothing dangerous
We don’t go to hell memories of us do
And if you go to hell
I’ll still remember you

But I thought you beat the death of
inevitability to death just a little bit
I thought you beat the inevitability
of death to death just a little bit 

Fortunately for those morning commuters, “Inevitability of Death” was not released as a single, so it’s unlikely they would have heard the song on their way to work.

“Scared”: So . . . we have another song open to oodles of interpretations. Allan Gregg thought the song was directed at him after he told the Hip that the album was crap; we can file that charge in the Paranoia folder and move on. Others claim that the song is about WWII, but I get the sense that those references are only part of a larger story. I think the silverpoets96 take on Reddit came closest to the truth: “Now Gord has introduced this song live many times before stating that he’s a door-to-door salesman who’s delivering fear to people. It’s a very interesting concept, and when you listen to the lyrics of the chorus, it makes sense.”

The concept of a door-to-door salesman is rather dated, but the idea that fear sells has become gospel in our time because it works. A vast majority of today’s politicians on both ends of the spectrum rely almost exclusively on fear to sell their brand. Many of the fears they peddle are outright lies, but the fear that they might be right leads people to buy their bullshit, and they can always find plenty of misinformation on the internet to justify their fears. It is also true that many fears are legitimate because the average person has little control over many aspects of their lives. If your billionaire CEO wants to cut staff, there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it. If your President wants to go to war, you can protest all you want, but your pleas will be ignored. We live in an exceptionally fearful climate, and FDR’s words were never more relevant than they are today: “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

I refer to politics only because it’s the manifestation of fear-selling that most people can understand. Although you could probably find a few of Gord’s lines to make a case that he’s referring to politicians, I do not believe that “Scared” is about politics, billionaires, or megalomaniac leaders. “Scared” is about trauma and treatment methods.

I’m going out on a limb here, but I get the sense that the lyrics depict a conversation between a mental health therapist and a patient. Therapists have something to sell in the form of treatment, and they sometimes employ a technique to help clients overcome fear: Exposure Therapy. “Exposure therapy is a type of therapy in which you’re gradually exposed to the things, situations, and activities you fear. There are a few different approaches to this therapy. It can help treat several conditions, like phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and panic disorder.” To make it easier to follow my reasoning, I’ll use different typefaces to identify the speaker. Client: regular type. Therapist: italics. Unseen narrator: underscores.

The session begins with the client warning the therapist about their unstable condition, a message that indicates embarrassment and self-deprecation. The therapist responds by suggesting another approach to triggering fear, asking the client to imagine they are involved in a situation where fear is justified and leads to positive results.

I could make you scared
if you want me to
I’m not prepared, but if I have to
He said, I can make you scared,
it’s kinda what I do
If you’re prepared,
here’s what I propose to do

You’re in Russia
and more than a million works of art
are whisked out to the woods
So when the Nazis
find the whole place dark
They’d think god’s
left the museum for good

The story of Russians hiding works of art so Hitler couldn’t get his greedy hands on them may be apocryphal, but it suggests to the client that fear can be a logical response to a clear and present danger.

The therapist obviously respects the mental health code of honor in his country, ethically laying out the downsides and upsides of treatment, reminding the client that therapy is a business transaction, and revealing a sense of humor:

I make you scared, if that’s what I do
If you’re prepared, if I have to
If I make you scared and you pay me to
If that’s the deal
now here’s what I can do for you

Now there’s a focus group
that can prove
this is all nothing
but cold calculation

Tests have shown
that suspicious or hostile
Their lives need not be shortened
truth be told
they can live a long, long while
Tickled to death by their importance

The client expresses some concerns about “cold calculation,” which sounds distant, impersonal, and a bit scary. The therapist admits that he’s a novice when it comes to Exposure Therapy, and tries to calm her worries about “cold calculation” by noting that the skeptics are limited to a “precious few”:

If you make me scared,
if that’s what you do
If I’m unclear can I get out of this thing
with me and you
If you feel scared, a bit confused,
I gotta say
this sounds a little beyond
anything I’m used to 

Now there’s a precious few
that can prove that at the root
This is all nothing but a cold calculation 

The first line of the subsequent verse indicates that the therapist has placed the client under hypnosis, taking her back to the traumatizing event:

Clearly entranced,
you’re leaning back now
Defanged destroyer limps into the bay
Down at the beach
it’s attracting quite a crowd
As kids wade through blood
out to it to play 

From the Hip Museum: “After the Second World War, many ships, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, etc., were declassified for commercial use. This process included removing the weapons and firing capability from each vessel. ‘Defanged’ ships were coveted by shipping companies for their durability and low second-hand, military-surplus price.” The blood the client saw may have been a war memory or the blood of a child who was injured during “play.” The client awakes and gives the therapist some feedback; he responds in a correct, professional, and somewhat disappointing manner:

OK, you made me scared,
you did what you set out to do
I’m not prepared, you really had me
going there for a minute or two
He said, you made me scared too,
I wasn’t sure I was getting through
I gotta go, it’s been a pleasure
doing business with you.

