(The fourth in my series of Tragically Hip album overviews, in which I investigate the discography of this criminally undervalued Canadian band).
Fully Completely was the Tragically Hip's artistic and--at least in Canada--commercial breakthrough. Recorded in England with producer Chris Tsangarides (best known for his work behind the boards for heavy metal bands), Fully Completely was the slickest recording of the Hip's career to that point.
Some, myself included, argue that the album is overly-produced and too slick, but the point of the album was to break the band commercially, and perhaps a conscious effort to break away from spontaneous, live feel of the first few albums and make an obvious "studio" album. Whatever the Hip or Tsangarides were thinking, and I can't pretend to read their minds, the strategy worked brilliantly in Canada, where the album hit #1 on the charts and spawned six singles. Unfortunately, the United States and the rest of the world remained completely oblivious.
For whatever overproduction there is on the album, the Hip make up for it with the best songwriting of their career up to that point The tracks on Fully Completely are tight and well-constructed with killer hooks.
For the first time in their career, the band eschewed the overt blues and bar band influences of their first few records in favor of a more nuanced and varied approach. The palette was widened to include the acoustic folk rock of "Wheat Kings," the dark atmospherics of "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," "Pigeon Camera," and "Locked in the Trunk of a Car." There is, however, plenty of room left for furious blasts of rock power in "The Wherewithal," At the Hundredth Meridian" and "Fifty Mission Cap."
Gord Downie's interest in the Canadian cultural and historical landscape, tentatively touched upon in Up to Here and explored a bit more in Road Apples, is broadened even further on Fully Completely. The lyrics in songs such as "At the Hundredth Meridian," "Fifty Mission Cap, "Locked in the Trunk of a Car" and "Wheat Kings" have a specificity and focus that Gord had never approached before.
The album opener is "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," a song inspired (and in one verse, directly lifted from) that Canadian author's novel The Watch That Ends The Night. (For what it's worth, I have never read the book). The song seems to be about how we all face our fears with varying degrees of success. Sometimes courage comes, and sometimes it does not, or--as the lyrics state--courage "couldn't come at a worse time." Still, we find a way to muddle through to the best of our ability. Sometimes it doesn't matter if we have courage in facing our daily travails. We summon the strength to come through it.
The key verse of the song is the one Gord took directly from MacLennan's book: "There's no simple explanation for anything important any of us do/And, yeah, the human tragedy consists in the necessity of living with the consequences/Under pressure, under pressure." Who really knows why we do what we do? We just react to situations and make the best choices we can under the circumstances. But sometimes the results of our actions are not favorable. Therein lies the tragedy. We want to do well, we want to make good decisions, but the end result is often out of our hands.
Of course, none of these lyrics would matter if they weren't matched with one of the Hip's best melodies. The song has a melancholy yet forcefully determined pulse that matches Gord's (and Hugh MacLennan's) words perfectly. "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)" is such a well-constructed song that it was beautifully covered by Sarah Polley in the 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter. Polley's version is soft, slow, and lilting, in contrast to the Hip's aggressively rocking recording.
The heaviest guitar sound of the Hip's career, no doubt instigated by Tsangarides, ushers in "Looking For a Place to Happen." Gord Downie name drops French explorer Jacques Cartier and is ostensibly about Cartier's travels in Canada ("I've got a job/I explore...to find a place/an ancient race"), The song seems to change chronology a few times, fast-forwarding to the modern age with it's "gallery gods and garbage bag trees." But, as I've stated before in these Tragically Hip album reviews, I can't pretend to know what Gord's meaning is in many of his songs. "Looking For a Place to Happen" is full of cryptic lines that defy easy analysis...but when the band cooks as hot as they do in this track, it hardly matters what Gord is singing about.
"At the Hundredth Meridian" is the song that convinced me of the Hip's greatness, and Gord Downie's facility with songwriting. Opening with several sledgehammer guitar riffs, followed by Johnny Fay's primal drumming accompanied by an insistent guitar figure, Gord joins in with the amusing first line, "Me debunk an American myth/Take my life in my hands?" as if to openly ask if it's wise of him to tell his story of the Great Plains without fear of American reprisal. Assuming it's safe to carry on, or simply not caring, Gord lays it out: the Great Plains actually begin west of the 100th meridian of Canada, at least in his mind. He goes on to describe scenes of "weeds standing shoulder high," "ferris wheels...rusting," "a raven carry[ing] a mighty old skull." Scenes of both desolation and natural beauty, a landscape unencumbered by the artificiality of the city. Gord then envisions his own death, and implores anyone listening to not allow his final resting place to be in "the swollen city breeze" but instead in the plains of Canada.
None of "At the Hundredth Meridian"'s lyrics would pack the same punch if Rob Baker, Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair, and Johnny Fay didn't cook up a fiery brew of musical fury. Much like other songs on the album such as "Locked in the Trunk of a Car," "Fifty Mission Cap," and "Wheat Kings," the music perfectly fit the words that Gord Downie sings.
