The group met while in high school at Kingston Collegiate Vocational Institute (KCVI) and all attended Queen's University in Kingston. They started as a cover band playing Rolling Stones and Doors covers, and were first represented by a local Kingston agent named Bernie Dobson.
They were first signed in 1987 after Bruce Dickinson, the then VP of A&R at MCA Records saw them perform live at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, Ontario. Later that year they released their debut EP The Tragically Hip, though they were largely unrecognized until 1989's Up To Here. Up To Here established them as one of the best and most influential bands in Canada. In 1992, they created the Another Roadside Attraction festival, which tours Canada to promote smaller, unknown emerging bands.
The band is immensely popular in Canada. Although they have never achieved great success in the United States, they have never specifically sought it and have enjoyed their warm Canadian reception. When touring in Canada they typically play to sold-out arenas; when touring in the United States they play smaller venues and clubs. Performances abroad are usually attended by Canadian expatriates. In Europe, The Hip perhaps have their greatest following in the Netherlands.
The band permits recordings of their performances, so an active trading community thrives. The tone and content of much of their music is a paean to the Canadian experience and touches on such themes as small-town life, geography, and hockey.
The Tragically Hip received a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame in 2002, and they were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the 2005 Juno Awards. They have performed at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and played a three-song set at the worldwide broadcast Live 8 benefit concert on July 2nd, 2005 to help make poverty history for the poor African nations.
On April 7th, 2009, the band's twelfth album We Are The Same was being released in North America, and it immediately rose to Number 1 on the Canadian charts. The album features twelve diverse new recordings produced by Bob Rock who had produced 2007's World Container and is perhaps best known for his work with Metallica, Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, The Offspring, Michael Bublé and Simple Plan. This album features songs that range from "levity and light to melancholy and anger" according to the band's website. Recorded primarily at The Bathouse Studio, band's recording studio located in a historical coach house west of their hometown, Kingston, Ontario, and its first single was "Love Is A First", which features the ironical addictive hook, 'love is a curse'.
Despite some side solo projects in the past couple of years, the band has completed a new studio album at The Bathouse Studio and in Toronto with Gavin Brown, who is perhaps best known for his work producing Metric, Three Days Grace, Barenaked Ladies and Billy Talent. The album is entitled Now For Plan A and it was released on October 2nd, 2012. This album's first singles were "At Transformation" and "Streets Ahead" and they are available on iTunes and through the band's website.
Man Machine Poem is the fourteenth studio album which is scheduled to be released June 17th, 2016. The album takes its name from a track on their Gold-selling 2012 release, Now For Plan A, and it was recorded at The Hip’s home studio The Bathouse, produced by Kevin Drew, founding member and producer of Broken Social Scene, Andy Kim (singer, songwriter and Arts & Crafts label co-founder) and Dave Hamelin, songwriter and producer from The Stills and Eight and a Half. Album pre-orders are currently available on either CD or Vinyl through the band's "Gift Shop" on their official website: www.TheHip.com or digitally through iTunes. “In A World Possessed By The Human Mind” and “Tired As Fuck" were its first singles, and both were made immediately available for digital download with the album's pre-order.
Early on May 24, 2016, The Tragically Hip announced via a post on their official website and through e-mail subscribers that its lead singer and primary lyricist, Gord Downie, is suffering from aggressive terminal brain cancer, and that the band will do one final national Canadian tour "For Gord". Concert dates for this final tour were available on-line through Ticketmaster, but sold out in minutes. There was a national outcry from devoted fans who claimed that scalpers had scooped up most of the tour's tickets using "bots". Petitions were filed to successfully encourage Canada's national television network, the CBC, to produce and air Live the final August 20, 2016 concert. Broadcast live from the band's hometown, at Kingston's Rogers K-Rock Centre, a national audience viewed The Tragically Hip's final tour show, The concert opened with "50 Mission Cap" and ended almost two hours later, after a third encore, with "Ahead By A Century". All proceeds from the tour were donated to The Gord Downie Fund, at the Sunnybrook Foundation for Brain Cancer Research. Donations can be sent to: http://sunnybrook.ca/foundation.
For the latest band details, please visit their official website: www.TheHip.com.
Fight
The Tragically Hip Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Another placid day ripples at the seams
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
It's all so subway grim and then it's gone
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Oh, go ahead and fight
Oh, we get so weary, taking fish off hooks
It's not as effortless as it may look
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Oh, fight
We lay down seething, smell our pillows burn
And drift off to the place where you'd think we'd learn
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Oh, go ahead and fight
I give, oh, I give, I said, I give
The Tragically Hip's song Fight delves into the complexities of relationships and the struggle to avoid conflict. The opening lines describe how people tend to wake up feeling different and lost in their own thoughts, trying to piece together the events of their dreams. The day seems ordinary, but there is an underlying feeling of unrest, and it's as if the day is on the brink of something that could go either way. The lyrics question whether stepping back from a situation is a result of agreeing with the other person or avoiding a fight.
The verses then transition into an introspection of one's state of mind, caught between the chaos and the stillness of life. The subway imagery symbolizes the mundane and linear nature of life. In contrast, the following moments of peace are fleeting, almost as if they never existed. The chorus repeats the same question, "Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right, or 'cause I don't want to fight?" and is then followed by an acknowledgment to "go ahead and fight."
The final verse describes being consumed by pent-up frustration and emotions, causing the pillows to smell of burning weakness, and eventually falling asleep in a world they are supposed to have learned from. The lyrics leave us with a sense of unresolved tension, and it's unclear whether the fight was avoided or if it's still impending.
Line by Line Meaning
We wake up different, rifle through our dreams
As we wake up, our different interpretations of our dreams cause us to approach the day with different perspectives.
Another placid day ripples at the seams
Despite our different mindsets, we are still faced with the everyday routine that seems to slightly unravel and cause ripples of disturbance.
Do you think I bow out 'cause I think you're right
Or 'cause I don't want to fight?
Are you assuming that I concede in an argument because I agree with you, or is it because I am avoiding conflict?
So tangle-minded then so becalmed
It's all so subway grim and then it's gone
Our minds are tangled with chaos and yet we remain calm, as the grim reality of life passes us by like fleeting moments on a subway ride.
Oh, go ahead and fight
Ironically, the artist encourages his counterpart to engage in their inner battle, despite the song's insistence on a mood of tranquility and conflict avoidance.
Oh, we get so weary, taking fish off hooks
It's not as effortless as it may look
The act of fishing is not as simple as it seems; it requires a lot of patience and the possibility of much frustrating, irritating work taking the fish off the hooks.
We lay down seething, smell our pillows burn
And drift off to the place where you'd think we'd learn
At night, we stew in our anger and negative emotions, while also contemplating in our subconscious what we ought to learn from our struggles.
I give, oh, I give, I said, I give
The artist acknowledges that sometimes he must concede, but this does not necessarily imply that he is acknowledging the other person as correct in the argument.
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Written by: Gordon Downie, Gordon Sinclair, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois, Robert Baker
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind