This week the gang gets together to discuss the rest of Inroduce Yerself.
Transcript:
Track 1:
[0:00] Hey, it's Justin. You know and love us on the Discovering Downey podcast, right? So come hang out with us in person for the finale. Join us for Long Slice Brewing presents a celebration of Gord Downey at The Rec Room in downtown Toronto on Friday, July 19th. Craig is coming from Vancouver, Kirk is coming from LA, I'm driving from Vermont, and JD's like walking down the street or wherever he lives in Toronto. Tickets are available now on our website at discovererndowney.com, and when you get your tickets, that means you can come Come hang out with us and our very special guest, Patrick Downey, and you can bid on some incredibly cool silent auction items, all while jamming along with tragically hip cover band The Almost Hip, and most importantly, helping us raise money for the Gord Downey Fund for Brain Cancer Research. Crack open a long slice, put on some Gord tunes, take a journey with us on discovering Downey, and then crack open another long slice on July 19th and hang out with us in the six. I always wanted to sound cool and say that. For more information, follow us on all the socials and visit DiscoveringDowny.com. Christmas Day for Edgar. My dad always used to say just after the presents, well, it's as far away now as it will ever be. I'm thinking about that as the stewardess cracks the public address system. For those sitting in economy, there's no music for you today.
Track 1:
[1:21] Welcome, music lovers. Long Slice Brewery presents. Discovering Downey.
Track 2:
[1:31] Hey, it's JD here and welcome to Discovering Downey, an 11-part project with a focus on the music and poetry of Mr. Gord Downey. The late frontman of the Tragically Hip gave to the world an extensive solo discography on top of the hip's vocal local acrobats that wowed us for years. So far, he's released eight records in total, three of them posthumously. Now listen, you might be the biggest fan of the hip out there, but have you really listened to these solo records? Because I'm an inquisitive podcaster, I enlisted my friends, Craig, Justin, and Kirk, giant fans of the hip in their own right, to discover Downey with me, JD, as their host. Every week, we're going to get together and listen to one of Gord's records, working in chronological order. We discuss and dissect the album, the production, the lyrics, and we break it down song by song. This week we're going to be talking about the back half well plus two songs from the front half of introduce yourself justin my friend how are you doing on this gray fucking oh is it gray there toronto oh oh it's terrible all day maybe because i was wearing sunglasses wait a minute.
Track 4:
[2:55] It is it was the opposite of that here in in beautiful vermont today it's it was a beautiful day i I think it's going to be great for the rest of the week, though. So whatever you're getting today, we'll get tomorrow.
Track 1:
[3:05] Oh, that's weather with Justin. We'll be back with Craig and Traffic. Remember, news on the fives.
Track 2:
[3:12] Where in the world is Kirk from Fuckachino? How's it going, man?
Track 5:
[3:22] I am in Washington, D.C. Right now for work in a hotel room. so having some technical difficulties so my apologies but things are good and uh excited to continue the conversation greg.
Track 2:
[3:41] What say you things.
Track 3:
[3:44] Are going well a little uh a little tired after a night out uh watching the sadies last night so they played a small venue downtown and got to see the boys rock out and um yeah it was it was a pretty awesome show a big banner of Dallas in the background and yeah, some touching moments, but mostly they, they just rocked.
Track 2:
[4:03] I haven't been to a live show in a little while now.
Track 4:
[4:06] Super cool.
Track 2:
[4:12] All right, fellas, before we get into the music, I want to talk to you about an email that I got from an organization called Lake Fever Wilderness Company. Basically, the gist of this email is that the Lake Fever Wilderness Company has submitted all the paperwork required to City Hall to get At Riverdale Park East, here in Toronto, mere footsteps from my home, renamed Gord Downie Park. I saw an article on BlogTO, and then they also gave us a couple other links to stories. But I'm hoping that our little podcast here, that people who listen to it will hear this, and you know we can build some awareness around this somehow anything you want to say about this or comment about this are you jealous and ate in your town yes.
Track 4:
[5:17] That sounds like a great cause and um for what it's worth i love the song lake fever so.
Track 2:
[5:25] Right Right?
Track 4:
[5:26] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's a, that's whatever we can do to help, man. That sounds great.
Track 5:
[5:31] Sounds very cool.
Track 3:
[5:32] I'm jealous. We, who do we get? Brian Adams Avenue.