Fully Completely is an album that is supported by what I consider the "tent pole" songs: "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," "At the Hundredth Meridian," "Locked in the Trunk of a Car," "Fifty Mission Cap," and "Wheat Kings." I may take heat from other Hip fans for writing this, but the remaining seven songs are filler. Well, maybe "filler" is too negative, but there is no denying that "Pigeon Camera," "We'll Go Too," "The Werewithal," and album closer "Eldorado" are not as strong as the "tent pole" songs. I know that there is considerable love for the title track "Fully Completely" (it was voted by fans to be included in the Yer Favourites compilation) but I have never had a great deal of affection for that song.
Now don't get me wrong, "Fully Completely," "We'll Go Too," and "The Wherewithal" (quite possibly the closest the Hip ever got to metal) are perfectly fine and enjoyable while they are playing, but I don't find myself thinking much about them when they're over.
So after deciding that I will not expend much energy on the "filler" songs of Fully Completely, lets get to one of the important tent pole songs, "Fifty Mission Cap." Ostensibly about hockey player Bill Barilko, who scored the winning goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1951 Stanley Cup Finals, the song--upon closer inspection--is more about the unnamed narrator of the song, who relates the story of Barilko, and then tells the listener that he "stole" the story from a hockey card, and furthermore informs us that he tucks the hockey card in his fifty mission cap. ("Fifty mission cap" refers to the weathered and beaten caps worn by flight crews during World War II). "Fifty Mission Cap" demonstrates the sheer depth of Downie's songwriting. The lyrics peel back like the layers of an onion, and continuously changes perspective. By the end, I am more curious about the narrator than Bill Barilko. Who is the narrator? Is he (assuming the narrator is a "he") wearing a real fifty mission cap, or is it more likely a non-military cap made to look like a fifty mission cap? And why is he providing us with this information? Whatever the case may be, "Fifty Mission Cap" is another deep meandering journey into Canadiana, made all the more powerful by the piledriving instrumental accompaniment. It's no surprise the song has been embraced by the Maple Leafs and hockey arenas around Canada.
Some, myself included, argue that the album is overly-produced and too slick, but the point of the album was to break the band commercially, and perhaps a conscious effort to break away from spontaneous, live feel of the first few albums and make an obvious "studio" album. Whatever the Hip or Tsangarides were thinking, and I can't pretend to read their minds, the strategy worked brilliantly in Canada, where the album hit #1 on the charts and spawned six singles. Unfortunately, the United States and the rest of the world remained completely oblivious.
For whatever overproduction there is on the album, the Hip make up for it with the best songwriting of their career up to that point The tracks on Fully Completely are tight and well-constructed with killer hooks.
For the first time in their career, the band eschewed the overt blues and bar band influences of their first few records in favor of a more nuanced and varied approach. The palette was widened to include the acoustic folk rock of "Wheat Kings," the dark atmospherics of "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," "Pigeon Camera," and "Locked in the Trunk of a Car." There is, however, plenty of room left for furious blasts of rock power in "The Wherewithal," At the Hundredth Meridian" and "Fifty Mission Cap."
Gord Downie's interest in the Canadian cultural and historical landscape, tentatively touched upon in Up to Here and explored a bit more in Road Apples, is broadened even further on Fully Completely. The lyrics in songs such as "At the Hundredth Meridian," "Fifty Mission Cap, "Locked in the Trunk of a Car" and "Wheat Kings" have a specificity and focus that Gord had never approached before.
The album opener is "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," a song inspired (and in one verse, directly lifted from) that Canadian author's novel The Watch That Ends The Night. (For what it's worth, I have never read the book). The song seems to be about how we all face our fears with varying degrees of success. Sometimes courage comes, and sometimes it does not, or--as the lyrics state--courage "couldn't come at a worse time." Still, we find a way to muddle through to the best of our ability. Sometimes it doesn't matter if we have courage in facing our daily travails. We summon the strength to come through it.
The key verse of the song is the one Gord took directly from MacLennan's book: "There's no simple explanation for anything important any of us do/And, yeah, the human tragedy consists in the necessity of living with the consequences/Under pressure, under pressure." Who really knows why we do what we do? We just react to situations and make the best choices we can under the circumstances. But sometimes the results of our actions are not favorable. Therein lies the tragedy. We want to do well, we want to make good decisions, but the end result is often out of our hands.
Of course, none of these lyrics would matter if they weren't matched with one of the Hip's best melodies. The song has a melancholy yet forcefully determined pulse that matches Gord's (and Hugh MacLennan's) words perfectly. "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)" is such a well-constructed song that it was beautifully covered by Sarah Polley in the 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter. Polley's version is soft, slow, and lilting, in contrast to the Hip's aggressively rocking recording.
