Instead, Downie exercises an impressive amount of restraint while still exploring new avenues for his music. “My entire life / but I saw something there today / the love of my life.”Īlong with the amount of tracks it features, the thorough clarity of this record could be considered self-indulgent in less capable hands. “I always stared at the lake,” Downie sings. In Introduce Yerself, Downie sounds like a man taking a sober-eyed stock of the various pieces of his life. There’s nothing to decode in songs like “The Lake,” Downie’s tribute to Lake Ontario. While Downie’s tracks on the new album can still be enigmatic, that’s not always the case here. With The Tragically Hip, Downie’s lyrics were sometimes a challenge for the band’s most committed fans to analyze. Lyrically leaving it all on the table, Downie is confessional in Introduce Yerself, clearly aware these will be his last musical words. Often using first takes, the album takes Downie out of the rock band setting he grew famous under and re-introduces the Kingston artist in an intimate, reflective mood. Consequently, it’s impossible to listen to this record and separate it from these circumstances. 27, the bulk of the album -17 songs worth - was written and recorded soon after Downie was diagnosed with brain cancer in early 2016, before it was publicly announced. Just in time to miss him more than you already do.From the first haunting notes of the piano, Gord Downie’s Introduce Yerself is a slow goodbye that unfolds over the course of two years and 23 songs. A man you’ve known all your life, but are still meeting anew. The man who was a father, a son, a husband, a friend, a hockey fan. Make no mistake, though: Introduce Yerself is more than a farewell present from Downie the musician. On last year’s final, emotionally devastating Hip tour, he selflessly gave us the chance to say goodbye, even as he taught us once again about strength, perseverance, courage and grace, too. In celebrating our land, its magic and its residents, Downie brought us together, helping us understand and define ourselves as a nation and a people.

Even more important than all that, of course, were the patriotic and humanist lessons and messages woven into the fabric of his art. We’ve already received an embarrassment of riches: Decades of hits and albums and concerts and videos. It’s far from the only gift Downie gave us, obviously. Coupled with Downie’s idiosyncratic entries, the sum is less a musical album than a photo album of random snaps, subtly refurbished and arrayed as a homemade present not only to their subjects but to all. But mostly, the tracks don’t sound composed and created so much as conjured and captured. Everything conveys a sense of first-thought immediacy, first-take looseness and freewheeling creativity - one song features the sound of hockey sticks thwacking a driveway. Production is quick and dirty, with reverb giving Downie’s meandering warble a soaring, otherworldly lift. Arrangements seem utilitarian and flexible, tailored to fit lyrics (or vice versa).

It’s just enough to get the job done with no fat or fuss. Predominantly penned, played and produced by Broken Social Scene frontman and frequent recent collaborator Kevin Drew, these indie-rockers and artsy ballads are often bare-bones constructs: Simple piano lines, muted acoustic guitar, basic rhythms, noisy synths, warm ambience. The music complements his words like … well, a dream. And thanks to their author’s poetic stream of consciousness, off-kilter flow and confessional vocals - not to mention his innate ability to convey the fleeting, fragmentary nature of memory - most are vague enough to protect the innocent (or the guilty) and create a drifting, dreamlike quality. Or simply staring at the soothing surface of Lake Ontario, as he did while hand-writing many of these lyrics.Īll the songs, Downie has said, were inspired by important figures in his life. Using his beloved Bruins as a lifelong conversation starter. BB-gunning tin cans in the backyard while sporting a bathing suit. Like repeatedly rocking one of his kids to sleep. They were quieter, intimate slices of everyday life. What flashed before Gord’s eyes on those wintry days of self-reflection were not highlight reels of fame and glory, triumph or even tragedy. Just not the glorious life of a revered Canadian rock icon. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt.

Gordon downie introduce yerself