Hey, it's jD here, and I'm writing this on Canada Day, which feels about right for a band whose last song on "We Are the Same" might as well be called Canada Day. (More on that below. The boys gave us a lot to chew on this month.)
I want to be straight with you up top. The last six weeks have been some of the hardest I've had in a while. I'm coming out the other side now, slowly, and a big part of why is you. So this letter is a little more personal than usual. Stick with me.
TL;DR
• A real talk from me about my mental health, where I've been since May, and where I'm headed. Plus resources, in case you need them too. • Forever Hip in Kingston is coming, and we'll have more for you soon. • The Man Machine Poem 10th anniversary live streams are taking shape, and I need panelists from Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. • "A Forest of Whispering Speakers" is moving to October. • Two great On Shuffle episodes recapped: 'Country Day' and 'Yawning or Snarling'. • There is now a Tragically Hip ice cream. It is called the Tragically Chip. This is not a drill. • A nudge to go revisit Discovering Downie and sit with Gord's solo work. • Ten years ago this month, the final tour began.
THE FIRST VERSE
Every month I sit down to write this thing and I try to find the honest version of where I'm at. Some months that's easy. This month it wasn't, because the honest version is that I've been unwell. But here's the thing I keep coming back to. This community, this band, this dumb beautiful hobby of talking about songs on a Wednesday night, it has been a rope when I needed one. I don't say that to be dramatic. I say it because it's true, and because somebody reading this might need to hear that a rope exists.
So let's get into it.
A NOTE ON MY MENTAL HEALTH
I've been on a downward slope since around the second week of May. Things came to a head in mid-June. And as I write this, it seems like I might finally be crawling skyward from beneath the hold I've been in.
This is nothing new to me. I've been struggling since high school. This sickness has taken a lot from me over the years, including some of my memories and, after an electro convulsive therapy mishap, some of my ability to make new ones. I don't share that for sympathy. I share it because mental health is health, full stop, and I think we do each other a disservice when we pretend otherwise.
Here's the part I actually want you to take away. Through all of this, I found podcasting. And at the same time, I fell back in love with this band. The Hip unites us. It brings us together. Over the past couple of weeks I received messages of hope and love from this community that I will not forget. So, to everyone who reached out: hey, man. Thanks.
If you're in a rough spot too, please don't sit in it alone. Talk to your GP. If things feel more urgent than that, go to your local emergency department, or call or text 988, the suicide crisis helpline in Canada. You're worth the call.
This is a heavy way to open a letter, I know. But it's the truth of my month, and you all have earned the truth. So there's that.
HIP NEWS
Forever Hip in Kingston is on the horizon. It's the gathering, the reason a lot of us are pointing our summer toward one city. I'm keeping this short on purpose, because there's more coming and I want to give it the room it deserves when the details are locked. For now, just know it's happening, and I'd love to see your face there.
WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO
Even in the thick of it, I've been building.
The big one is a series of live streams that will form the spine of our coverage of the 10th anniversary of the Man Machine Poem tour. The idea is simple and, I think, kind of beautiful. Each episode airs on the exact 10-year date of the specific show it covers. Same night, ten years on.
To do that properly, I need voices from the cities the band played. I've still got holes to fill in Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. If that's you, or if you were in those rooms in 2016, I want you. You can put your name in through the panelist sign-up form, and I'll be in touch.
From there, I'm still plugging away on "A Forest of Whispering Speakers." It's going to drop in October now, to coincide with the production moving to Kingston and debuting there early in the month. The shift in timing is the right call, and I think you'll see why when it lands.
EPISODE RECAPS
'Country Day' (The Tragically Hip On Shuffle). The last track on "We Are the Same" got the full treatment from Mike, Jeff, and Greg, and the conversation went deep. Jeff laid out a genuine theory that the song is really about Canada Day seen through an Indigenous lens, pointing to the line "so God keep our land, because we certainly can't." Greg, who came in admitting "We Are the Same" is probably his least favourite Hip record, walked away converted: "It was the last song on an album I didn't like all that well, but goddamn, jD made me listen to it so many times that I found all the beauty in there." That's the whole project in one sentence, honestly.
'Yawning or Snarling' (The Tragically Hip On Shuffle). Our most international panel yet, with Andy from St. Thomas, Glynn from Melbourne, and Thomas from Oxford, dug into the fourth track on "Day for Night." Thomas nailed what makes it special: Gord changes only two words between the day verse and the night verse, "glaring" to "throbbing," and the whole picture flips. Glynn, a photographer by trade, traced how "the panning of the slide guitar just draws me through the song," then closed the night with a line I keep thinking about: "Time shouldn't be an enemy to good prose." Thirty-two years on, and we talked about it for an hour.
THE HIP ICE CREAM?!?
I'm not making this up. Kawartha Dairy and The Tragically Hip have launched a flavour called The Tragically Chip, and it went on sale June 22. It's a maple whisky ice cream with dark chocolatey chunks and a black cherry ripple. There's a real poetry to the pairing, too: Kawartha Dairy was founded almost 90 years ago in Bobcaygeon, the same village that gave us one of the band's most beloved songs. Best part, a portion of the proceeds goes to the Breakfast Club of Canada. So you can eat ice cream and feed kids. That's a good deal.
SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT
I've been thinking a lot about Gord's solo material lately. When the fog rolled in this past month, one of the things I reached for was an episode of Discovering Downie, just to get my fix.
If you don't know it, Discovering Downie is part of The Tragically Hip Podcast Series, and it was our feature podcast in the summer of 2024. Join Kirk Lane, Craig Rogers, and Justin St. Louis as they bring the goods, having fully completed their homework for the week's assignment, working through Gord's solo catalogue record by record, from "Coke Machine Glow" all the way to "Lustre Parfait."
Here's my thought for you this month. We talk about Gord the frontman so much that it's easy to forget the size of what he made on his own. The solo canon is a whole second life's worth of work, and it's full of him: the curiosity, the grief, the play, the ache. If you've missed out on this podcast, you owe it to yer self to go back to it and immerse yourself in the world, in the mind, and in the love that is Gord's solo canon. It's a good way to keep him close.
ANNIVERSARIES AND NODS
This one's short this month, and I'd rather give you one true thing than pad it out with stuff I can't stand behind.
Ten years ago this month, it began. On July 22, 2016, the Man Machine Poem tour opened in Victoria. From there it rolled across the country, Vancouver on July 24 and Edmonton on July 28, before the August dates that carried it home to Kingston. We knew, going in, what that tour was. Ten years on, the dates still land like a held breath. That's exactly why the anniversary live streams matter to me, and why I want to do them right.
THAT'S ALL FOLKS
That's the month. Thank you for reading a heavier letter than usual, and thank you, sincerely, for being the kind of community a person can lean on. I'm okay. I'm getting there. And I'm glad I get to keep doing this with you.
Before you go, three small asks:
• If you've got ties to Calgary, Edmonton, or Winnipeg, throw your name in for the Man Machine Poem anniversary live streams through the panelist sign-up form. • Go spend some time with Gord's solo work and the Discovering Downie episodes. • And if today's note about my head resonated more than you'd like, please reach out to someone. Your GP, your local emerge, or 988 in Canada.
Until next month, yer pal. -jD
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