"...It's a sound coming down of an entirely different race
It's a sound coming down like Il Palio
Sent splayed and sprawling into a cafe in an explosion of table legs and trays
It's the sound coming down like a chuckwagon when it strays
A little too far from the stampede days
And slams into the butterfly chase
That's the sound coming down."

Gord calls this tune "a simple song about complex creatures." A complex issue, that of the hijacked airliners of September 11, may also be represented in the songs rumbling "sound" and eventual explosion. The song ends with a 1970's audio clip of Bruins player Garnett "Ace" Bailey scoring a goal and giving a post game interview. Bailey was killed on 9/11, a passenger aboard one of the doomed jet liners. As we know, Downie's godfather is Bruin's president and former coach Harry Sinden. Bailey was still working in the NHL in 2001, and certainly would have known Sinden, and perhaps have met Gord at some point.

The "Il Palio" referenced in the song is a nod to the annual Il Palio horse race held each year in Italy. Riders race their horses through a crowded and cramped piazza in the middle of the Italian neighborhood. Some horses have riders, others don't, and the race is notoriously quick and violent. Crashes are an expected and regular occurrence. The race is an ancient tradition designed to honour the Virgin Mary.

Of course, "steeplechases" themselves are European horse races which involve obstacles, water hazards and uneven terrain.

Stampede days bring some of that horse drawn pageantry to Canada, attracting cowboys and horse lovers by the carriage load to Calgary each year. The chuckwagon races are a major draw during the Calgary Stampede.