[[quoteright:332:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Tragically_Hip_3781.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:332:The Tragically Hip, also known as "The Hip."]]

The Tragically Hip were an iconic Canadian rock band that formed in 1983. During the 1990s, they became one of the most popular musical acts of any genre in Canada, despite not crossing over anywhere else in the world, and they're about as important and influential on the country's rock music scene as Music/PearlJam are in the United States. The band's sound is a mix of alternative rock, folk and country influences, and their lyrics often make reference to Canadian topics and events.

In 2016, lead singer Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer; in the face of his diagnosis, Downie nonetheless played an entire farewell tour to support their album ''Man Machine Poem'', which concluded with a final show in the band's original home of Kingston, Ontario on August 20, 2016 (an event so significant that Creator/{{CBC}} broadcast it on all their platforms, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even attended). Downie died on October 17, 2017, and the band [[https://globalnews.ca/news/4313981/the-tragically-hip-talk-life-after-gord-downie-were-all-still-adjusting/ announced]] that they were no longer active in July 2018.
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!!Band members:
* Gordon "Gord" Downie (lead vocals and guitar; died in 2017)
* Paul Langlois (guitar, joined 1986)
* Rob "Bobby" Baker (guitar)
* Gord Sinclair (bass)
* Johnny Fay (drums)
* Davis Manning (saxophone, left the band in 1986)

!!Discography:
* ''[[SelfTitledAlbum The Tragically Hip]]'' (EP) (1987)
* ''Up to Here'' (1989)
* ''Road Apples'' (1991)
* ''Fully Completely'' (1992)
* ''Day for Night'' (1994)
* ''Trouble at the Henhouse'' (1996)
* ''Live Between Us'' (1997)
* ''Phantom Power'' (1998)
* ''Music @ Work'' (2000)
* ''In Violet Light'' (2002)
* ''In Between Evolution'' (2004)
* ''[[GreatestHitsAlbum Yer Favourites]]'' (2005)
* ''World Container'' (2006)
* ''We Are the Same'' (2009)
* ''Now for Plan A'' (2012)
* ''Man Machine Poem'' (2016)
* ''Saskadelphia'' (EP) (2021)[[note]]A six-song collection of previously lost demos.[[/note]]

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!!Drove back to town this morning with troping on my mind:

* AlbumTitleDrop:
** ''Phantom Power'' is title-dropped in "Something On".
** ''In Violet Light'' is taken from a line in "Silver Jet".
** ''We Are the Same'' comes for the chorus in "Now the Struggle Has a Name"
* AnachronismStew: The video for "The Darkest One" has Downie's character paying Don Cherry's deliveryman for an order of UsefulNotes/KentuckyFriedChicken (which has packaging from TheEighties) with the "old-style" Canadian bills that were discontinued in the late '90s and early-'00s.
* {{Anaphora}}: "Family Band": Two consecutive lines that start with "I'm just a shade shy of":
-->I'm just a shade shy of true wickedness\\
I'm just a shade shy of truly loving this
* AssholeVictim: "38 Years Old" is about a man imprisoned for murdering his sister's rapist.
* BlatantLies: During live shows, Downie tended to insert long, rambling, and obviously untrue monologues over instrumental breaks, usually in "New Orleans Is Sinking". The most famous tells about how he used to work at Ride/SeaWorld but had to quit after a killer whale bit his arms off, and another tells about how he drowned while trying to pull a family from a car during Hurricane Katrina.
* TheBigEasy: "New Orleans Is Sinking", "If New Orleans Falls", and the "Neworleansworld" segment of "The Depression Suite".
* BrotherSisterIncest: "Pigeon Camera" is about this.
* TheCameo: Don Cherry and the cast of ''Series/TrailerParkBoys'' appear in the video for "The Darkest One".
* CanadianEqualsHockeyFan: They wrote multiple songs about hockey, and one of their more popular shirts looks like a [[http://www.merchinmotion.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/PRINTING-hip-jersey.jpg hockey jersey]].