Track 2:
[5:39] Probably already have it. Don't you?
Track 3:
[5:41] I don't know. I don't know. Maybe in England.
Track 2:
[5:45] Really? There's not a. Right mind-blowing to me one of the top songs of all time in terms of played, everything i do i do for you right, yeah but this is not a brian adams podcast this is a podcast called discovering downy and let's pick it up where we left off last time that puts us on side two of the first record With the very candid, my first self.
Track 5:
[6:47] I mean, just explains it like I remember it. And yeah. could feel all of those crazy, stupid emotions and, uh, could just totally wrap my head around and embrace, you know, the message that he was writing, you know, a piano forward tune again. You know, I think we talked about that the last one, uh, I love the vocal and the background that starts coming in uh you know echoing essentially the line um and then the last line is just classic so yeah uh it's a it's a brilliant tune in my assessment.
Track 3:
[7:28] Yeah, what I liked about it is that it really instantly just takes you to a place in your own life, whether the story is one you connect with or not, it takes you back to, you know, when you were in your teens or whatever. And that's what I appreciated about this song. Another thing before the echoing vocal you're talking about there's i just noticed today for the first time very very faintly in the opposite channel is something that sounds like a, a meowing cat i think it's a person but it's almost this little it's so subtle it's almost like one of those hearing tests you get where there's a little beep and you're like did i hear that but i listened a second time and there's something that comes in about 30 seconds before for the more noticeable vocal on the other side so i.
Track 4:
[8:19] Did not on that view yeah i listened to it today too actually and.
Track 3:
[8:24] Um i.
Track 4:
[8:26] Mean this this girl sounds cool as hell you know like he says in the song six years older so it's definitely you know she's his girlfriend but he may not be her boyfriend from what i'm picking up on you know like and and i certainly related to the you.
Track 3:
[8:41] Told me off and could she be responsible for uh hooking gourd on reading because he wanted to be like her.
Track 4:
[8:50] Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah interesting thought yeah yeah yeah i don't know again like i did feel a little awkward listening to this song let's.
Track 2:
[9:02] Move to the next track on the record you're ashore.
Track 3:
[9:05] Well this is probably the song i have the least to say about it's maybe the least memorable for me I think probably it's the type of song that if it's about you it's probably a maybe a bit of an inside joke or I'm not really sure what the you know what it's about who it's about, I appreciated the gentleness in his voice. I was glad that it was the length that it was because it was not my favorite. What did you guys think?
Track 5:
[9:38] I loved it me too i uh i i uh i mean it's the shortest song on the album it's a minute 30 you know the lyrics are simple it's you know essentially you're sure you're sure repeated and a few little straight lines but the brilliant in the very beginning is you know he's strumming and then it's the let flow it down i believe is what he says and uh yeah it's um Um, I think especially amongst this body of work amongst this album, like, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of piano, there's a lot of synths, there's even some beats and things of that nature. And it was kind of nice to just get a little short acoustic ditty in my opinion. But, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm a sucker for that. That's, uh, just like, just like back in the eighties, right? Every metal band had its little ballad. so uh i i love the ballads so.
Track 4:
[10:38] Yeah i don't know who it's about but it's an earworm i find myself humming the tune uh quite often and there's only a few words in the song so it's not like, you know like you said craig the lyrics aren't nothing about it is really memorable but it is it does get into your brain and it's an easy little like you could just walk through the the park and just sing that all day. But yeah, I mean, it's a minute 30 and that's about right.
Track 2:
[11:07] Yeah, that's about right. It's interesting you say that you couldn't determine who that's about, because I, so far, have really sucked at that game, listening to the first record. So, as we go into the second record, Gord lobs a softball at me, and even I know that this next track, Love Over Money, is about the fucking Tragically Hip.
Track 4:
[11:37] Damn right it is.
Track 2:
[11:39] Yeah who wants to go first here kirk.
Track 5:
[11:42] Yeah i'll go first um yeah i i you know uh i would say jd i've had a similar you know a similar experience in in trying i have little parentheses in my notes of who i think the note might be or the song might be too and i you know i can't even get specifics i just write like brother you know question mark things of that nature so this one was obvious what i loved about it as well and and i think i might have mentioned it on on the last of the first the first album it's such a pop it's like a synth pop tune is what i have and this is gonna sound weird but for whatever reason when i hear the song i think of that snl skit where you've You've got like Jimmy Fallon and they're all playing like they're doing that little, you know, they do the little dance.
