Gord Downie’s great final act
EDITORIAL: WHAT OTHERS THINK
Gord Downie wrote songs about the 100th meridian, “where the great plains begin,” about the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Group of Seven. He wrote about the FLQ’s kidnapping of Pierre Laporte and the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard. He borrowed lines from the renowned Montreal novelist Hugh MacLennan and described with poetic power Canada’s otherworldly landscapes and the isolation of inhabiting them.
Downie, the captivating, convulsive frontman of the Tragically Hip, arguably Canada’s most beloved band, who died this week from a rare form of brain cancer, became a national symbol through his appreciation in song of our country.
But he will be remembered not just as a gifted chronicler of local stories and folklore or as a singer of uncommon charisma and subtlety, but also for his final act, during which he pushed the country that was his greatest subject to keep striving.
For more than 30 years, the Hip were among Canada’s most popular acts, amassing 11 top 10 Canadian singles and selling more than six million albums domestically. Their sensitive, challenging brand of blues rock earned the band 16 Junos. Roughly one Canadian in 30 owns a Tragically Hip album.
Downie was annoyed by the question of why his band never caught on in the United States, a fact that long confounded critics and fans. But the answer may be inextricably linked to the Hip’s enduring appeal at home. There was in the band’s music and lyrics, in their sound and look, in their humility, even in their name, something ineffably, idiosyncratically Canadian, what Margaret Atwood would call a vivid sense of “here.”
If there was any doubt about Downie’s status as a Canadian icon, the last year has surely obliterated it. The singer discovered his cancer after experiencing a seizure in the winter of 2015. The announcement a few months later of his terminal illness prompted front-page tributes in every newspaper and a period of national mourning.
In the wake of his diagnosis, Downie rededicated himself to rock n’ roll, a practice he described as elemental, like falling in love. He released a final, critically acclaimed album with his bandmates, high school pals from Kingston, and embarked on a cross-country tour. Those concerts were a gift. But Downie’s final act was not simply a courageous farewell to music and fans; it was also a last gesture of patriotism, an admonishment to his country to do better.
During the Hip’s final shows, watched in arenas and on television by more than 11 million people, Downie shared his worries for Canada’s future. He spoke of our environmental obligations, a concern shaped during a childhood spent on the shores of Lake Ontario. And he urged the country to “start a new relationship with Indigenous Peoples.”
In his last months, he released The Secret Path, a multimedia project that tells the true story of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Ojibwe boy who died of exposure and hunger after running away from an Ontario residential school in 1966. Downie created a fund in his and Wenjack’s name and said he hoped this push for reconciliation would be his ultimate legacy.
The singer understood that as a national symbol he had a rare opportunity. As his disease took its toll, the urgency was not lost on him. “No dress rehearsal,” he had written years before. “This is our life.”
His was too short, but what he leaves will live on: a masterful appreciation of our country, in all of its wonder and strangeness, its shortcomings and its promise.
An editorial from the Toronto Star (distributed by The Canadian Press)