The Artful Humanity of Gord Downie
There’s a connection between Gord Downie and Canada, apparent throughout his career, and brought into sharp focus with his disease and death. It’s not difficult to describe, per se; every nation has its Gords, but what made Gord so Canadian was his inextricable tie to this country. Gord Downie was hockey and denim. He was on a first-name basis with the country.
The feeling was that Gord wasn’t only responding to the Canada he lived in, but representing it.
Towards the end of his life, Gord became sensitive to the notion that the Canada he represented wasn’t necessarily the country’s truth. So he sought to change it, never louder than at his last concert with his beloved band, where he offered an impassioned plea to the nation’s leader when the spotlight was supposed to be on Gord.
But you know that story already; you were there, too.
We can discuss at length why it fell on Gord, a wealthy white man, to take that spotlight and direct it to Canadian First Nations before large swaths of the country would listen. Why it took a new record and brain cancer, accomplishment dosed with tragedies at once national and personal, to examine the roots of a centuries-old evil in this country.
But we know that Gord felt that ancient tragedy to his core, and all he could do was express it and beg for help. To feel his feelings in front of us all, in his desperate way, like he always did.
When we think of the Hip, that’s so often what we think of: the artful humanity of Gord Downie, letting loose the emotions he could barely contain. His warmth exuded from him in interviews, in the stories we now share about him offstage, out of the spotlight.
But onstage, those same emotions bubbled and frothed and spilled out into the stream of our collective consciousness. He was feeling too much, and he needed us to feel too much, too.
I never met him, but I knew him. You did, too.
I’ve seen the band live a few times, and I have those stories. But today, it’s hard not to feel that those stories are just for me, as your Gord stories are just for you.
The line running through them is that Gord was always himself. He was Gord for you and Gord for me, and now that he’s gone we revel in the richness of his character, expressed sonically and otherwise. Few artists express themselves so clearly and so passionately.
Which isn’t to say Gord was perfect live, not ever. Long before his health began to fail, he’d let his voice wear out in concert, overworking it and losing his tuning. Never at a loss for words, Gord would spew his endless poetry and dance with his handkerchief constantly.
When I first saw the Hip, as a cynical teen sneering at the endearing, I found him distracting and juvenile. Among numerous factors, age, my children, and Gord have softened me.
That was Gord’s power. He made us all a little more human. I’ll try to carry his work forward, in gratitude.
You will, too.