Track 2:
[12:36] Oh, right, right, right.
Track 5:
[12:37] You know, when I heard this song, I, by the second time, I just, I couldn't get that shit out of my brain. So, but just beautiful lyrics talking about the band. So direct and so loving and so to the point. To me, an absolute, brilliant Gord Downie song. I mean, you know, just wonderful, wonderful song.
Track 3:
[13:06] The moment he said the line, we played to no one, and then no one plus one, I knew it was about the hip. Because I remember in 1996, a band I played in, we went across Canada two times that year, self-booked tours. And we ended up in Thunder Bay on one of the tours.
Track 3:
[13:24] And we played in a tiny club called crocs and rolls which is sort of like a legendary club in in thunder bay a guy named frank lefredo was the booker there who was kind of like a legend, in uh in music across canada and anyway frank um the first night we we played and we didn't draw much of a crowd and he said you know don't worry guys the you know first time the tragedy hit played here they played to to no one and then they played a second night and they got a couple more and the next night and you know they played i think three nights in a row on an early tour, and so that made us feel a little better and he and he um he felt bad about the the draw so when we came back um he found us a gig at another venue um for the for the drive back so that's the the memory that that comes up for me um and also the other thing the queen's jubilee uh so the reference to the um to the playing to the the deafening the husband of the queen um that would be that that show which i looked up and uh and yeah they played poets and interesting enough in that version of poets he changes the lyrics he censors himself a little bit i noticed so for the queen he he He changed bare-breasted to bare-chested, and there was one other change I can't recall.
Track 4:
[14:44] Yeah, it was a great performance. I remember seeing that. I wish that I had looked it up just to bring the memory of it back, but that line stuck out to me. I remember seeing that performance.
Track 3:
[14:57] And he used the laminar flow line as well in that version of Poets.
Track 4:
[15:01] Oh, that I didn't remember.
Track 2:
[15:04] Wow.
Track 3:
[15:05] Which ended up in Coke Machine Glow on Every Irrelevance.
Track 4:
[15:11] Yeah. Obviously, the bond between those five guys is unbreakable, and this song is funny, too. I laughed at this song the first time that I heard it and heard the lyrics. We missed death and marriage and a birth. I did notice the words hotel worth, which is kind of a preview to an upcoming thing. There's a song that actually got a lot of airplay here locally a few years ago. But yeah, yep, it did. Yep, it was on the radio two or three times a day for a couple months here.
Track 3:
[15:47] The love over money line um made me also think about the way that they split their royalties and i'm not sure if if it was like a 20 all the way around that would be my guess but but often the the lyricist will take 50 and then the people who wrote the music take the other 50 so you know maybe it's not that simple but the fact that all five of them were as far as i know listed on all all the all the credits sort of um you know over their career that's something that drives so many bands apart is that fight over you know well i wrote this i wrote this and like even in the band i spoke about a while ago like we had some really crazy discussions around royalties and who should get what and you know in my mind i've always been a equal share guy i don't care if you're the drummer if you're you know you wrote your part that's just you know then again i've not not like i'm making a ton of a ton of money in music or anything but but um it was nice to to see them stick together so long and the same five guys like what other band can you think of that released that many albums with the same lineup it's got to be a very very.
Track 2:
[17:02] Very short list.
Track 3:
[17:03] Like there may be some three pieces i mean but a five piece band think of all the potential for conflict and for you know one guy leaving it like no one there's some sleuthing.
Track 2:
[17:17] Some sonic sleuthing for you listeners out there send us an email at discovering downy at gmail.com with bands that have a lineup up that was consistent with at least 15 records released? Are there any? Is there a database that you could just plug that into and get it from?
Track 3:
[17:40] No idea. I mean, Aerosmith would be close, but they had that lineup change in the mid-career.
Track 2:
[17:49] Right.
Track 3:
[17:51] For one album anyways.
Track 2:
[17:53] Joe Perry left, right? Joe Perry and Brad Whitford.
Track 3:
[17:55] Yeah.
Track 2:
[17:57] Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the next track is You, Me, and the Bees. Do I go two for two here when I say this is an ode to the Boston Bruins? Yeah. And its ability to connect with your family, particularly in this case to Gord's brother, Patrick.
