The Tragically Hip Podcast Series

It started as a punishment.
In 2016, jD heard Greg LeGros pitch "Now For Plan A" on See You Next Wednesday - not as a bad pick, but as something deeply underappreciated that deserved a real listen. jD listened. Came back. And somehow, without either of them knowing it yet, that was the moment Fully & Completely was born.
Full circle, ten years later. Here we are.
About This Episode
jD and Greg LeGros return to the record that, in a weird and fortuitous way, started everything - The Tragically Hip's 2012 album "Now For Plan A." It's the most overlooked record in the catalogue. It's also, when you know what you're listening to, one of the most emotionally devastating.
The Hip recorded "Now For Plan A" while Gord Downie's wife was fighting cancer. Not every track maps directly to that experience - but enough of them do that, once you know, the whole album reorients. The desperation in the vocals. The urgency in the hooks. The tenderness buried inside songs that, on the surface, just cook.
jD and Greg go track by track through the full record, unpacking every song with the weight of that context - and without it, for the songs that stand on their own terms. They talk about what it means to watch a chemotherapy drip and write a lyric. About Gord's wife being "the look ahead." About a title that works on at least three different levels simultaneously. About why 'Goodnight Attawapiskat' is a precis for the last six years of the band.
They also set the scene for 2012 - the 100th Grey Cup in Toronto, the beginning of streaming, the vinyl comeback, Kendrick Lamar's arrival, and how Bruce Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" tour changed at least one life in Hamilton that year.
This is a big one.
Why This Record Matters
jD puts it plainly near the end: "This is almost like a precis for the last six years of this band." The journey through cancer. The band songs. The Indigenous reckoning with a thousand mile suit and a community named out loud. "Now For Plan A" was released in 2012 with no context - and it quietly contained everything that was coming.
Greg's take is maybe the sharpest thing said in the episode: "How weird is it that he didn't get to release a record about his illness, and yet we've got track after track of him explaining how he feels about this illness."
You've got to love it. We've got to love it. Because they fucking loved it.
Also in This Episode
The 100th Grey Cup: nine-and-nine Toronto Argonauts, Burton Cummings on the National Anthem, Justin Bieber and Gordon Lightfoot sharing a halftime show
Why you should follow Burton Cummings on Facebook immediately
The streaming-meets-vinyl moment of 2012, and why download codes were a genius move
Greg's Springsteen conversion in Hamilton (it took three hours and he knew 15% of the songs)
Greg's CanRock playlist on Spotify - four hours, search Greg LeGros
The return of Time Bandits, Greg's other podcast - starting with 1980's "Battle Beyond the Stars"

Resources & References
The Hip Compendium - Setlists, song history, full discography: compendium.tthpods.com
Hipbase - Tragically Hip discography and catalogue data: hipbase.com
This Is Our Life by Michael Barclay - the definitive Hip biography
The Tragically Hip Archive - Live recordings and preservation archive
Greg LeGros on Spotify - CanRock playlist + Time Bandits episodes (search: Greg LeGros)
Yer Letter - Sign up for the TTH Podcast Series newsletter: subscribe.tthpods.com
Facebook Community - community.tthpods.com

Listen & Follow
Listen now via home.tthpods.com | Follow on Instagram and Facebook @tthpods | Reach jD at [email protected]
#TheTragicallyHip #FullyCompletely #GordDownie #NowForPlanA #CanadianRock #TragicallyHipPodcast