** Discussed in "Fireworks":
--->You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey \\
Well, I'd never seen someone say that before.
* CanadianMusic: One of the most famous examples. Their songs mention a lot of Canadian landmarks, people and places, to the point that it can be anathema for listeners who aren't familiar with the source material or their music videos:
** "Bobcaygeon" is an actual town in Ontario, but Gord Downie admitted that he only picked the town name because it sort of rhymed with 'constellations'. Despite this, the residents there hold the song and Downie in high regard, particularly because it made their small town famous across the country. When Downie died in 2017, the townspeople held a widely attended candlelight vigil in his memory.
** "The Darkest One" has cameo appearances from the cast of ''Trailer Park Boys'' and Don Cherry.
** "Fifty Mission Cap" tells the bizarre story of Bill Barilko, defenceman of the Toronto Maple Leafs who scored the goal ("in overtime") to win the Stanley Cup in 1951, and disappeared in a plane crash shortly after. The wreckage and his body were discovered 11 years later (the year the Leafs won their next Cup).[[note]]Ironically, Gord Downie was a Boston Bruins fan and that team's longtime coach, Harry Sinden, was his godfather.[[/note]]
** "Fireworks", a song about not getting too hung up on nationalism, which is actually a very Canadian sentiment. It begins with a line only Canadians could understand:
--->[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Series If there's a goal that everyone remembers, it was back in old '72.]]
** "Nautical Disaster" is (maybe) about the Battle of Dieppe, which took place during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, and involved the highest number of Canadian fatalities in the conflict.
*** Downie would sometimes introduce the song during live shows, however, as being about [[http://www.hipmuseum.com/naut.html the sinking of the Bismarck]], a decidedly ''non''-Canadian event.
** "Silver Moon" (a tie-in to the Creator/PaulGross film ''Film/MenWithBrooms'') has Downie working as the janitor/operator at a curling rink.
** "Courage" is subtitled "For Hugh [=MacLennan=]". [=MacLennan=] was a Canadian author and academic, a staple of Can Lit. The song includes a passage from his novel ''The Watch That Ends the Night.''
** "Wheat Kings" (see the description below under ClearTheirName) is about a notable Canadian crime, wherein David Milgaard was falsely accused of murdering a young woman and spent 20 years in prison before he was pardoned.
** "It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken" picks up the title of a 1989 graphic novel by the Canadian cartoonist Seth.
** "At the Hundredth Meridian" even cites Canadian ''geography'', as the 100th meridian west is the point "where the Great Plains begin." Any Canadian will tell you there are distinct differences between the Western and Eastern regions of Canada: cultural, economic, environmental.
** "Three Pistols" references Tom Thomson, who was an extremely influential Canadian painter who was most famously cited as such by the members of the world-famous group of Canadian artists known as the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_of_Seven_(artists) Group of Seven]], who went as far as to call Thomson the pioneer of their style. He's also mentioned as "paddling past", which is probably a reference to Thomson's accidental drowning in a canoeing accident.
** "Fly" contains this lyric:
--->There's Mistaken Point, Newfoundland\\
There's Moonbeam, Ontario\\
There are places I've never been\\
But always wanted to go
* ClearTheirName: "Wheat Kings" deconstructs this while commenting on the case of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Milgaard David Milgaard]].
-->Twenty years for nothing\\
Well, that's nothing new\\
Besides, no one's interested in\\
Something you didn't do.
* DelusionsOfEloquence: "Throwing Off Glass" describes a character (implicitly the narrator's daughter) who has the tendency to overuse words she likes the sound of. In a twist on this trope, the narrator seems rather charmed by this habit, as the ambiguous wording of the lyric suggests that her love of new words adds some enchantment to the world.