Track 3:
[21:03] That sounds about right to me.
Track 2:
[21:04] Take us away.
Track 3:
[21:06] Took me right to my childhood as well. And a good friend of mine, so my friend Blair and I, we played a game called hall hockey. Hockey's in my parents basement with you know those fisher price um bowling sets we take take one of the pins and a ball and we would just hit the ball back and forth and if you hit the wall you score and we had this ongoing game every time he came over and we would you know do the play by play and we were both oilers fans so you weren't allowed to be the oilers you had to choose another team and i'll never forget the quebec nordique if you were the nordique and you you know you'd be Stastny and then you pass over to to you know Michelle Goulet and as soon as Michelle Goulet, got the puck you know you're getting a shot in the balls every single time I don't know what it was but and um yeah and then Blair became a little bigger than me and started winning every single game and then we yeah we aged out of that game but anyways that's where it took me yeah what What about you guys?
Track 4:
[22:06] Oh man, this was me and my old man playing pond hockey. Yeah, I loved the song and I loved I could tell right away that the percussion was a hockey stick scraping on the ground. I loved it. And you know, again, I laughed in this song several times and the line about the trading of George Thornton and you know, it's, I don't know, like Like, I'm so excited to get to meet Patrick Downey because it sounds like these guys just had fun the whole time. This song is that relationship. And, you know, and as a Habs fan, I freaking hate the Bruins, but I get it. You know, I totally get it. And, yeah, this is just a really cool song about your brother. You know, it's fun.
Track 5:
[22:57] Yeah, I loved the song. And I loved, I could tell right away that the percussion was a hockey stick scraping on the ground. I loved it. You know, again, I laughed in this song several times and the line about the trading of George Thornton. And, you know, it's, I don't know, like, I'm so excited to get to meet Patrick Downey because it sounds like these guys just had fun the whole time, you know, and the song is that.
Track 4:
[23:30] I, um, I really liked how Gord's voice was very staccato and this, um, he was really kind of a minimalist with, you know, he didn't drag any of the, any of the, the lines out the Bruins. You know, like just very on the beat and kind of not screwing around. Or maybe this is screwing around for him, I guess. But, you know, he turned the word Bruins into Bruins, just one syllable. And I don't know, it felt like a different approach lyrically or sonically, I guess.
Track 3:
[24:02] Yeah, that phrasing really matched the style of the song too. That sort of, like the percussion that Kirk was talking about. It just, yeah, had that staccato feel.
Track 5:
[24:11] The phrasing, thanks for bringing that up, Craig. I had just recently watched the Juno Award tribute, Dallas Green and Sarah Harmer and Kevin Hearn, I believe it was, and I believe it was the Junos. And gore you guys both talked mentioned like the way he phrases like the way he takes his lyrics and will you know enunciate them to fit into the line it is like no one else right and then when you watch this tribute and you see her singing introduce yourself and trying to you know keep the cadence that that that gourd has i guess that's a good way to describe it there's a uh, a unique cadence to it so i i was blown away by that if you guys haven't seen it you you must watch it and then when they go into bob cajun and the harmonies are just incredible but like goosebumps you know it's so incredible and then especially when she comes in with that harmony But to hear her do the phrasing was wonderful as well, because that has to be difficult.
Track 2:
[25:25] Yeah, it's what we love about him, right? His ability to twist and turn and put round pegs into square holes or square pegs into round holes probably is more difficult, in fact. Snowflake has a haunting piano line that works well with Gord's almost pastime. What do you think of Snowflakes.
Track 5:
[25:46] Kirk? Yeah, Melancholy was my note. Again, the piano is used heavily throughout this whole album, but on this song in particular. My guess at who it is to is just a girlfriend is all I wrote. Um but uh the the other note that i wrote was the the woman leaned in to say goodbye but i don't remember his name and uh just the um where is gourd going with that you know i i uh i i wondered i wrote that down as a note so um but just again uh fully emotional song.