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The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: 'The Luxury'
'The Luxury' sits in the middle third of "Road Apples" and somehow that's exactly where it belongs.
Track four of twelve. It doesn't announce itself. It doesn't demand anything from you. It just settles in - dark, jazzy, a little snarling - and waits to see if you're paying attention.
Turns out, a lot of people are.
This week on The Tragically Hip On Shuffle, jD is joined by three first-timers - Paul from Columbus, Jamie from LA (by way of Montreal, for the record), and Eric from Toronto, who also happens to shred guitar in Forever Hip.
Three rookies. One song. Zero consensus on where it ranks on "Road Apples." All the consensus in the world on 'The Last Recluse.' So there's that.
The tale of the tape: 
'The Luxury' comes from "Road Apples," released February 18th, 1991, and recorded at Kingsway Studios in New Orleans - Daniel Lanois' personal studio. Produced by Don Smith. Live debut: March 1st, 1991 at the Town Pump in Vancouver. Final performance: August 10th at the Air Canada Centre - the middle show of the Man Machine Poem Tour. It ranked #67 out of 169 songs on the TTHTop40 Countdown.
The conversation goes deep:
Jamie breaks down a single melodic note change Gord made on the chorus - from the studio recording through the Roxy in May '91 all the way to "Live Between Us" in '96 - and how that one shift changed the song's emotional register entirely.
Eric reads the lyrics as a vignette: a man fresh out of prison, hiring company for the night, seeing a colour TV and soft water as genuine luxuries.
Paul connects the song to the fire at his cottage near Tobermory, a Crown Royal in hand, just letting it sit.
They get into the "fleur-de-lis" line, the Playboy reference, the lyric flip on "why are you partial to that Playboy con," and Gord's famous "song about a man walking down the street shaking a banana" intro on "Live Between Us." There's also a live chat shoutout to Duxoop Douglas for the New Orleans connection.
Very good, yeah.
The live shuffle at the end of the episode lands on 'An Inch, An Hour' from "Day for Night." Next week.
Paul from Columbus is a lifelong Hip fan from Columbus, Ohio - and the guy who connected the July 1st, 1992 Molson Park poster to the raffle happening this Saturday at An Evening for Sara J. Bada bing.
Jamie from LA - originally from Montreal, where his love for The Hip was first forged at camp in '89 via a mixtape with 'New Orleans Is Sinking' and '38 Years Old' on it - is heading to Toronto at the end of the month to perform in the cast of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish with English supertitles at the Elgin Theatre. May 25th to June 7th. Go see it.
Eric from Toronto plays guitar in Forever Hip, who are performing this Saturday at An Evening for Sara J at the Firkin on Yonge. Patrick Downie will be there. Two sets of all your favourites and that song you're thinking of right now. Yes, that one.
Resources & References
'The Luxury' - "Road Apples" (1991), Kingsway Studios, New Orleans
Produced by Don Smith | Released February 18th, 1991
Live debut: March 1st, 1991 - Town Pump, Vancouver
Final performance: August 10th - Air Canada Centre (Man Machine Poem Tour)
TTHTop40 ranking: #67 of 169 (source: TTHTop40 Countdown, 2025)
"Live Between Us" (1996) - the version that changed the song for Jamie
Live at the Roxy, May 1991 - early live recording referenced
Live at Metropole, October 1998 - referenced in conversation
Setlist data: Hipbase | setlist.fm

An Evening for Sara J - This Saturday, April 11th The Firkin on Yonge, 207 Yonge St, Toronto. Doors 7 PM. Featuring Patrick Downie and Forever Hip. Tickets at tickets.tthpods.com. Every dollar raised goes directly to the cause.
Next episode: 'An Inch, An Hour' from "Day for Night." Live stream, 8 PM. Be there.
Join the community at home.tthpod.com @tthpods | youtube.com/@tthpods | [email protected]
#TheTragicallyHip #TTHOnShuffle #RoadApples #GordDownie #TheHip #CanadianRockPodcast

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Getting Hip to the Hip - "We Are the Same"

