The Tragically Hip Podcast Series

A Hip Head named Andrew sent jD a tip: an old dinosaur movie where a character starts reciting 'Thugs' and doesn't stop.
The movie is "The People That Time Forgot," and the line lands thirty-five and a half minutes in. Greg LeGros (co-host of Fully & Completely) has seen it, because of course he has. His mind was blown anyway. So the stream opens on a movie and spends an hour on a three-minute song from "Day for Night" that gets under your fingernails and stays there.
The tale of the tape comes off the redesigned Hip Handbook, where every song now has its own card. 'Thugs' was played live 122 times (setlist.fm agrees), from July 16, 1993, the first date of the first Another Roadside Attraction, to August 3, 2016, night two in Calgary on the final tour. The Tragically Hip Archive holds 44 recordings of it, and it landed at Song Forty-Seven of 169 on The Tragically Hip Top Forty Countdown. Then the stream plays the version jD heard first: the fast one, from the Kumbaya Festival in September 1993, a year before the record, on a tape a friend made off MuchMusic and played for him in a parking lot. It is not the song that ended up on "Day for Night." Not even close.
From there Toots from Whitby, Tracey from LA, and Justin from Bridport take it apart: two chords, a phaser, Johnny Fay riding the rim of the snare, Gord Sinclair holding the whole thing down, a bluegrass ghost, and a theory about one word, 'rolling,' that nobody can shake.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
The icebreaker: a tattoo from The Hip. An album cover, a line about puppies, a design jD has already drawn, and Justin's cat, indifferent and furious at once.
The new Hip Handbook up close: song cards, two daily games (Bring It All Back and (un)Locked in the Trunk of a Car), and the Passport, which tells jD he's seen The Hip 15 times, not the 17 he thought.
Toots was in Markham in July 1993, owned the whole show on VHS, and remembers what Gord said right before 'Thugs' started.
The 'Ruby' rabbit hole: Justin went through six versions of an old bluegrass number to find where Gord's voice crack came from.
'Nautical Disaster' on one side, 'Inevitability of Death' on the other, and Toots's case for the most underrated banger on the record.
Justin, a Yes fan to the bone, puts Gord Sinclair in the same sentence as Chris Squire.
Barrie, Canada Day 1994: bottles thrown at Daniel Lanois, and Gord in a mood about it. jD and Toots were both there.
Tracey asked an AI whether anyone had ever linked 'Thugs' to George Michael's 'Freedom! '90.' It invented a recording, apologized, and invented another one.
The wheel picks next week's song, and jD swears it isn't rigged.
"I specifically came home from that show, jacked on this new song that they played, which was 'Thugs.'" - Toots from Whitby
"Chris Squire is the best of all time. And I think Gord Sinclair can hang with him." - Justin from Bridport
THE PANEL
Toots from Whitby. First heard 'Thugs' in Markham in July 1993 and liked it instantly. Once sang it with a tribute band at a Gord Downie tribute night at the Mustache Club in Oshawa. His plug: his new band, Dead at Recess, whose first show included 'It Can't Be Nashville Every Night.' Find them on Instagram and Facebook.
Tracey from LA. Stepped up to pinch-hit this week. Loves "Day for Night" for its mood, thinks 'Thugs' ends too soon, and brought the strangest homework of the night.
Justin from Bridport. Came to "Day for Night" backwards, after "Phantom Power" and "Music @ Work," and wore it out on Interstate 89 with 'Thugs' and 'Yawning or Snarling' turned up. It's banquet season for the Sprint Cars of New England, so his plugs went to Discovering Downie and the tip jar.
Big thanks to Toots, Tracey, and Justin, to Andrew for the tip, and to a chat that did the fact-checking on the fly. Next week the wheel hands the panel 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car.' Find a live version you love in the Handbook and send it to jD.
THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN
A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7
THE HIP HANDBOOK
The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com
YER LETTER
One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com
THE TIP JAR
Justin said it on the stream: buy jD a coffee. Tips keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40
FIND US
Home: home.tthpods.com
Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com
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KEEP LISTENING
It's A Good Life - Setting the Scene: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/2cb8095f-d6b5-42e2-a555-4f0319735ea9
Discovering Downie: "Secret Path": https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/e086ade9-373f-4bd3-9d84-513b2097cac5
'Poets': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/339c232a-4700-404b-a533-779a14e1cf45
Live play count via setlist.fm. First and last plays, the 44 recordings, and the Top Forty Countdown position from The Hip Handbook, as cited on the stream. The Kumbaya Festival date, the track order, and the 'Ruby' history as cited on the stream.
#TheTragicallyHip #DayForNight #TTHOnShuffle #GordSinclair #TheHipHandbook #HipHeads

