Hey, it’s jD here,
May is loud. A Forest Of Whispering Speakers is rolling out weekly, "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" closes its Hamilton run, the World Cup's coming, and somewhere in the middle of all that I'm trying to assemble podList 7 into something befitting the bands that built it in the first place. Buckle up. Here's the goods:
TL;DR
- Boi-1da reimagined 'Ahead by a Century' with Dallas Green and Ruby Waters - it's out
- Steve Berlin will produce the original cast recording for "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken"
- AFOWS launched April 30, with new episodes every Thursday in May
- "It's a Good Life" closes at Theatre Aquarius on May 16
- podList 7 - The Classics - drops May 15 for the Victoria Day long weekend
- Something's coming Monday, May 11
- May anniversaries: Henhouse turns 30, Saskadelphia turns 5, MMP singles turn 10
The First Verse
I keep coming back to the idea that this band keeps generating gravity. Thirty years after "Trouble at the Henhouse" landed, ten years after the final tour, almost nine years since Gord left us - and 'Ahead by a Century' just got reimagined by one of the most decorated producers in the world for the World Cup. The song is still doing work. It's still finding new ears. It's still a Canadian shorthand for something none of us can quite name.
That's not nostalgia. That's a song that won't sit down.
Ahead By A Century
Boi-1da, Dallas Green, and Ruby Waters reimagine 'Ahead by a Century'
It dropped April 24. Toronto producer Boi-1da - the guy behind some of the biggest hits of the last two decades - teamed up with Dallas Green of City and Colour and Ruby Waters to put a new spin on 'Ahead by a Century,' originally from "Trouble at the Henhouse" in 1996.
The track is part of "What If It All Goes Right?" - a Canada Soccer initiative called Perfect Pitch, with proceeds going to the Canada Soccer Foundation. It lands ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Canada co-hosts with the US and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. The full album drops June 5 and includes Alessia Cara, Charlotte Cardin, Jessie Reyez, Nelly Furtado, and a long list of others.
The version is slower, quieter, more restrained than the original. And here's the gut punch - Boi-1da pointed out that Dallas Green was one of the last musicians to work with Gord. That detail isn't in the credits, but it's in the song. You can hear it.
Stream it. Sit with it. Then go listen to the original and tell me which one wrecks you more.
Hip News
“Steve Berlin will produce the OCR for "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken." That's the news that surfaced in Episode 2 of A Forest Of Whispering Speakers. Berlin produced "Phantom Power" and "Music @ Work" with the band, and now he's coming back to produce the original cast recording of the Theatre Aquarius musical built around the Hip catalogue. Full circle stuff.
The Theatre Aquarius run closes May 16. If you're in the Hamilton orbit and haven't made it yet, the window's closing. The show moves to Thousand Islands Playhouse in Kingston for an October run, but there's something about catching a world premiere that doesn't repeat.
A Forest Of Whispering Speakers rolls out every Thursday in May. Four episodes drop this month. More on that below.
What I’ve Been Up To
I've been head-down on A Forest Of Whispering Speakers, which launched April 30 - just yesterday, depending on when you're reading this. Six episodes plus an epilogue, weekly Thursdays through June 4, all built around the world premiere of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" at Theatre Aquarius.
For the last month I've been researching, watching, and meeting with the creative team, cast, and the book writers The position I took going in is the one I always take - uncool and underqualified. I'm a fan who got in the room. The listener is the fan who didn't. That's the show.
Episode 1 - is out now. If you haven't started yet, start there. The conversations get richer as the run unfolds, because the show itself does. Watching the production evolve from preview to opening to a settled run has been one of the more loquacious privileges of my podcast life.
Episode Recaps
The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - 'An Inch an Hour'
Three returning panelists this time - Tom from New York, Ian from Maple Ridge, and Duxoop from Toledo - pulled apart a 'Day for Night' deep cut that's been retired since January 2013. We landed on the irony of a song called 'An Inch an Hour' moving at 150 BPM, the Springside Park reference in Napanee, the Trudeau "walk in the snow" line, and Duxoop's kicker about a minor league hockey team in Nebraska that plays the song after every period to this day. Duxoop, you set the bar.
Fully & Completely: Redux - "Now for Plan A"
Greg LeGros and I sat with the 2012 record that arguably started this whole podcast network. Greg pitched it as a "punishment album" on a different show in 2016 and the idea of it stuck with me ever since. We talked about what it means to listen to this album knowing what we now know - that most of the lyrics were written while Gord's wife was going through cancer treatment - and how that knowledge changes nothing and everything at the same time. Maybe the most personal Redux conversation we've had.
The Hip Compendium Is Coming.
Mark it: Monday, May 11.
That's all I'm gonna say.
Something to Think About
I've spent the last two weeks listening to every podList 7 entry that came in. The Classics - covers from the 1987 to 1995 era - drops May 15 for the Victoria Day long weekend. And I have to tell you, our community is one talented fucking group of people.
What strikes me as I'm trying to assemble a Hip-worthy running order is this - these songs are between thirty and almost forty years old. The youngest of them, 'Grace Too,' turns 32 this year. And people who weren't born when 'Small Town Bringdown' came out are still picking up guitars and reaching for these songs. Still finding something in them worth interpreting. Still building a relationship with a body of work that closed for new material in 2016.
That's the thing about a great song - it doesn't age. It just waits.
I keep thinking about Ian's line on the Shuffle podcast, where he railed against the idea that fans lose interest in the Hip after whichever album they discovered them on. Artists have to be allowed to evolve. Songs get to be reinterpreted. Catalogues get to keep working. And every time someone in the community sends me a cover, what they're really sending is proof - the songs still mean something, and the meaning is still being made.
The Classics drops May 15. You're going to love it.
Anniversaries & Nods
Cracking open the discography this month, May is stacked. Three milestones jumped out and a couple of singles deserve a tip of the hat too.
Thirty years ago this month, "Trouble at the Henhouse" landed - May 1996, four consecutive weeks at #1, and the record that would go on to win the 1997 Juno for Album of the Year. It's also the home of 'Ahead by a Century,' released as a single that same month and now sitting at #2 on the TTHTop40 Countdown. Thirty fucking years. So there's that.
Five years ago, "Saskadelphia" arrived - May 21, 2021. Six tracks from the Road Apples sessions, presumed lost in the 2008 Universal fire, recovered in 2019, and finally released. The original working title of "Road Apples" before the label rejected it. A small miracle of an EP.
Ten years ago this month, "Man Machine Poem" was teed up by 'In a World Possessed by the Human Mind' and 'Tired as Fuck' - both released May 2016 ahead of the album drop in June. The final studio record. The one that came with the diagnosis. Hard to believe it's been a decade.
A nod, too, to 'At Transformation' - May 2012, lead single from "Now for Plan A," and the song Greg and I keep circling back to as one of the band's great album openers.
Five anniversaries, one month. The Hip just keep on giving.
That's All Folks
Five episodes of A Forest Of Whispering Speakers, podList 7, the Compendium breadcrumb, the World Cup looming, Henhouse at 30. May's gonna move.
Until next month, yer pal.
— jD
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