Pete and Tim hear "We Are the Same" for the first time. Bob Rock, big strings, and a campfire album that divides fans right down the middle.
EPISODE SUMMARY
Released in 2009 and produced by Bob Rock, "We Are the Same" was the first record in over 20 years that made Tragically Hip fans wait longer than two years for new material. It debuted at number one. And it is, to put it diplomatically, a record that asks something of you.
Pete Marchica and Tim Lyden sit down with jD for their first full listen, and neither of them is ready for what they get. The conversation covers every track - from the country-laced AM radio chorus of 'Morning Moon' to the sprawling, emotionally devastating nine-plus minutes of 'Depression Suite,' which Pete calls fucking magnificent. There are Pink Floyd comparisons, David Gilmour guitar tributes, a detour into the agricultural meaning of 'Queen of the Furrows,' and a story about how Gord heard a CBC news correspondent's name as "Honey Watson" mid-song and just... went with it.
The residential school system, the weight of Gord's legacy as a voice for people who needed one, and the question of where that voice has gone in music today - those threads run through the episode too. Pete says it plainly. Tim agrees. jD doesn't argue.
Bob Rock takes some heat. The drum mixing takes some heat. The strings - which show up on approximately every song - take some heat. And yet, somehow, this episode ends with three grown men picking their MVPs and meaning every word.
'Depression Suite' is jD's. 'Frozen in My Tracks' is Tim's. Pete's? Listen and find out. Some things you've got to earn.
ABOUT THE HOSTS
jD is the founder and host of The Tragically Hip Podcast Series, a seven-show podcast network built out of love for a band and a community. He has raised over $35,000 for causes including the Downie Wenjack Fund, the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research, and CAMH.
Pete Marchica is coming to you from Spain. He showed up this week with notes, opinions, and a strip club analogy that somehow makes complete sense in context.
Tim Lyden listened to this album later than he would like to admit, did a deep dive on Honey Watson's true identity the day before recording, and watched a crow destroy something in his backyard mid-episode.
RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Tragically Hip discography and setlist data: Hipbase
Live performance history: setlist.fm
Band biography: This Is Our Life by Michael Barclay
The Tragically Hip Archive - source for live recordings

IN THIS EPISODE
Opening: jD on "We Are the Same" and the three-year wait
The Italian fan translating Hip lyrics into his own melodic structure
Track-by-track: 'Morning Moon,' 'Honey Please,' 'Wheat Kings,' 'Coffee Girl,' 'Exact Feeling,' 'Queen of the Furrows,' 'Speed River,' 'Depression Suite,' 'Love Is a First,' 'Country Day'
The Bob Rock debate: production genius or too much Kool-Aid?
Gord Downie, residential schools, and the question of who speaks for the people now
MVPs, playlist picks, and a poodle skirt fundraising pledge

CALLS TO ACTION
Listen to Getting Hip to the Hip and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Join the community: community.tthpods.com
CONNECT
📸 Instagram: @tthpods ▶️ YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods
📧 Email: [email protected]
#TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #WeAreTheSame #TragicallyHip #GettigHipToTheHip #CanadianRock

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Fully & Completely: redux - We Are the Same

The Hip's most divisive record. The one that feels beige on first listen and breaks your heart on the fifth. jD and Greg LeGros go track by track through "We Are the Same" - and they don't hold back.

jD and Greg LeGros return for the 17th anniversary episode of the "We Are the Same" deep dive. The album nobody fully agreed on when it dropped in 2009, and the one that keeps climbing anyway. The production is neutered, Bob Rock wanted to sell records out of Starbucks, and yet - 'Depression Suite' is sitting right there in the middle of it, ten minutes long, and it is a monster.
They go track by track. 'Morning Moon.' 'Honey Please.' 'The Last Recluse.' 'Coffee Girl' (controversial, stay with them). 'Now the Struggle Has a Name' - which turns out to be about something much bigger than the melody suggests. And 'The Depression Suite,' which gets called hookless by critics in 2009 and is, in fact, enormously hooky.
Greg lands on 'The Last Recluse' as his takeaway song. jD goes with 'Depression Suite' but admits he's going to listen to 'The Struggle Has a Name' twice on the drive home with a different set of ears. There's a Sobeys story. There's a Gandharvas rabbit hole. There's a Honey Watson correction that opens the whole album up.
This is Fully & Completely: Redux. It's the same DNA as the original run. Not a sequel - a reunion. Start at the start.
What We Get Into
'Morning Moon' - The most complete recording on the album. Neil Young-adjacent, not in a bad way. Should have been the first single. Greg connects it to listening out a charter bus window watching Ontario roll by, and it clicks. The plume of smoke across the lake from Bath studio. Labour Day. Makes sense.
'Honey Please' - The Springsteen opening that the production keeps from becoming what it should be. Mission statement buried in the first verse: I don't want to look for words, I don't want to work that hard. jD reads it as Gord's note to himself - and maybe Bob Rock's - for this entire record.
'The Last Recluse' - Tragically Hip at their most Radiohead-adjacent, which is not a sentence you write about many Hip songs. A Springsteen-y tragic love story. The Radiohead gang vocal at the end earns its place. Who is the last recluse? Greg has a read. It lands.
'Coffee Girl' - The most contentious track. Greg calls it the basement for this band. jD goes to bat for it from the barista's point of view - working the early shift, knowing her name, getting off the bus stop north just to walk past. He doesn't fully win the argument. But he makes a run at it.
'Now the Struggle Has a Name' - This is where the episode opens up. Residential schools. Reconciliation. The first time Gord openly dedicates a full song to something this specific and this political. The applause can begin for the apology. That is a stinging line. And Honey Watson, it turns out, is Connie Watson - he misheard the name on the news, wrote it down, realized the mistake, and kept it anyway. Of course he did.
'The Depression Suite' - Nearly ten minutes. Three movements. Called hookless by people who weren't listening. Are you going through something? Because I am too is one of the great hooks in this catalogue - F sharp minor, Greg can't stretch his hand to play it, it still lands. 2009 was early to be this direct about mental health. The Hip were early, as usual.
'The Exact Feeling,' 'Queen of the Furrows,' 'Speed River,' 'Frozen in My Tracks,' 'Love Is a First,' 'Country Day'- The back half of the record gets a harder look. Some of it holds up better than they expected. Some of it still suffers from production that cuts the band off at the knees right when they should be rocking. 'Skeleton Park' - the bonus track, Apple Music Extra only, not on every format - is brought up as the song that should have been the closer. Never heard it? Go find it.
The Verdict