Track 3:
[26:34] Yeah i wondered if that was almost like a reference to maybe his fading memory yeah the oh yeah i was a bit puzzled by that too craig yeah it was a very eerie song and i really loved it i love the um the jangling sounds gave it like a really eerie feeling like you're in a i don't know like a haunted ballroom of some ancient house like i just picture this as a movie when I'm listening to it the the, vocal delivery makes me wonder if it was one of the later tracks that he he did and i really love the chorus and the the reverb they put on like just like in a natural there is a ton of reverb, like way too much reverb but it works really well it's so powerful when they do it on this album not something i would normally like um yeah his voice is is gorgeous in the song um a lot of feeling to the piano playing as well by by kevin um yeah and again i had a note about phrasing when he says my name and when he says goodbye it's kind of rushed and it made me wonder if it was just a lack of time just you know doing it in one take and not worrying too much about yeah about how it came off um but again that's what we love about you too yeah yeah.
Track 5:
[27:58] You i mean craig you sing when you play takes a lot of energy um so that's that's one thing that i wondered throughout this this album in particular when like if you just say you're looking at it on your phone and you're listening and you bring up the lyrics and you're you're you're questioning some of the enunciations i guess of some of the words but it's that's gourd and that's uh you know Him making it work for that particular song. And sometimes different than what the lyrics are written as. I don't know if that's just typo type stuff or if that's on purpose. this.
Track 4:
[28:37] So I actually, I don't know, my, my thought on this was that maybe this was, um, something that he was remembering from his childhood and maybe, um, with a, an older sibling or, a relative or somebody, you know, that he knew well. And, um, the thing that stood out to me.
Track 4:
[29:00] More was the, his recollection of the lake and, um, of the house and describing everything about the scene and that this woman is somebody, an acquaintance of whoever he's walking down the road with, and they're going to see her. Um, cause there's the line, she told me to go explore the quiet rooms. Uh, it like, so this is all right, kid, go check out the house. We got stuff to talk about you know um and i actually um somehow connected this to the you know affluent woman in the video for it's a good life if you don't weaken um my my head kind of went to that music video and i don't don't know why or where that happened but um it just felt to me like it that type of house and that type of, of meeting. And, you know, and then at the end of that video, Gord leans down and whisper something into her ear and, and then, then they walk out. I don't, I don't really know why that's where I went, but, um, it's sort of a mishmash of two different things. Yeah.
Track 4:
[30:13] So like there's the song that we'll get to called the lake. When I first heard that, I thought that was about the lake, But now I think this song might be about the lake. I don't know.
Track 5:
[30:23] Just the fact that when he writes his lyrics, like, yeah, he, it's inspired by something, but it may even have a different meaning than what it was inspired by for him. And I don't think he really intends for the listening audience to do anything other than interpret it for their own selves or application. So, um, you know, I, you just, I never got the feeling like he'd be offended by that.
Track 2:
[30:49] Yeah, I can't agree with you more. Again, that's one of these great things about this performer that we all love. We can get behind that. The next song is called A Better End, and it makes me sad. Lonesome for Gord, I suppose. How does it make you feel, Justin?
Track 4:
[31:17] Yeah, the same. I mean, it sounds a lot like the Man Machine Poem album. There's some melancholy in a lot of those songs. And this album came together in a different context, but it's musically a lot similar to or very similar to a lot of the songs on there. And there are connections with the lyrics, the line, for treasure or worse. That's in, is that in Man? or machine, one of the others. You know, where God walks with persons, even the may be doomed, that line crushes me every time I hear it.
Track 2:
[32:00] Repeat it?
Track 4:
[32:02] Where God walks with persons, even the may be doomed. And, you know, there's an end to that sentence, right? There's a finality in that one. And I don't know. I don't know who it's about. The song is called A Better End, but he says bitter. Um you know and that only at the very end of the song does it say the better end um so maybe there's some letting go you know i i i don't know yeah.
Track 5:
[32:37] I i uh i have a description written as dark melancholy but then my final note was a plea and that to me as i think you had mentioned, Craig, you know, maybe it was to a family member. And I kind of felt like it was to all family members and all of his like close friends, like, this is the letter, like, this is it. And so I just wrote a plea, question mark. And the beat, I think we talked about this before, you know it's it had the clock feeling to me throughout um and then like you had mentioned justin uh you know you you the title's a better end the the lyric that he uses is stay to the bitter end but it stayed in the bitter end and uh uh just uh, He's put out so much energy at this point, you know, because it is when they've recorded this, you know, it's 20, 2017. They've done the they've done the. The tours, he's done the secret path stuff like he knows what's coming, he knows the bitter end and he gave everything he could. And this is like his like, hey, somebody give me some energy for, you know, here for a better end.
