The History of Music

Everybody has their own personal history of music. Everyone knows who it was who made them realize that music existed, and that it was important...very, very important. I can trace my history of music all the way back to when I was just a lass.

In the beginning, I lived in a world of Raffi, Charlotte Diamond and Fred Penner. The highlight of my young life was getting Charlotte's autograph at the Peace March Rally down by the beach on Burrard Inlet. I don't know what it was that attracted me to these particular artists, but they did all play guitar and sing about ducks and frogs and shit. That was probably the appeal for me. At the same time, there were labour songs. Fuck! Of course there were labour songs. As long as there's been labour there's been labour songs. I remember them being sung on the impromptu stage in my grandparents' backyard in Surrey at fundraisers for The Pacific Tribune - that good old commie labour paper.

The next stage came when I opened my eyes (well, ears...actually, I didn't open anything...it's mearly a metaphor for becoming aware), and realized that my parents listened to their own music. Anything they listened to on their records I listened to as well. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Michael Jackson (it was the '80's, and I lived to dance), the Guess Who, and Janis Joplin. Always Janis Joplin. I wanted to sing just like her, but I'd have to smoke about 400 cigarettes a day, and have a rock glass of Southern Comfort with my cornflakes every morning for the next 50 years to be able to build up that kind of gravel in my voice.

Moving along to the early '90's I branched out into the popular music of the time. I bought my first tape. It was Paula Abdul. It was 1991 afterall, and as I said as a young wipper-snapper I did love to dance (as was the custom at the time). Then in the mid-'90's I discovered Much Music. I was a teenager, so I followed my hormones and they led me to the beautiful boys of Brit Pop. My fantasy was to run away to England and sing with the Damon Albarns and Thom Yorkes of the world about bank holidays and crummy roach-infested council flats.

Ten years have passed since then, and my musical development progressed in much the same way. But the big turning point for me came when I stopped just mindlessly listening to the noise around me and started to learn that some of that really good noise came from the same people. I learned about repetoires, and went out and actively sought some of the good stuff. Throughout my whole history of music a big chunk of that consistantly good noise has been produced by the Tragically Hip. As long as I can remember music I can remember their music. They have and have always had the kind of sound that reminds me of barbeques I use to go to in the backyards of my parents' friends. Backyards with wild grass growing over the hollowed-out carcasses of dead cars, empty beer cans and greasy tools. Working-class poets. The one musical constant in most people's lives. I mean c'mon, can you remember a time before The Hip?