-->And just like after she heard the word "iridescent"\\
And everything was iridescent for a while
* DyingMomentOfAwesome: Frontman Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2016. In the same press release that the band announced his diagnosis, they announced that they would tour that summer anyway. On stage, Downie was noticeably paler and frailer, but lost none of his stage presence. The tour culminated in their final show, on August 20, 2016 in Kingston, Ontario. The ''three-hour'' concert saw the band run through most of their big hits, three encores and 30 songs. The concert, broadcast without commercial interruption by the CBC on television, radio, and online, pre-empting their coverage of the 2016 Olympics, was watched by ''one-third of the population of Canada''. Talk about a way to go out.
** Also possibly an example of DoNotGoGentle, as Downie took several opportunities over the course of the concert to call out successive governments' treatment of First Nations peoples -- in the presence of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
** He then spent much of the final year of his life working as much as he possibly could. He recorded two solo albums, recorded additional Tragically Hip material to be released after his death and continued his charity work for environmental and First Nations causes.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Though "Small Town Bringdown" from their debut EP does somewhat foreshadow their style for the following 10 or so years, the rest of the album sounds absolutely nothing like anything else they've done.
* EpicRocking: "Fight" (5:58), "Escape Is at Hand for the Travellin' Man" (5:52), "The Dark Canuck" (6:24), "Now the Struggle Has a Name" (6:04), and "The Depression Suite" (9:27).
* TheFunInFuneral: Discussed in "World Container".
-->Laugh at a funeral or two\\
Laugh and laugh till all the chameleons turn black\\
Laugh and laugh till you're told 'Please don't come back'
* GriefSong: "Escape Is at Hand for the Travellin' Man", [[http://www.hipmuseum.com/escape.html if you know the story behind it.]]
* IconicSongRequest: In the 1990s, "Play some Hip!" was a frequent request made of indie club musicians. Some covered Hip songs, some didn't. The sarcasm occasionally backfired, as many Canadian indie bands such as Music/BrokenSocialScene and Fucked Up are actually fans of the Hip and friendly with its members.
** Music/TheBurningHell references this in their song "Tired of Playing Music"
--->Then a crowd appears, and they yell out\\
"Play some Tragically Hip!"... sigh
* IntercourseWithYou: Probably most blatant in "Lake Fever".
-->'''Gord''': I know you don't want to hear it, but in 1832 there was a cholera epidemic up and down the lake. Many people died where you stand tonight. And now here's a song about two young people who don't give a shit.
* LargeHam: Gord exemplified ham in live performances and in music videos like "Poets" and "My Music at Work". (For an example of how Hammy Downie could get, in the "My Music at Work" video, he managed to make ''hanging up a phone'' seem dramatic and [[MundaneMadeAwesome impressive]].)
* LongRunnerLineUp: They had a couple lineup changes in 1986 (with Paul Langlois joining, and Davis Manning later leaving), and remained stable until Gordon Downie died over 30 years later.
* TheManTheyCouldntHang: Referenced in the lyrics of "Bobcaygeon":
-->That night in Toronto with its checkerboard floors\\
Riding on horseback and keeping order restored\\
'Till the men they couldn't hang\\
Stepped to the mike and sang\\
And their voices rang with that Aryan twang
** It may also be a reference to the band Music/TheMenTheyCouldntHang.
** Given the multiple interpretations available to songs, as well as Gord's own comments during live performances, "The men they couldn't hang" can also refer to time when racial and sectarian tensions in Toronto exploded due to [[ThoseWackyNazis Nazis]] (yes, they were in Canada too) inciting violence that took almost a day to quell in the 1930s.
* MisplacedWildlife: Parodied in "Gus the Polar Bear from Central Park".
* MundaneMadeAwesome: "Lonely End of the Rink" is a heart-rendingly anguished song about... being a hockey goalie.
* MyCountryTisOfTheeThatISting: For all the obvious affection for Canada in their songs, the Hip have never shied away from criticizing the country for where it's dropped the ball culturally and ethically. "Wheat Kings" is one of this trope's best-known examples in their catalogue.
** [[http://www.cbcmusic.ca/posts/12537/how-the-tragically-hip-became-canada-s-band This article]] suggests that that tendency helped cement the Hip's place in Canadian culture.