Track 3:
[34:04] Yeah, I wondered if this was a close family member maybe saying to stay with me until the bitter end. Really, yeah, this was an emotional song, but it's also the type of song that's going to keep bringing me back to this album. I love this song. i found that again another powerful chorus with that big reverb sound and the way he belts out songs like this and snowflake and uh in the choruses is a real strength of this album nancy and yeah just a very powerful um i i had a note i would be interested to hear a heavy version of the song like a full band version um yeah but yeah haunting piano it gave me um secret path vibes it felt very much like musically could have been on secret path he.
Track 4:
[35:02] He hits a lot of different spots um um in his range too he sings very deeply and then he sings very high um there's There's a lot of, you know, he's probably in three octaves or maybe four during the song. Probably three.
Track 2:
[35:22] Yeah. So when I hear this song, I think of it, I think of an LP, like an old LP, like a 72, you know, RPM record. And I picture it being played on my grandparents' couch-sized hi-fi. It just sounds, it sounds old. It sounds authentic.
Track 5:
[35:50] Authentic it sounds like a needle you know the indie rock on the vinyl right it.
Track 2:
[35:56] Sounds like which sorry.
Track 5:
[35:57] It sounds like the needle on the vinyl it's just yeah it's you you and then you got that the dining you know the the dining room or whatever recording that's going on in the background and then and then it just sounds like they have the actual, you know the the needle and the vinyl that that that that static sound going it's it's brilliant it's a little soft guitar it's it's a sweet song it really is it's a sweet song yeah.
Track 3:
[36:28] And the way he sings it too it's almost like a bit of a like a shaky vocal like a bit of a warble to his voice which maybe it was actually maybe they added an effect to make to give it that vinyl quality to it. But I think maybe it's just his, I think it's just his performance. And when I say shaky, I mean, in a deliberate way, I talked last week about how I can't think of any singer who has as many qualities to his voice as Gord and he does it better than anyone. Yeah. Yeah.
Track 2:
[37:09] But then it did go away. You know, sort of, right? Yeah.
Track 3:
[37:17] When he wanted it to, yeah. He just gained so much control over his voice. He had power from early on, but then he developed different subtleties. And when he gets into an album like Secret Path, and he's singing sort of in character, he can just go into all these different places depending on the emotion of the song. And another note about Nancy is, first of all, I'm guessing it's about a sister. I didn't actually look up the names of his sisters, but that's just my guess. I liked how it talked about the beginning, the middle, and the end. And Gord forever being the storyteller. He's always thinking in terms of story. Just a little nugget I picked up. And the conversation at the beginning too when they're just starting to hit record he's talking about his cuff link.
Track 4:
[38:16] It's a good one.
Track 2:
[38:17] It is. It's really good. And I think on first listen, it would have been bottom third for me. And now it's firmly somewhere in the middle third. Like, it has a crack top third for me. But, you know, it's moved up for sure.
Track 4:
[38:36] Yeah.
Track 3:
[38:37] I feel like this album gets better as it goes on. I actually prefer the second half.
Track 5:
[38:42] That's fair.
Track 3:
[38:43] Um i think at first i really enjoyed the first half more maybe because i was really preparing for that first half um for our pod but i i love the the second half yeah i.
Track 4:
[38:57] Actually very much agree with that i think for me it starts to really get good at you're ashore and like i said it's it's a kind of a forgettable song but the the tone sort of changes isn't that wild yeah well.
Track 2:
[39:11] We are at the last song of the first side the remarkably upbeat think my about us.
Track 5:
[41:21] This is brilliant. This song is brilliant for me from the first listen to the critical listens in the middle to listening again just recently before this. And just the way it made me feel, the swagger it had, the message it had, um that just incredible descending piano line um it it was uh it it it's up there for me it's really really really up there i love love this tune i.
Track 3:
[42:03] Agree this is a masterful song really it's just it comes at a place on the album.
