{"id":90944,"date":"2020-10-16T18:12:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T15:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/gord-downie-returns-not-for-the-last-time\/"},"modified":"2020-10-16T18:12:53","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T15:12:53","slug":"gord-downie-returns-not-for-the-last-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/gord-downie-returns-not-for-the-last-time\/","title":{"rendered":"#Gord Downie returns, not for the last time"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Gord Downie returns, not for the last time<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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\"Gord<\/p>\n

Downie and Finlayson performing together in 2016 (Lindsay Duncan\/Eldie Photography)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Gord Downie is gone. Gord Downie will always be here. There\u2019s a new solo album, Away Is Mine<\/em>, which will come out this month\u2014three years less a day after he died of brain cancer on Oct. 17, 2017. It\u2019s not the last we\u2019ll hear from him, but it is the last thing he did; it was recorded with the Skydiggers\u2019 Josh Finlayson a mere three months before Downie\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Though Downie became more famous in 2016-17 than he had been during his 30 years fronting the Tragically Hip, many fans don\u2019t realize just how productive Downie was in those final two years of his life, post-diagnosis. There was the Hip tour in the summer of 2016, obviously. There was a small series<\/a> of shows that fall to promote his Secret Path <\/em>project. And there was the elegiac, piano-driven record he made with Kevin Drew, Introduce Yerself<\/em>: a concept album in which he wrote a series of love letters to family and close friends (and one to Lake Ontario). It was released a week after he died. Many fans found it too raw to listen to at the time. Many considered it an epitaph.<\/p>\n

But Downie had also made new recordings with eclectic Toronto roots-rock group the Sadies, following up a full-length 2014 album they did together. He improvised vocals over a furious and wild recording by his friends in avant-garde noise-rock band the Dinner Is Ruined, all of whom were part of Downie\u2019s solo band, the Country of Miracles. He went through several iterations of writing a memoir, which he found too solitary a process. Downie wasn\u2019t in the mood to be alone with his thoughts. The workaholic wanted to work, debilitating brain condition be damned. \u201cIt was his language, it was where he lived,\u201d says Finlayson, of his friend\u2019s drive to create new music. \u201cHe didn\u2019t allow the illness to take that away from him, even though it compromised him and his memory. Right to the end.\u201d In the words of the late Texan songwriter Townes Van Zandt, \u201cIt\u2019s easier than just waitin\u2019 around to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE:\u00a0Gord Downie wasn\u2019t just a rock star\u2014he was a real poet, too<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Away Is Mine<\/em> was co-written and performed with Finlayson, one of Downie\u2019s oldest friends. When Downie assembled a band for his first solo album, Coke Machine Glow<\/em>, recorded in June 2000, Finlayson was the first person he called. Similarly, when assembling a band to present Secret Path<\/em> live in 2016, he asked Finlayson to join a group of otherwise newer collaborators.<\/p>\n

During his final year, Downie kept in constant contact with his extended circle of friends. \u201cHe was a man of letters,\u201d says Finlayson, \u201clike people who used to spend the morning just corresponding with people.\u201d In April 2017, Finlayson sent Downie some acoustic sketches he\u2019d recorded on his phone. Downie responded within hours with lyrics and melodies. Three months later, they were in the Hip\u2019s studio making a record over the course of a weekend. The only guests were the Sadies\u2019 Travis Good (another relationship dating back to Coke Machine Glow<\/em>); Downie\u2019s best friend, Dave \u201cBilly Ray\u201d Koster; and Downie\u2019s eldest son, Lou, on drums. Engineer Nyles Spencer added synths, drum machines and textures that make it unlike anything else in Downie\u2019s catalogue. That said, it shares some similarities with the work Downie made after turning 50 in 2014: the reverb-drenched vocals deliver lyrics displaying humility and self-doubt. And though there\u2019s an added element of mortality on Away Is Mine<\/em>, it\u2019s far from a sombre record. The closing track, Untitled<\/em>, speaks of a \u201cgood journey, good discovery, a good plan for what\u2019s ahead.\u201d His daughters Willo and Clare did the artwork.<\/p>\n