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October 15th, 2006, was the first night 'World Container' was played live. By The Hip Handbook's count, it was never once an opener.
It's the last song on "World Container," the record Bob Rock produced (per Jeff on the stream), and it didn't crack the top forty of the TTHTop40 Countdown. By that same Handbook count, The Tragically Hip played it live 94 times. The poll in the Facebook group pulled over a hundred votes, with more than 80 percent on the top two answers, and the question it started with is still the right one: what is a world container?
**Jeff from Newmarket**, **Adam from Tampa**, and **Glynn from Melbourne** each come at it from a different direction. Jeff says it was the last big record by The Hip he actively picked up, which makes it a goodbye of sorts. Adam has kept the record in his bottom three (only because the rest are so strong), then listened to this one fifteen times and heard a Rolling Stones song. Glynn ignored it for years, got sent back by an episode of Fully & Completely: redux, and has an elevator pitch that jD pinned to the wall. Three fans, three answers, no overlap.
Then the lyric sheet comes out. One line in the first verse stops the table cold, and nobody agrees on why it's there. Glynn counts twenty-three words you could talk about for a very long time. Adam goes looking for how the song got written, and the answer starts with a piece of paper.
**WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE**
• The icebreaker: a song by The Hip that says Halloween. Jeff goes for 'Thugs,' Glynn for 'The Dire Wolf,' and Adam hears kids at the door in 'Gift Shop.' The chat brings 'Scared' and 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car.'
• The Hip Handbook's On This Day turns up four shows for October 28th, and jD's seat at Massey Hall in 2000 comes with a pole.
• Adam on the Rolling Stones song he didn't get as a kid, and the fifteen listens it took to hear it here.
• Jeff on four chords, a rhythm that won't sit on the grid, and a song about a container that can't hold its own lyrics.
• How it started, via This Is Our Life: a poem on a piece of paper and a guitar part Rob already had.
• Glynn on a tour bus after the show, and why every night starts to blur into one.
• The new closing question: would you play it for someone who doesn't know The Hip? Adam needs a sophisticated friend. Jeff needs a musical one. Glynn's answer is shorter.
• Next week the wheel lands on 'Thugs,' from "Day for Night."
"I build a story from those 23 words and it grows and grows inside your head." - **Glynn from Melbourne**
"He very rarely will talk or explain a song, because then that's like the magician who explains how the trick works." - **Jeff from Newmarket**
**THE PANEL**
• **Jeff from Newmarket**. Back again, originally out of Belleville, and playing guitar, bass, and vocals in a cover band with a January 16th date at the Monarch in Toronto. Says he was the bass player in the musical David Hein wrote before "Come From Away." Hears the song differently twenty years on.
• **Adam from Tampa**. Back again (by jD's count, the fourth or fifth time). Got the record around 2017, the vinyl in 2021, and found this song among his five favourites on it in his own notes. Had a kind word at the end for It's A Good Life, the five-episode series on the making of the musical.
• **Glynn from Melbourne**. Back after 'Just as Well,' and joined from Melbourne, where it was still morning. Ignored the record for years until a Fully & Completely: redux episode sent him back, and it now sits in his top five. A photographer who leads photo tours around the world, he says he's the only Glynn Lavender in the world, so look him up.
Big thanks to Jeff, Adam, and Glynn, and to a chat that was electric all night. Twenty years on, 'World Container' still ends the record and starts an argument, and it's a good way to hear The Tragically Hip and Gord Downie fresh. Go put it on.
**THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN**
A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7
**THE HIP HANDBOOK**
The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com. Version 6.0 is on the way, with a passport that tracks your stats and a daily game, a bit like Wordle: guess the month and year of a set list in five tries.
**YER LETTER**
One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com
**THE TIP JAR**
Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40
**FIND US**
Home: home.tthpods.com
Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com
Facebook community: community.tthpods.com
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YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods
Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com
**MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM**
'Just as Well': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/ddf96225-1bd4-468b-881a-aa091a7e6148
'Vaccination Scar': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/5fa3fc7c-f01b-4eae-a3de-5cadc658b9f9
'Poets': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/339c232a-4700-404b-a533-779a14e1cf45
#TheTragicallyHip #WorldContainer #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #TTHPods #HipHeads

