Once you’ve realized that The Hip are Canucks who write layered songs, often referencing their homeland, you’re only just getting started. It’s at this point where the band and their front man step right into their greatest paradox: nationalism. Nationalism is both a souvenir and a suffering for The Tragically Hip. 

Simply put, the band writes what it knows. They invoke images of Northern landscapes and legends. They’ve left, and continue to leave, a trail of exhausting and exciting live shows from The Rock to The Left Coast. This is how The Tragically Hip became "Canada’s Band."

One of the realities of existing next to a cultural Leviathan is that your media, your schools and your role models can lack any in-depth reference to home. While the Canadian majority values our neighbour and recognizes our intricate relationship, there is still a genuine appreciation for the recognition of little things Canadian, perhaps anything Canadian, within our mainstream culture. 

Otto Friedrich, Glenn Gould’s biographer, described Canada as a “relatively empty land… still rather nervously examining the connected fibers of its own identity.” If nothing else, The Tragically Hip have sewn many of these fibers of Canada into a patchwork. It is a cultural quilt visible to everyone, no matter which flag flies over their head. They celebrate not only what makes Canada different, but what makes Canada, Canada. 

Still, to some The Hip are more than just great Canadian musicians. These five guys from Canada’s colonial capital represent a larger struggle. As the band’s efforts go largely unheralded in the United States, they become a symbol of a neighbour ignored by the Super Power next door.  

There is of course a fine line between pride, patriotism and the divisive dirge of nationalism. By demonstrating their respect and awareness of Canada, The Hip were easy targets for those searching for a negative nationalist icon. Those who wished to define Canadian as ‘anything not American’ had found an unwilling patsy in the public domain. 

These negative nationalists have seen a rise in ranks over recent years. International trade deals, foreign wars, cultural differences and even hockey rivalries have inflated the expression of ‘Us vs. Them.’ The negative nationalist sees The Tragically Hip as something that hasn’t been corrupted by the American media machine. They feel The Hip belong to them, whether the band likes it or not.  

To be fair, The Hip’s early stages may have fanned the flames. Their breakout hit, 1989’s New Orleans’s Is Sinking, contains a ubiquitous Uncle Sam figure informing Canadians: ‘Hey North, you’re South, shut your big mouth.” A reference to the Free Trade Agreement negotiation –the defining issue of the 1988 Canadian Election– which sparked wide spread opposition to closer Canadian ties with the U.S. 

Long before free trade, John Matheson –the MP who headed the committee to find Canada’s flag– remarked on the irony of the Prime Minister championing the patriotic cause. “It was Lester Pearson, who philosophically would have pulled down all flags everywhere, who showed his raw love of his country by producing the symbol of Canada’s yearning to survive.” Today, Downie and The Tragically Hip share Pearson’s distrust of nationalism as well as iconic status among their respective admirers. While The Hip haven’t stopped speaking their political minds –2004’s In Between Evolution was loaded with poetically disguised shots at the Bush administration– the bands music has taken a subtler, more introspective tone. 

In 1996, Downie explained his change of heart to Charles Foran of Saturday Night magazine. “I was watching as nationalism began to metamorphose into something creepy and affiliated. Too much ill will was being generated by nationalistic feelings. I had to bail out." The Hip’s front man sardonically told a July 1^st crowd that Canada Day was “a tool of oppression the man uses to keep us down." At their worst, the negative nationalists co-opt The Hip and their music as part of their quest to build themselves up by knocking Americans down.  

There are segments of Hip Heads who both practice and preach this nouveau chic nationalism. At live shows, the movement shows up in front of the stage, usually in the pit. It is often aided and abetted by beverages, some of which, fittingly enough, carry the brand name Canadian. 

Rather than cater to this increasingly accepted idea of ignorance, the Hip have stayed far away from fist-pumping comparisons and clichés. They don’t bluntly write hockey or Prairie songs for their own sake, for their non-Yankee factor. The band acknowledges such aspects of the Canadian fact using historical reference and allusion. These winks to Canadian culture are found within songs that often carry a deeper message, or many messages intertwined.  

These songs touch on events and individuals who represent both the positive and negative marks on our history. There is not a sterilized Dudley Do-Right impression of Canada within the music, but a reflection of a diverse and dispersed nation. The band invites the listener to discover that yes; there are truths and myths and magical aspects of Canada that don’t begin with “compared to them.” No, we’re not a cultural empire, but we are a rich cultural community.  

The late novelist Pierre Berton, a fierce nationalist in his own right, said “a country has to have a mythology. There has to be a rich fabric and background that tells us what kind of people we are.” John Raulston Saul, eminent intellectual and husband of Canada’s former Governor General, wrote that in Canadian culture “there is constant re-balancing between victimization and self-confidence.” The Tragically Hip remind us that we shouldn’t be afraid to examine this culture, not by balancing it opposite other national mythologies, but by allowing it to stand capably on its own. Like Berton, The Hip have successfully spun such tales onto the public record. And like Saul, they’ve done it with a confident stride that feels no need to diminish anyone else. 

When Peter Mansbridge spoke of “the musical chroniclers of our times,” perhaps the CBC anchorman was aware that for so many, The Tragically Hip have been their only chronicle of Canadianna. Before Heritage Minutes, before grainy footage of Paul Henderson was used to sell brew, and before the negative nationalism had really picked up speed, the Hip turned many of us on to Hugh Maclennan, Tom Thompson and Canadian folklore in general.  

With this project, I’ve tried to include the best examples of this museum-within-music. If a few notes have fallen over an image of Terry Fox or a name on the Stanley Cup, I’ve attempted to flesh out the reference. How did this person earn a mention? What’s so special about this particular place? Why does that ring a bell? These questions, along with the ever popular ‘What did he just say?’are the ones I hope to answer with this site.