American tragedy vs. The Tragically Hip: Michael's essay
A tale of two summers. Of The Tragically Hip and the American Tragedy.
There are times when it is hard to tell us apart, us and the Americans. It's important to acknowledge that. We watch the same movies, cheer the same celebrities, dress alike, talk alike, buy the same electronics, play the same video games.
Then there are the times when the differences between us are set out in stark relief to the point where we are almost on different planets. It is important to recognize and acknowledge that as well.
The late summer is an example.
In the United States, the political dysfunction and cultural and social divisions were on open display for the world to see. For Americans, it was a summer of violence, anger, hatred, racism, a summer of shouting, of name-calling, a summer when polarization was firmly stitched into the country's fabric.
While Americans focussed on the dumpster fires of their political system, on this side of the line we embarked on a different kind of summer sojourn. The Tragically Hip was formed in Kingston in 1983; the players, Paul Langlois, guitarist, Gord Sinclair, bassist, guitarist Rob Baker, and drummer Johnny Fay.
The lead singer of the band is Gord Downie, who has always struck me, not as a singer who writes poetry, but a poet who writes songs. Like Leonard Cohen.
What strikes me in what I have heard is the vigorous Canadianness of their music; not in a defiant, exceptionalist way, but in the typical deferential tone which marks us as a people.- Michael Enright
In early spring, it was announced that Gord Downie had an inoperable brain tumour. The staggering shock of that announcement transfixed the country. It wasn't limited to fans of the band.
A day later, the band announced that it would conduct a 10-day cross-Canada tour in the summer, ending up in its hometown Kingston in late August. It would be a kind of valedictory tour, ostensibly to celebrate the band's 14th studio album.
I have to rely on three sons to tell me about them.
To hear in song, references to Tom Thomson and Canoe Lake and Bobcaygeon, Ontario and Maple Leaf Gardens, and Mistaken Point, Newfoundland, is to glean some small idea of the vastness and the crazy quilt diversity of the country.
Their music compels us to live the geography of the land with Downie the guide, our chief scout. As the band moved across the country, we were mesmerized. This was a coming together rarely seen in this country, or anywhere, for that matter.
We had never seen anything like this before because there had never been anything quite like this before.
Looking for context or precedent, I thought about it about it in terms of the heroic and truncated journey by Terry Fox, who died on his run across Canada two years before the band was formed.
The arenas and halls across the country sold out immediately. The Kingston finale was watched by nearly 12-million Canadians.
People watched in city squares, in parklands and docklands, in tiny villages and major towns, in sports bars and church halls, in ritzy hotel lobbies and gritty fishing outports. The CBC sent the Kingston concert across the country with neither commercials nor commentary.
When we wept and laughed and danced and stomped our feet, and swung our arms madly for the Tragically Hip and their lead singer, we did it as a community. We had come together in the heat of high, sweet summer, to celebrate and to think about who we are. We were family.- Michael Enright
Meanwhile, south of us, the festering wounds of division tore relentlessly at Americans' image of themselves. We dare not gloat, but this summer seemed to establish in hypnotic realization, the differences in our two people. The United States is a deeply wounded, divided country; we can only watch and weep.
When we wept and laughed and danced and stomped our feet, and swung our arms madly for the Tragically Hip and their lead singer, we did it as a community. We had come together in the heat of high, sweet summer, to celebrate and to think about who we are.
We were family.