A great song can stop you in your tracks the first time that you hear it. You can get lost in it, almost unaware of your surroundings. That kind of transportive quality comes to the fore even more when the song deals with an unusual setting. In the case of “Bobcaygeon” by The Tragically Hip, the band takes us away to a remote area of Canada. The protagonist finds himself torn between this rural location and his urban responsibilities. And he reveals that he’s caught between love and duty.
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American audiences might not know much about The Tragically Hip. Unlike some Canadian acts, this band never quite crossed over with much success in the US. But once you’ve heard them, they’re likely to hook you for life.
Lead singer and songwriter Gord Downie helped the band become revered in their native country. He often wrote about people and places to which Canadian audiences related. In the case of “Bobcaygeon”, the title refers to a region about 100 miles away from Toronto. It stands out for its fishing and as a tourist draw.
Downie apparently did visit the town at some point. But its name interested him most, at least from a songwriting perspective. He knew that Bobcaygeon (sort of) rhymed with “constellation”. That worked well within the story song that he was concocting in his head.
“Bobcaygeon” appeared on The Tragically Hip’s 1999 album Phantom Power. That LP stands as one of nine chart-topping studio albums in Canada (out of 13 total for the band). Credited to all five group members, the song also won Canada’s highest music award, the Juno, as Song of the Year at the 2000 ceremonies.
Examining the Lyrics of “Bobcaygeon”
The narrator of “Bobcaygeon” is flashing back and forth between two locations and times. On the one hand, he’s recalling his time with his significant other in the titular location. In addition to that, he’s detailing his police work in Toronto.
He begins the song by recalling leaving his lover’s house. The lyrics suggest that his observational abilities might have been impaired at the time by music and/or drink. “It could have been the Willie Nelson,” he ponders. “It could have been the wine.”
When he returns to the house, we find out that something has altered his outlook on life. “I thought of maybe quittin’,” he says of his job. “Thought of leavin’ it behind.” That souring perspective changes the way he sees the Bobcaygeon sky. It once revealed “constellations one star at a time”. Now: “Yeah, the sky was dull and hypothetical,” Downie sings. “And fallin’ one cloud at a time.”
In the middle portion of the song, we find out that a night trying to control order amidst a riot affected him. Although Downie’s allusions are too scattershot to pin the incident in the song down to anything specific, he likely was referencing a 1933 event in Toronto. In that instance, Jewish-Canadians were targeted in a violent attack.
When you factor in all of that information, “Bobcaygeon” evokes nothing less than the inscrutability of life itself. It muses on how the sweetness of a couple in love can be interrupted by an example of horrible inhumanity. Like the gradual appearance of the stars within the song’s constellation, all of that, thanks to the skill of Gord Downie and company, reveals itself one line at a time.
Photo by Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns
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