Day 4 - 291 -- A Canadian Loss

As I was leaving for my first meeting of the day, I heard the news -- THE news of the day. Gord Downie passed away overnight. He was the front man for the band The Tragically Hip, a band formed by high school friends from Kingston Ontario. The name is said to come from a comedy sketch on Michael Nesmith's hour long video, Elephant Parts -- a strange world that links us together in such unexpected ways. The Prime Minister made a statement about the death of this friend -- with obvious tears in his eyes --  "We are less as a country without Gord Downie."

Gord left us with so much. A definite legacy has been left behind in his music and ideas. The Hip made studio albums and Gord made several solo albums. Of the group's 13 albums, three were certified diamond while eight certified as platinum. Seven made number 1 in Canada. Gord's poetic words drew mental pictures that made us see life and ourselves differently. Those words put to music told the stories of Canada --not just the uplifting, happy stories, either. Gord never shied away from looking at the parts of life and our identity that might make some people squirm a bit. He told the stories of tragedies that might have been avoided -- such as wrongful imprisonment or the tragedy of the residential school system. He showed us where we could be better.

In recent years, Gord worked to bring Canadians to a place of understanding the situation present and past of indigenous peoples. He understood that to achieve the second part of Truth and Reconciliation meant we had to see the truth -- in all its ugliness. He developed an audio and visual recording called The Secret Path, a story about an aboriginal boy who died of hunger and exposure when he ran away from a residential school. Gord spoke out at those final concerts, pleading with us to see the problem and work together to fix it.

I chose two songs to share today. The lyrics of the first deal with struggle of indigenous peoples. The second song is about a police officer in Toronto who visits a small town further north to relax. There Gord sang of seeing 'the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time.' Tonight there is one more star out there to reveal itself.

Now the Struggle has a Name -- The Tragically Hip


Bobcaygeon -- The Tragically Hip