For the last three years, fans who knew about the final creative spurt have wondered when the wealth of Downie material would be released. Patrick Downie was in no rush. \u201cI didn\u2019t want him to be a caricature,\u201d says Gord\u2019s younger brother, who, three years later, is still struggling to speak for the sibling he grew up idolizing. \u201cI didn\u2019t want people to be sick of Gord Downie. At the same time, it is important to me to show people the depth of his talent. He isn\u2019t just the thing that is often associated with him. I wanted to be respectful and time it right so people can hear it in the right way, and not be compulsively turned off by it. I wanted people to be in a place where it\u2019s okay to treasure him. All I knew is that if I got this one out first, the rest will make more sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick Downie has a unique take on his brother\u2019s final years. Both men split from their long-time partners in 2015, the same year their beloved father, Edgar, who\u2019d had Parkinson\u2019s for years, succumbed to cancer at age 84. (\u201cEdgar dealt with it in the most zen way,\u201d says Patrick, \u201ceven though he had no idea what that word meant.\u201d) Days after the funeral, Gord had his first seizure, which led to the glioblastoma diagnosis. Patrick moved from Boston, where he\u2019d lived for more than 20 years, to become his brother\u2019s roommate and sherpa of sorts in the strangest of journeys\u2014one that culminated in Patrick singing a Secret Path<\/em> song at Massey Hall, with Broken Social<\/a> Scene\u2019s Kevin Drew on piano, less than a month after Gord died. \u201cThat was Kevin\u2019s idea,\u201d says Patrick, who made his vocal debut in Canada\u2019s most hallowed hall. \u201cI was under a weird spell. I still look back and can\u2019t believe I did that. I didn\u2019t really exist before any of this stuff. I was a credit-roll guy. I was never out in front of people. I\u2019m not comfortable with it at all. When you grow up in the shadow of Gord,\u201d he laughs, \u201cmeasuring up is kind of tough\u2014so why bother?\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED:\u00a0The gift of Gord Downie: \u2018He gave everything he had to this world\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gord Downie was highly visible in his last years. It helped that he always wore a uniform of a denim jacket, jeans and a baseball cap from the Minneapolis music venue First Avenue. \u201cWe had paparazzi, practically,\u201d says Patrick, who, along with their other brother, Mike, became Gord\u2019s spokesperson before and after his death. They\u2019d constantly be app<\/a>roached in public by fans and acquaintances. \u201cWhen he started to get sicker, I didn\u2019t want to be someone else\u2019s gossip,\u201d Patrick says. \u201cThat was tricky. It was always a bit of an adventure when we went out. Sometimes very funny. We saw a lot of music. That was great. But when there was no show to go to, there were a lot of dark days\u2014long and heavy days. Not a lot of people were coming over. A lot of people wanted to come over; he was in pretty heavy demand. But he hated the idea, even at the house, that he was being visited.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just as the days were getting darker, Finlayson entered with the spark for the Away Is Mine<\/em> material. \u201cGord wasn\u2019t thinking, \u2018I gotta make another record before I die!\u2019 \u201d says Patrick. \u201cI mean, Introduce Yerself<\/em> was a rush [for that reason], because he didn\u2019t know what else to do. That\u2019s the way he communicated, that was his language, and he thought, \u2018Oh my god, I have all these people to thank, all this gratitude.\u2019 That record came fast and furious.\u201d So did Away Is Mine<\/em>, but without the emotional weight involved with its predecessor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world could use this kind of story, this kind of energy,\u201d concludes Finlayson. \u201cThis album has been a great companion for me. Dealing with Gord\u2019s illness, his death, having all these things and being with him and making this record, it was a good grieving tool, a way to honour him, and it continues to be that. It\u2019s been three years now [since his death], which seems like a long time in some ways, but also the perfect time to put it out\u2014global pandemic be damned. It\u2019s like an old friend checking in.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the exception of the game<\/a>-changing Secret Path<\/em>, Gord Downie\u2019s solo records are highly underrated, and unheard even by some huge Hip fans. In commercial terms, they paled next to the Tragically Hip\u2019s sales figures. Oddly enough, there are some fans who still want to see a Downie front the Tragically Hip. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how many people tell me I should replace Gord,\u201d laughs the soft-spoken Patrick. \u201cIt was even Gord\u2019s idea! At the beginning [of the diagnosis], when he was so scrambled, he was so worried about [the Hip\u2019s] career ending, and money and everything. Then he suggested [his daughter] Willo, who can really sing.\u201d Neither were remotely interested. Nor was the band: the iconic Canadian band is done, for all intents and purposes, even if most of them joined old friend Hugh Dillon of the Headstones on stage at a 2019 benefit in Kingston, Ont., to perform a few Hip tunes, and even if guitarist Paul Langlois sang a healthy dose of Hip material as a guest of the Skydiggers at a series of dates that same summer.<\/p>\n

That said, the vaults are opening. The Hip reunited with original manager Jake Gold earlier this year, and they\u2019re ready to unearth all kinds of treasures, starting with outtakes from 1991\u2019s Road Apples<\/em>. There\u2019s also a decade-in-the-making solo album Downie made with producer Bob Rock, which is somewhere on the singer\u2019s hard drive. We\u2019ve hardly heard the last of him yet.<\/p>\n

Gord Downie is gone. Gord Downie will always be here.<\/p>\n\n

This article appears in print in the November 2020 issue of<\/em> Maclean\u2019s magazine with the headline, \u201cGord Downie returns.\u201d Subscribe to the monthly print magazine here<\/a>.<\/em>
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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Gord Downie returns, not for the last time” Downie and Finlayson performing together in 2016 (Lindsay Duncan\/Eldie Photography) Gord Downie is gone. Gord Downie will always be here. There\u2019s a new solo album, Away Is Mine, which will come out this month\u2014three years less a day after he died of brain cancer on Oct. 17,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.macleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/GORD-DOWNIE-RELEASE-BARCLAY-SEPT30.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[67806,71851,71852],"class_list":["post-90944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-editors-picks","tag-gord-downie","tag-the-tragically-hip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}