Gord Downie possessed a healthy skepticism concerning many taken-for-granted “truths,” and we can add the value of mental health therapy to the list. The client did not experience a breakthrough, and limiting treatment to fit the therapist’s schedule seems cold and counterproductive. One would expect a therapist to actually care about the person they’re treating, but “It’s a pleasure doing business with you” is as unsympathetic as it can get. Of course, many mental health practitioners do care about their clients, but as is true of any line of work, there are those who make poor career choices, and therapists who view clients as cash cows should find another profession. Just to emphasize that I am not anti-therapist, the provider I found after my abduction incident was incredibly caring and effective in helping me get over the trauma.

In an album loaded with rough textures, “Scared” stands out as the most beautiful song on the album with its superbly executed acoustic guitar duet and the extraordinary subtlety of Gord Sinclair’s bass part. Gord’s vocal is calm and empathetic, but I don’t think he would have liked me to add “like a therapist.”

“An Inch An Hour”: I’m beginning to think Gord was onto something when he rejected the notion that Day for Night was hopelessly dark. The solid rock opening makes me smile and Gord’s unrestrained rants crack me up.

I want a book that’ll make me drunk
full of freaks and disenfranchised punks.
No amount of hate no load of junk
no bag of words no costume trunk
could make me feel the same way
an inch an hour two feet a day
to move through night
in this most fashionable way.

There’s this fuckin’ band you gotta see
they used to scare the living shit outta me.
No frothing dog no cool insanity
no “rock n’ roll” no Christianity
makes me feel the same way . . .

Only a complex mind like Gord Downie’s could be anti-hate, anti-Mr. Rogers and anti-Mr. Dress-Up all at the same time. I think the message in those verses (and the whole song) is a rejection of all things status quo and society’s tendency to move at glacial speed. One source identifies the “fuckin’ band” as the British folk-punk band The Men They Couldn’t Hang, who also earned a spot in the song “Bobcaygeon” from Phantom Power. The song is loaded with Canadian references: Springside Park in Napanee, Pierre Trudeau and his famous walk in the snow that led to his decision to resign as PM, and maybe Neil Young or Neil Peart (the song ends with the lines, “You see, I don’t know Neil/I don’t know Neil.”)

To be honest, I care more about the music than the meaning because I just love hearing the Hip rock the joint.

“Emergency”: Meh. This is the only song on the album that didn’t earn a Reference Page in the Hip Museum, likely because there’s not much in the song to inspire conversation. The song is about a relationship in deep shit, but there are hundreds of other songs out there that cover that theme more effectively. The song ends with the lines, “but your finger starts to wiggle/and landscapes emerge,” a quirk that will reappear shortly.

“Titanic Terrarium”: Michael Barclay mentioned this song in tandem with “An Inch an Hour,” a very odd pairing indeed.

Some of Downie’s best lyrics on Day for Night are on underrated songs: “An Inch an Hour” (which refers to the movement of a glacier, as per John Ruskin) and “Titanic Terrarium,” featuring a treated guitar that sounds like a detuned banjo, underneath a lyric about respecting the power of nature. Both songs are dense with delightful lines and evocative imagery.

Barclay, Michael. The Never-Ending Present: The Story of Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip (p. 121). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Huh. I thought “Titanic Terrarium” was about what Gord said it was about in the closing verse:

Building up to the larger point
with an arrogance not rare or pretty
we don’t declare the war on idleness
when outside it’s cold and shitty.
We stay inside and try to conjure the fathers of
the injured and faking
if there’s glory in miracles
it’s that they’re reversible
Terrarium

Barclay fails to quote any “delightful lines and evocative imagery,” and his claim that the song is about “respecting the power of nature” is utter nonsense. In truth, the song is about the “technological miracles” created by our great-grandfathers that turned out to be anything but. The Titanic wasn’t unsinkable. The manufacture of tires damages the environment. Terrariums can spread disease, mold, and rot due to excessive moisture. Now that we have to deal with the many dangers inherent in artificial intelligence, I hope like hell that Gord was right and that miracles are reversible.

The arrangement contributes to the narrative with the detuned guitar/banjo harkening back to the simpler time when great-grandfathers ruled the world, while Rob Baker’s enhanced slide guitar provides a series of eerie overlays that darken the mood.

“Impossibilium”: This one seems to be an appendix to “Emergency,” as the woman in both songs repeats her finger fetish: “but your finger starts to wiggle, and landscapes emerge.” The relationship remains on unsteady ground, but Gord falls short of delivering the punch. Oh, well. Can’t win ’em all.

*****

Barclay noted that the Hip were delightfully surprised by the enthusiastic response to Day For Night. “That surprised us,” said Langlois. “I don’t think any of us were convinced that it was as accessible as our last records. We felt we’d made it—more this record than any other—for ourselves. We were really happy with it, but our expectations weren’t that high.” I think Paul failed to appreciate how much the Hip meant to Canadians and their staunch belief that the Hip could be trusted to deliver the goods every time.

Day of Night is not a perfect album, but the Hip were right to roll the dice and explore new avenues of music and lyrical expression. I have now completed listening to all thirteen studio albums and am happy to report that “let’s do something different” became their modus operandi.

Sparing the Hip from having to follow Midnight Oil, I’ll be reviewing Red Sails in the Sunset next week unless Voldemort changes his useless mind and goes nuclear on us.