Greg's takeaway song: 'The Last Recluse' jD's takeaway song: 'The Depression Suite' The song to play someone to introduce them to this album: 'Morning Moon' - impossible not to like Does anything crack jD's personal top 25 Hip songs? No. He says so plainly. Is it still a good album? Yeah. It is. Greg likes 65% of it. He says so plainly too.
Coming Up

Next time out - a Hipstories episode with a very interesting guest. A Gord solo episode follows that. They'll get it to you as they get it to you. Life happens.
Resources & References

"We Are the Same" - The Tragically Hip, 2009. Produced by Bob Rock. Recorded at Bath Studios (Ontario) and Hana, Hawaii.
'Depression Suite' - Track six on "We Are the Same." Nearly ten minutes. Three movements. The centrepiece.
'Now the Struggle Has a Name' - References residential schools and Canadian reconciliation. Among Gord Downie's earliest and most direct political statements on record.
The Downie Wenjack Fund - Gord's commitment to reconciliation didn't stop with this song. It became the foundation for everything that followed, including "Secret Path." Learn more at downiewenjack.ca
"The Ecstasy of Rita Joe" - Play by George Ryga, referenced in the Athabasca section of 'Depression Suite.' If you know the connection, tell them.
The Gandharvas - Canadian band, not on Spotify in original form. Go find Kicking in the Water on YouTube. Start with 'The First Day of Spring.' You're welcome.
Hipbase - Primary source for setlists, catalogue data, and discography information used throughout. hipbase.com
This Is Our Life - Michael Barclay's biography of The Tragically Hip. The definitive source.
Support the Cause

The TTH Podcast Series has raised over $35,000 for causes including the Downie Wenjack Fund, The Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research, and CAMH. If this community has given you something, give something back.
Learn more and give
Stay Connected

Community: community.tthpods.com Subscribe to Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube:youtube.com/@tthpods Email: [email protected]
Transcript available above. If you have information about the Athabasca / George Ryga connection in 'Depression Suite' - seriously, tell them. The forum is open.
#TheTragicallyHip #FullyCompletely #WeAreTheSame #GordDownie #CanadianRock #TragicallyHipPodcast