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A few weeks before his night on the panel, Dave from Montreal texted jD one request: 'Sharks.' Then the wheel picked it on its own.
He had his reasons. On December 29th, 1999, Dave heard about a last-minute show on the radio and drove straight to the Horseshoe Tavern, two days before the New Year's shows, and by setlist.fm's count that was the first night The Tragically Hip ever played 'Sharks' live. It's track nine on "Music @ Work," and it showed up in a set sixteen times in all, the last one in Chicago in October 2004. So the stream skipped the studio cut and played the Horseshoe recording Dave sent over. It changed a mind or two.
The TTHTop40 Countdown had it 123rd of 169. The poll in the Facebook group was kinder: 55% love it, another 20% like it. Kirk from Chino has a theory about why a low ranking is no insult. Dave isn't nearly as forgiving of the ranking (and says so).
Then Tracey from LA, Dave, and Kirk get into a song Kirk says is three chords and a jam: Gord Sinclair's bass line, Rob Baker handed a blank canvas, a firmament, the Marianas Trench, and a shark with opinions. Somebody ends up doing two hours of homework. Somebody else has a crackpot theory.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
The icebreaker: a song by The Hip that sounds like autumn. Tracey goes gloomy, Dave bookends a record, and Kirk slips over to Gord Downie's solo catalogue.
The Hip Handbook's On This Day turns up Music Without Borders, a 2001 benefit at the Air Canada Centre. Dave was there, for a night he says has been lost to history.
Kirk on the House of Blues and Anaheim, and why "Music @ Work" is the record where The Hip became his band in real time.
Studio or stage: Dave's case that 'Sharks' is a studio recording that comes across live, and Tracey's case that the live cut made it a different song. Plus the Rolling Stones she hears in the jam.
Two crackpot theories about who's doing the talking in this song. One of them involves a polar bear.
Gord Sinclair shining brightest on this one, according to Dave.
A challenge for the Facebook group: somebody has to invent the 'Sharks' dance.
GEDfest Toronto, looking back, and the soundcheck that told jD Johnny Fay was really coming. It comes back Saturday, October 16, 2027, details to come.
"From the second that I heard this song at the Horseshoe Tavern in December of 1999, I was like, there's something special here." - Dave from Montreal
"And I'm like, whose point of view is that? The shark?" - Tracey from LA
THE PANEL
Tracey from LA. Used to skip 'Sharks,' and doesn't anymore. Tried playing it the morning of the stream, and on the live cut heard the band out front in a way the studio version never gave her.
Dave from Montreal. Back on the panel, and the one who asked for 'Sharks' before the wheel did. Was in the room at the Horseshoe in December 1999, and puts this one in his top fifty songs by The Hip, knowing full well he's on an island.
Kirk from Chino. Back after a short break to pinch-hit, and one of the Discovering Downie panel. Saw The Hip in Hollywood, San Francisco, and Anaheim when "Music @ Work" was new. His plugs this time: GEDfest in every city, Discovering Downie, Gord's "Secret Path" ten years on, and It's A Good Life.
Big thanks to Tracey, Dave, and Kirk, and to a chat that stayed loud the whole hour. Kirk came in liking 'Sharks' and left loving it. Go find the Horseshoe show and hear it for yourself.
THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN
A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7
IT'S A GOOD LIFE
Kirk's last plug: five episodes on the making of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," the musical built on the music of The Hip, told by the people who made it. Start at the start: https://www.redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/2cb8095f-d6b5-42e2-a555-4f0319735ea9
The musical runs at the Kingston Grand Theatre until November 8: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026
THE HIP HANDBOOK
The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com
YER LETTER
Once a month, one email with the whole network in it: what went out across all eight shows, what's coming, and the odd thing that never makes it to a microphone. Free: subscribe.tthpods.com
THE TIP JAR
Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40
FIND US
Home: home.tthpods.com
Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com
Facebook community: community.tthpods.com
Instagram: @tthpods
YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods
Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com
KEEP LISTENING
Discovering Downie: "Secret Path": https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/e086ade9-373f-4bd3-9d84-513b2097cac5
'Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787
'The Bastard': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/11be433d-56cf-4213-8726-9fc7cec327f2
Live play count, first and last plays, and the date of the 2001 Music Without Borders benefit via setlist.fm. Track number, the countdown rank, and the poll as cited on the stream. Dave's memories of the Horseshoe and the Air Canada Centre are his own, from the stream.
#TheTragicallyHip #MusicAtWork #TTHOnShuffle #GordSinclair #RobbyBaker #HipFans

