Gord Downie: The Best of Us.

I NEVER post mid-week, but this week, I have to. Gord Downie, lead singer of the iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip, is dead.  I am gutted. I suppose it was silly to believe that he would survive the type of brain cancer that he had, but I’m at heart an optimist, despite my consistent obsession with worst case scenarios. I’ve spent a good portion of this evening singing snatches of his songs, and crying. I may be a little drunk right now. Here is what I wrote a few months ago, at the Canada-wide broadcast of the Hip’s final tour:

Saturday Night: The Tragically Hip

hip2

Last night was the final show of The Tragically Hip’s final concert tour. The lead singer, Gord Downie, has incurable brain cancer, and rather than fade away, he’s going out in fine Canadian style by bringing the country together. You might have seen the memes about Canada being closed for the night because our national broadcaster, the CBC, was showing the concert live across the nation for those who couldn’t get tickets to be there in person. Free. No commercial breaks. 3 hours of song. So that we could all embrace the band whose music was the soundtrack to so many of our lives. Hundreds of thousands of people watching all at the same time, some at huge parties with massive screens, some at home with the people they love, watching a man give everything he had left to the nation HE loves. It was inspiring and heartbreaking all at the same time. It seems incredibly unfair that Gord Downie, man, machine, poem, will soon be lost to us, just when we need him most. And when the time comes, we’ll miss him fully and completely. Just wait and you’ll see.

Here’s the link to one of my favourite Hip songs—Nautical Disaster.

Gord Downie was the best of us. I have no more words.

10 thoughts on “Gord Downie: The Best of Us.”

  1. I love ❤️ you and Canada 🇨🇦 my dang blog. Admirable, deep consideration. Nautical is a musical and word masterpiece❗️So sorry 😐 for his, his family, band, and music 🎶 industry’s loss. Especially yours.

    Been awhile❗️I lost another baby 👶 sister in August, an xbrother n law ( like a brother), and an uncle within two months of each other!🚇💥🥊 . Daddy, a WWII vet, made 95, he is so sweet! He was in North Africa and so on! Good blogging my friend. 🍱🥝🍒🍏

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  4. Karen says:

    Wow. I’m a New Zealander living in Australia – after reading your post I did some googling and ended up gently weeping. I want to say that ‘he was quite the amazing person’ but I feel that he will influence you all far into the future so am going to say ‘he is quite the amazing person’. Grieve and keep him in your heart. Thank you for sharing.

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    • Thanks for taking the time to find out more about him. He was an amazing person–we just watched the documentary that was made about the band’s last tour this year (it was broadcast across the country, commercial-free), knowing that his cancer was incurable, and his strength and compassion for others was absolutely incredible.

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