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Eight songs. One vinyl pressing so rare most fans have never held it. And a song that — based on all available evidence — was played live maybe three times before The Hip quietly let it go. jD, Joe from Toronto, Andy from St. Thomas, and Justin from Bridport dug into the self-titled EP and found something they weren't expecting.
Episode Summary
'I'm a Werewolf Baby' clocks in at number 140 out of 169 songs in the TTH Podcast Series community poll. And yet. Pull it up right now and try not to move. You can't. You will fail. That's the thing about this song — it doesn't care where it ranks. It just rips.
The song comes from the self-titled Tragically Hip EP, released in the Kingston area in late 1987 and distributed more widely in 1988. It was produced by Red Ryder guitarist Ken Greer. Lyrics by Gord Downie. Music by Robbie, Johnny, and Gord Sinclair. That songwriting credit breakdown — individual, named, specific — is one of the things that makes the EP a genuinely interesting document. That, and the fact that it pre-dates Paul Langlois on guitar. He played shaker on this one. And during the breakdown, apparently, Gord picked him up and carried him around the stage. So there's that.
Based on what setlist.fm and Hipbase can confirm, the song was performed live only three known times — debuting in 1987 at the Alma Combo in Toronto and last appearing April 11, 1990 at the Spectrum in Montreal. Why did they stop? The panel had opinions. Some of it comes down to New Orleans Is Sinking absorbing the sonic real estate. Some of it comes down to werewolves being out of fashion by 1990. Some of it, jD suspects, is that they just didn't love it anymore — and when your setlist is building toward "Nautical Disaster" and "Fifty-Mission Cap," this one starts to look like the eight-crayon box sitting beside the 128-count set with the built-in sharpener.
What the panel kept coming back to is the foreshadowing. The howl in this song, Andy from St. Thomas points out, is the same howl Gord would use between songs on the 2016 Man Machine Poem Tour — the final tour — with the mic pressed to his belly button. Nearly thirty years apart. Same sound. The embryo and the elegy.
Justin from Bridport came in having re-watched the docuseries specifically to prepare. He surfaced the detail that the song predates Paul's addition to the band — this was a holdover from the Davis Manning era, a relic that got dusted off and recorded because they needed one more song. That reframe matters. This wasn't a proud showcase. It was a polished demo. It was the bar band phase. It was fresh-out-of-high-school energy — and Johnny Fay was literally still a teenager when they tracked it.
Joe from Toronto, frontman of Forever Hip, put it plainly: the lyrics read like Paul Stanley wrote them. Which is not an insult, actually. It's just that from Gord Downie, knowing what came after, it reads like a deal with the devil got made sometime between this and "Locked in the Trunk of a Car." The growth from 1987 to 1989 is almost impossible to reconcile when you hear them back to back. Justin confirmed it — his algorithm served him 'I'm a Werewolf Baby' and then, immediately after, 'Blow at High Dough' from "Up to Here." Same band. Two years later. How.
Community poll results from the Facebook group (approaching 5,000 members - now there's a number): 58% love this tune, 26% tolerate it, 11% skip it, and 5% had never heard it before tonight. That 5% number surprised everyone. It probably shouldn't. If you came to The Hip through "Phantom Power," this EP is a different country.
Next week on The Tragically Hip On Shuffle: 'The Luxury' from "Road Apples." Three new panelists. One random song. Same deal.
The Guests
Joe from Toronto is the frontman of Forever Hip, the Tragically Hip tribute band playing live at An Evening for Sara J - April 11 at the Firkin on Yonge. This is his second appearance on The Tragically Hip On Shuffle.
Andy from St. Thomas is a lifelong Hip fan making his first appearance on the show. He came prepared, he admitted the EP was one he'd slept on, and his insight about Gord's 2016 howl being traceable all the way back to this song was the best moment of the night. He's a good dad. His daughter knew the Blue Album better than he did.
Justin from Bridport - the only Bridport in America, and a returning panelist working his way toward the five-timers sash. He re-watched the full Hip docuseries this week specifically to prep for this episode. It showed.
Resources & References
setlist.fm - setlist and live performance data for 'I'm a Werewolf Baby'
Hipbase - discography and catalogue reference. Thank you to Lance Robinson and the Hipbase team.
The Tragically Hip Archive - for live recordings referenced in discussion
The Tragically Hip Reddit community - Rico Borrega's song-by-song breakdowns of the full catalogue are worth your time. jD avoids reading them before recording. You shouldn't have to.
An Evening for Sara J - April 11, Firkin on Yonge
Hip fans in Toronto - this is the one. Live episode recording with Patrick Downie. Forever Hip on stage. Six Hip concert posters and a numbered Richard Beland fine art print of Chris Cornell up for raffle. All for a great cause. Tickets at tickets.tthpods.com.
Connect
Facebook community: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: [email protected]
#TheTragicallyHip #TTHOnShuffle #TheHip #GordDownie #TragicallyHip #UpToHere

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