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One question, asked of every person who built the show. On the last day, the answer goes to the people in the seats.
Every conversation in this series ended the same way. Same question, same words, read off a cheat sheet so jD wouldn't botch it: if this production does what you hope it does, what do the people in the seats walk out of the theatre feeling? He asked the producer. He asked the director, both writers, and the cast. And somewhere along the way it became clear that the people who made It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken can't really answer it (not from up on the stage). They can hope. Then the lights go down, and it's out of their hands and into yours.
So Day 5 of 5 hands the mic over. The company tells you what they were hoping for. Fans of The Tragically Hip tell you what they walked in with - excitement, nerves, a healthy suspicion of anybody who messes with an arrangement, and, in one case, two packs of tissues. Then opening night from the other side of the curtain, where it turns out everybody was sweating. Then the walk out. Then the whole thing heads home to Kingston.
On Monday, jD promised to stay Uncool and Underqualified to the bitter end. This is the bitter end.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
Talia Schlanger didn't answer the question. She brought a numbered list.
A co-writer who got through every preview just fine, then came apart on opening night - and what a friend told him at intermission.
The one rule Karim Butt gave himself fifteen minutes before curtain, guitar in hand.
Why 700 people can't all lie to you at once.
A joke both writers hate that the crowd can't stop laughing at.
A self-described live guy, wary of anybody messing with a song by The Hip, on what they did to 'Bobcaygeon'.
A fan who walked in with the whole show figured out, and how that went.
Brett Christopher of the Thousand Islands Playhouse on the moment Kingston is going to feel like nowhere else.
The last word goes to the person this whole thing started with.
THE COMPANY
Michael Rubinoff, producer
Mary Francis Moore, director
Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe, co-writers
Talia Schlanger (Kate), Ali Momen (Waleed), Karim Butt (Sam), Tahirih Vejdani (Didi), and Rebecca Auerbach (Abigail)
Brett Christopher, Managing Artistic Director, Thousand Islands Playhouse
And the fans in the lobby, Jeff from Belleville, Leslie from Toronto, and Sarah from Buffalo among them
"It's a seed that we could hopefully plant inside of people, and they will have the choice to water it and to make it a tree." - Ahmed Moneka, co-writer
Big thanks to the cast, the writers, and the creative team, to Theatre Aquarius and the Thousand Islands Playhouse, and to every fan who let a guy with a microphone ask how they felt (most of them weren't strangers by the end). The people on the stage can only hope. A full house in the dark tells them whether it worked, all at once. That closes the run of It's A Good Life on The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Kingston, it's yer turn.
KINGSTON - OCTOBER 22 TO NOVEMBER 8
The Thousand Islands Playhouse brings It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken to the Kingston Grand Theatre. Opening night is sold out. The cast recording is out now, if you want the songs stuck in your head on the drive home.
Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026
THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN
You rank the records. The show starts January 4, 8pm, on YouTube. Ballots close November 30.
Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7
THE TIP JAR
Five episodes in five days. Editing is hard. Buy jD a coffee.
Support: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40
FIND US
Home: home.tthpods.com
Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com
Facebook community: community.tthpods.com
Instagram: @tthpods
YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods
Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com
MORE IT'S A GOOD LIFE
Setting the Scene, The Players, The Craft, and The Music
All episodes: redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474
#ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #HipFans #TTHPods #CanadianMusic