The heaviest guitar sound of the Hip's career, no doubt instigated by Tsangarides, ushers in "Looking For a Place to Happen." Gord Downie name drops French explorer Jacques Cartier and is ostensibly about Cartier's travels in Canada ("I've got a job/I explore...to find a place/an ancient race"), The song seems to change chronology a few times, fast-forwarding to the modern age with it's "gallery gods and garbage bag trees." But, as I've stated before in these Tragically Hip album reviews, I can't pretend to know what Gord's meaning is in many of his songs. "Looking For a Place to Happen" is full of cryptic lines that defy easy analysis...but when the band cooks as hot as they do in this track, it hardly matters what Gord is singing about.
"At the Hundredth Meridian" is the song that convinced me of the Hip's greatness, and Gord Downie's facility with songwriting. Opening with several sledgehammer guitar riffs, followed by Johnny Fay's primal drumming accompanied by an insistent guitar figure, Gord joins in with the amusing first line, "Me debunk an American myth/Take my life in my hands?" as if to openly ask if it's wise of him to tell his story of the Great Plains without fear of American reprisal. Assuming it's safe to carry on, or simply not caring, Gord lays it out: the Great Plains actually begin west of the 100th meridian of Canada, at least in his mind. He goes on to describe scenes of "weeds standing shoulder high," "ferris wheels...rusting," "a raven carry[ing] a mighty old skull." Scenes of both desolation and natural beauty, a landscape unencumbered by the artificiality of the city. Gord then envisions his own death, and implores anyone listening to not allow his final resting place to be in "the swollen city breeze" but instead in the plains of Canada.
None of "At the Hundredth Meridian"'s lyrics would pack the same punch if Rob Baker, Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair, and Johnny Fay didn't cook up a fiery brew of musical fury. Much like other songs on the album such as "Locked in the Trunk of a Car," "Fifty Mission Cap," and "Wheat Kings," the music perfectly fit the words that Gord Downie sings.
Fully Completely is an album that is supported by what I consider the "tent pole" songs: "Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)," "At the Hundredth Meridian," "Locked in the Trunk of a Car," "Fifty Mission Cap," and "Wheat Kings." I may take heat from other Hip fans for writing this, but the remaining seven songs are filler. Well, maybe "filler" is too negative, but there is no denying that "Pigeon Camera," "We'll Go Too," "The Werewithal," and album closer "Eldorado" are not as strong as the "tent pole" songs. I know that there is considerable love for the title track "Fully Completely" (it was voted by fans to be included in the Yer Favourites compilation) but I have never had a great deal of affection for that song.
Now don't get me wrong, "Fully Completely," "We'll Go Too," and "The Wherewithal" (quite possibly the closest the Hip ever got to metal) are perfectly fine and enjoyable while they are playing, but I don't find myself thinking much about them when they're over.
So after deciding that I will not expend much energy on the "filler" songs of Fully Completely, lets get to one of the important tent pole songs, "Fifty Mission Cap." Ostensibly about hockey player Bill Barilko, who scored the winning goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1951 Stanley Cup Finals, the song--upon closer inspection--is more about the unnamed narrator of the song, who relates the story of Barilko, and then tells the listener that he "stole" the story from a hockey card, and furthermore informs us that he tucks the hockey card in his fifty mission cap. ("Fifty mission cap" refers to the weathered and beaten caps worn by flight crews during World War II). "Fifty Mission Cap" demonstrates the sheer depth of Downie's songwriting. The lyrics peel back like the layers of an onion, and continuously changes perspective. By the end, I am more curious about the narrator than Bill Barilko. Who is the narrator? Is he (assuming the narrator is a "he") wearing a real fifty mission cap, or is it more likely a non-military cap made to look like a fifty mission cap? And why is he providing us with this information? Whatever the case may be, "Fifty Mission Cap" is another deep meandering journey into Canadiana, made all the more powerful by the piledriving instrumental accompaniment. It's no surprise the song has been embraced by the Maple Leafs and hockey arenas around Canada.
The one-two punch of Canadiana continues with the pastoral "Wheat Kings." It is a meditative examination of David Milgaard, wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. At the risk of sounding like a blubbering fanboy, Gord Downie's lyrics are sublime. The opening line, "Sundown in the Paris of the Prairie" immediately establishes the setting. The song is gentle and contemplative, but as much as I enjoy it and am moved by it, I am sure I'd find it even more powerful if I was Canadian.
Fully Completely concludes with two sturdy if unspectacular songs, the forementioned metal-ish "The Werewithal" and "Eldorado." This is a situation in which the album sequencing might have been improved by having "Wheat Kings" close the album instead of "Eldorado." This is a minor quibble because Fully Completely is an outstanding album: the Tragically Hip's first fully realized and wholly original album.
Next up in this exploration of the Tragically Hip's catalog: Day For Night. That is an even more daunting challenge than Fully Completely, so who knows when I'll finish that.
