Music

You Need to Listen to This Song Right Now #63

Heavy Rotation: Ahead by a Century, The Tragically Hip (Trouble at the Henhouse, 1996)

Incessant Airplay. That’s how they used to sell music, and heavy rotation was a music industry term for songs that, one way or another, got it. It referred to the large number of times a particular record was placed on turntables at radio stations. Until the 1980s, this was the only way to get new music into the ears and brains of listeners, so heavy rotation meant increased sales — good for record companies and artists alike.

Some people still spin records at home and let them play. Most don’t. However, the term still applies, just in a different way. Streaming services like Spotify sell subscriptions to listeners and then pay artists based on listens. At least, that’s the way we think it works.

For me, heavy rotation means a song that is in my head for some reason. Maybe for a moment, maybe for a day, maybe for longer. It’s a song that I come back to time and again, and it still feels just as good. This series of articles is dedicated to these songs.

My aim here is to highlight a particular song by a particular band or singer. It’s good to know a bit about the band, a bit about where the song fits into its history, and where the song fits into what was happening in music at that time. Then there’s the song itself. Who’s playing on it, what are the lyrics getting at, and why is it so good? How does it still occupy sonic space in our lives?

I’ll (try to) keep it short. It shouldn’t take you any longer to read this than the song itself. To that end, I put a YouTube video of the original recording at the top of the article so you can listen as you read. Or not. And because a song is often much different live than in the recording studio, I stick a live clip on at the end.

What song is in your head right now? Here’s the one that won’t leave mine today:

#63 — Ahead by a Century, The Tragically Hip (Trouble at the Henhouse, 1996)

I’m two years and 63 episodes into this little series, but I’ve never written about one of my favourite bands, the Tragically Hip, from Kingston, Ontario in Canada. They were and still are a Canadian institution, and even people who don’t like them would likely admit that they had a profound impact on the music scene in Canada in the 1990s and early 2000s.

But not in many other places outside of that.

I’ve hesitated because of how to go about writing about them and the Canadiana (yeah, that’s a thing) that they often sang about without going too deep into the kind of explanation that there isn’t room for here. It included plenty of allusions to hockey, but it went way beyond that too.

But reading “Should You Meet Your Heroes?” by Oscar Rhea recently changed that. Few people can figure out why they never took off anywhere but the Great White North, and he begins his article by asking, “If you live outside of Canada, you are surely asking yourself: ‘Who in God’s name are The Tragically Hip?’”

And then explains it better than I could, as follows:

“Between 1996 and 2016, the Tragically Hip were the highest selling Canadian band north of the border. Unlike other Canucks, who downplay their roots to make it big in America, The Tragically Hip encapsulated what it felt like to live in the frozen shadow of a twentieth century superpower. When Gord Downie — the band’s lead singer — died of brain cancer, there was heartbreak on every street corner in the country.”

They broke in as a heavily touring bar band in the late 80s, known for their raucous live show led by a mesmerizing frontman. “Up to Here” (1989) and “Road Apples” (1991) were their first two full-length albums and then really hit the national mainstream with “Fully Completely” (1993) and “Day for Night” (1994). MuchMusic, the Canadian version of MTV, pushed along their cross-country popularity.

This song — Ahead by a Century — is taken from their fifth album, “Trouble at the Henhouse” (1996), and represents a bit of a departure for them as more of a sweet ballad without the usual snarl of the lead guitar and the lead vocal.

This was the peak of their popularity, but they were still huge for years to come. They made eight more albums in the twenty years that followed, for a total of thirteen.

In 2016, it was announced that beloved frontman Gord Downie had cancer and likely would not be long for this world. That summer, they embarked on their last tour of Canada, going coast to coast one last time.

It was emotional, for sure, and I got to see them in Vancouver that July. I had seen them in a small sweaty club in the early 90s (it might have been my first 19+ show that I legitimately got into), and I’d seen them at outdoor summer festivals. But this one was different because everyone knew that this would be it. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house after they finished their second encore.

Their last show was on August 20 in Kingston, and it was broadcast nationwide. Many people stopped whatever they were doing. Ahead by a Century was the last song they played.

A year later, on October 17, 2017, it was announced that Gord Downie had died at 53. A genuine feeling that something was lost that day was no doubt felt by many. Ahead by a Century was the most-played song on Canadian radio that day.

Things still stop for me when this one comes on. Nostalgia and all.

It’s probably just as well to get into this song itself now.

Bobby Baker provides the sweet acoustic guitar. “First we climb a tree / and maybe then we’ll talk / or sit silently / and listen to our thoughts.” Just two kids, in the golden years of childhood, together imagine what lies ahead. “Illusions of someday / cast in a golden light / no dress rehearsal / this is our life.” That’s rhythm guitarist Paul Langlois on trademark backing vocals.

“And that’s where the hornet stung me / and I had a feverish dream / of revenge and doubt / tonight, we smoke them out.” It’s all so real, so immediate, so in the moment, so now.

The rhythm section of Johnny Fay on drums and Gord Sinclair fully join in at 1:58; things pick up, and by now, your head should be nodding. And if you’ve heard this song before, it’s here where a smile might make its way across your face at the sweetness of it all, at the memory of what once was.

I love the one electric guitar chord at 2:13. It’s there as a break — as if to say that we’ve grown up, and this is the point at which it got serious.

“You are ahead by a century / and disappointing you is getting me down.” Someone moved on, and someone didn’t. Heartbreaking, but that’s life.

There are only 30 or so seconds left, but the outro on this song is one of the best I know. If you watch the live versions below, it is a joyfully extended bit of rock n’ roll. The adulation expressed by the audience didn’t change over the years. They were loved.

I saw the Tragically Hip, at least six times, each time in Vancouver. The show was always nothing more and nothing less than straight-ahead rock n’ roll standards that everyone could sing along with. But the captivating presence of Gord Downie and the way he held the audience in the palm of his hand while he commanded the stage was a big part of what made them legendary. I’ll include two live versions of this song.

Here they are in at Woodstock in 1999:

Here is their very last live performance in Kingston, Ontario, in 2016.

If you’ve made it this far, it will occur to you that if this is #63 in this series, then there must be 62 previous ones. Well, right you are, and here I will link access to the list of all of them, starting from the latest installment, all the way down to the first!