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A percussionist who couldn't swing, a chart that changes time signature every bar, and basic tracks cut at the Bathouse in Bath, Ontario.
You know what these songs are supposed to feel like. jD has been carrying 'Courage' around since the fall of 1992, and he walked into this one bracing for jazz hands, a key change nobody asked for, and somebody belting 'Bobcaygeon' from the lip of the stage with their arms out like they were hailing a cab.
Day four of It's A Good Life is the one every fan of The Tragically Hip walked in nervous about. The music. Trust was yesterday. Courage and hope come back today, and all three have to hold. So jD went and found the people who held the songs in their hands: the music supervisor, the musical director, the man who wrote the Middle Eastern music, and the producer who made two records with The Hip and then made the original cast recording. One of them saw the band in Calgary in the eighties, back when he was playing bars there himself. None of them came at this lightly.
Gord Downie's phrasing is hard to write down. Steve Berlin says there's no such thing as swing in Arabic music. And 'Gift Shop' just goes - no verse, chorus, bridge to hang on to. This is how a theatre band learned to play them anyway.
WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
• Bob Foster (orchestrations and music supervision) on the only way to treat this catalogue, and the nights he went down to the basement with a guitar and came back up with something.
• Richard Evans (music director) on notating Gord's melodies by ear, and why a singer who doesn't sound like anybody else is so hard to put on paper.
• Levon Ichkhanian (music coordinator and composer of the Middle Eastern music) on horizontal versus vertical, and why nobody can explain Middle Eastern music in five minutes.
• Steve Berlin on cutting the basic tracks at the Bathouse, finishing the vocals and the Arabic parts in Toronto, and the counting trick that got a percussionist swinging.
• A chart for 'As I Wind Down the Pines' that Steve says he couldn't read at all, and his story of how that song came together in the first place.
• Why 'Grace, Too' runs long on the record, and a session somebody was in and out of in about ten minutes.
• 'Fireworks', and a little nugget lifted from the way Gord used to close it out live.
• Jesse LaVercombe (co-writer) on the song he'd put up against any end-of-Act-One number in contemporary musical theatre.
• Jake Gold, manager of The Tragically Hip, on what the crowd almost did at 'Ahead by a Century', and Rebecca Auerbach (Abigail) on a standing ovation nobody saw coming.
• Levon at a CD table after an outdoor festival in Waterloo, and a couple who heard something through their balcony doors.
• Opening night, and the producer who went back the next night knowing exactly what was coming.

Also in the room: producer Michael Rubinoff, Ali Momen (Waleed), Talia Schlanger (Kate), and Sameer Cash (Fadi).
IN THEIR WORDS
"If you don't respect The Hip's music and want to do it for that reason, then just don't do it." - Bob Foster
"Everything through the lens of gratitude." - Levon Ichkhanian
Thanks to Bob, Richard, Levon, and Steve for handing over the songs and every story that came attached to them. jD came in braced for the worst and owns up, at the end, to exactly what he had wrong. Tomorrow: Curtain Up, in Kingston, in front of the people who know these songs best.
IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN - KINGSTON
The Thousand Islands Playhouse production, with songs by The Hip, runs at the Kingston Grand Theatre from October 22 to November 8, 2026. Opening night is sold out.
Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026

THE ORIGINAL CAST RECORDING
Produced by Steve Berlin, out the same day the curtain goes up in Kingston.

THE TIP JAR
Four days of this in one week. Editing is hard. Buy jD a coffee and help keep the battery charged.
buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40

MORE IT'S A GOOD LIFE
Setting the Scene: LINK NEEDED
The Players: LINK NEEDED
The Craft: LINK NEEDED

It's A Good Life is part of The Tragically Hip Podcast Series.

Facebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com

#ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #TTHPods #CanadianRock #HipHeads

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