Track 3:
[42:11] Where you really need something that's a little, kind of cute is the word i'll use and you've got that little piano melody that almost just sounds like a finger exercise you would do if you're learning how to play piano and some really cool sounds on the synth or maybe it's a theremin but i'm pretty sure it's a synth, and i also had a note that the the drums enter in an interesting way the bass and drums come in and just maybe a spot you're not quite ready for and yeah just just like a playful song that i really enjoy just super catchy i i wish the world could hear this music like i wish more people, would give this a chance because it should be words were i mean maybe this is my thesis for the end of this whole thing but gourd's work should be appreciated like like josh even said like they're both up they're both equal they're both amazing yeah.
Track 4:
[43:09] I had the word super catchy exactly the same in my in my notes and i really don't have a lot of other notes about this song but i i can't stop listening to it i know that um it's a yeah it's a it's a and you're right craig it came at the right time um in the sequencing um it was needed in this spot.
Track 3:
[43:31] It's a little heavy before that.
Track 2:
[43:32] Right?
Track 3:
[43:33] Yeah, and it's going to get heavy again. Yep, that's right. Really heavy.
Track 2:
[43:37] I learned a really valuable... I gained access to some valuable experience today, when I was preparing for this recording, because it's the first time that I've flipped the record over, and had to tackle the final five songs that we ever get to hear from Gord Downie, or so we thought at the time. You know, like, we didn't know there was going to be posthumous releases.
Track 5:
[44:17] Right.
Track 2:
[44:19] We knew he wrote this right before he passed, So either way, you know, it's fucking heavy. Craig, when you think of The Road, do you think of that as heavy?
Track 5:
[44:35] Yes.
Track 3:
[44:36] Wow, The Road, this song destroys me. Again, there's a bit of a theme on the album in a few songs about The Road, about missing out on life events. Yes. On, you know, the sacrifice. Of you know being a touring musician um you know a dream that i had when i was young and it didn't work out and you know i'm you know thankful for the life i have um and you know i'm sure gourd was as well but man like it had to be there had to be some really tough times being out away from your family all the time and missing things and um anyways this song is so good and the um the thing i want to say about this is when the drums come in there's no hi-hat it's just sort of kick and snare and that space really sets the the mood for this song um you know along with you know the piano of course um and there's one line i want to point out the machines are somewhat suitable now um you know is that is that the hospital machines is it is it a reference to man machine poem um i'm not sure but but this song like.
Track 3:
[46:06] Depresses me almost as much as the the book the road which destroyed me when i was um a young parent uh you know or not you know i wasn't young but my my son was young and if you you know um cormac mccarthy's the road it is absolutely devastating it is the a book that took me well i've never gotten over it really and the movie as well i watched the movie and it took me about six months to watch the movie i had to watch it like a little bit at a time when i was in the right headspace and it just it is if you haven't read it's maybe don't but it's incredible um but this this yeah if you name something the road it's probably going to destroy me well.
Track 4:
[46:51] So I had a bit of an awakening about three years ago when in May of 2021, my wife had something that she had to do at work late at night or 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, whatever. And she couldn't be home to make dinner. And it was like a Tuesday or something. I don't know. And she messaged me during the day and said, you need to be home and make Evelyn dinner tonight. night. Evelyn's our daughter. And at the time she was, uh, almost four and I got home and I realized, holy shit, I've never made dinner for my daughter before. Um, I was working 80 hours a week and I was missing everything. And my wife had an Instagram account for our daughter. And that was the only way that I was keeping up. I lived in the same house, but I wasn't in the same family. You know what I mean? And yeah, the song brings all that back and made a big life change that very night. I sent a long message to my boss and said, we got to talk tomorrow, but I'm going to get it all out right now. Cause if I didn't say it now, I'm not going to say it. And I told him I'm done at the end of the year. I've I'll stick with you for my commitment through this year, but but I'd put 10 years into my job and missed everything in that 10 years. And, um.
Track 4:
[48:16] Give Gord another three decades on top of that. Um, I don't know who the song's about and I guess it doesn't matter, but, um, but obviously it matters, but, um, yeah, I, I really identified with the missing everything and even going back to the song about, um, uh, what is it? Love over money, um, about the band, you know, we missed funerals and births and all this stuff. And yeah, that's me. I've been there, man. I've, I still, to some degree, I'm there a little bit, but, um, yeah, I missed my daughter's first four years of her life.
Track 5:
[48:54] Everyone knows in this group here, I'm on the road all the time. I'm talking to you from a hotel room in, in Washington, DC. And, um, and so, I mean, Justin, I think this is actually a
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