* NonAppearingTitle: Most notably in "Nautical Disaster".
* OneWomanSong: "Cordelia".
* PerformanceVideo:
** "It's a Good Life if You Don't Weaken" plays with this concept. The video follows the band as they drive to a private residence, meet a family of wealthy snobs who give them lavish accommodations, dress in all-white suits, and perform the final verse of the song for a group of socialites who look utterly bored with them.
** "Silver Jet" has a teenager (played by Downie's own daughter) sneaking out of her family's house to see one of the band's performances.
* ProtestSong:
** "Vaccination Scar", which rails against [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush]]-era jingoism.
** "Gus the Polar Bear from Central Park" is about the government using fear as a political tool.
** "Scared" is the same as "Gus", [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin but is obviously much more explicit.]]
** And all of them are open to interpretation, as multiple meanings can (and have) been found.
* PunkInTheTrunk: "Locked in the Trunk of a Car."
* PrecisionFStrike:
** In "Fireworks":
--->You said you didn't give a fuck about hockey\\
Well, I'd never seen someone say that before.
** Also in "We Want to Be It":
--->Baby, when'd you get so zen?\\
When I used to know you when\\
You thought that all my dreams sucked\\
I was just happy you gave a fuck.
* RockstarSong: "Family Band", "Escape Is at Hand for the Travellin' Man."
* ShoutOut:
** "Courage" references a passage from Hugh [=MacLennan=]'s book ''The Watch That Ends the Night'' near verbatim in one of its verses.
** Many other songs contain references to Canadian history and various places, times and people. "Locked in the Trunk of a Car" references a Quebec politician getting kidnapped and later killed by terrorists, for example, while "Fireworks" talks about UsefulNotes/TheColdWar and Paul Henderson's "miracle goal" against the Soviets during a Soviet–Canada hockey game series in 1972.
* ShoutOutToShakespeare:
** "Cordelia" is built around the reference to the character from ''Theatre/KingLear''. It also mentions ''Theatre/{{Macbeth}}'': see below under TemptingFate.
** In "Three Pistols", the narrator "didn't protest enough", which is probably a spin on [[Theatre/{{Hamlet}} Gertrude]]'s classic line about protesting too much.
* SmallTownBoredom: Discussed in the similarly-named song "Small Town Bringdown".
* SophisticatedAsHell: As a band that references [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_MacLennan Hugh MacLennan]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley William Shockley]], they also are not afraid to drop some F-bombs. They also have a song titled "Butts Wiggling".
* SympatheticMurderer: The brother Mike in "38 Years Old":
-->See, my sister got raped\\
So a man got killed\\
A local boy went to prison\\
The man was buried on the hill
* TemptingFate: Invoked in ''Cordelia'':
-->Treading the boards\\
[[TheScottishTrope Screaming out]] Theatre/{{Macbeth}}\\
Just to see how much\\
Bad luck you really get
* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: Used to impressive metaphoric effect in "Coffee Girl".
-->Beware purveyors of cool\\
With their compacts of one\\
Taking cannons to fools\\
When all you need's a BB Gun.
* ThoseWackyNazis: Referenced in "Scared", "Bobcaygeon", "Silver Jet", "World Container", and many other songs. It seems like Gord Downie had a bit of an obsession with them.
* TitleDrop: In live performances, Gord was known to change the opening lyrics of "Grace, Too" from ''"He said 'I'm fabulously rich'"'' to ''"I'm tragically hip"''
* TitledAfterTheSong: The band took its name from a line in Music/ElvisCostello's song, "Town Cryer", from ''Imperial Bedroom''.
* [[TransatlanticEquivalent Trans-Pacific Equivalent]]: To Music/MidnightOil; both bands are [[LongRunner long-running]] AlternativeRock groups fronted by bald singers, who were wildly influential superstars in their home country but virtual unknowns everywhere else, in part because of the heavy CreatorProvincialism in their lyrics.
%%* WordSaladLyrics: Sometimes.
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