1/13/2024 0 Comments Family gord downie wife“The Bruins got the conversation going” he sings, in a line that reflects the times when life can get heavy and sports is the thing we rely on for easy conversation. I like that it’s still a mystery to me at this point.Īnd I don’t think he would have considered You Me and the Bs about he and his brother’s shared penchant for the Boston Bruins, a team his godfather, Harry Sinden coached. His longtime wife, Laura Leigh Usher, has many more odes on this album, and I wonder if she’s actually the woman in the title song. He couldn’t have named it My First Girlfriend, one about the way girls made him feel when he was younger, when he was learning what attracted him: “I watched your every move/your sophistication/ your sadness/ and your certitude.” Although this was likely the girl who steered Downie into the books that served to add archetypal storytelling to his songwriting. He uses careful vocal cadence in front of piano and soft drum beat to recount the tender moments putting one of his four children to bed “when I got to the door, closed to within an inch/that’s when you’d come awake/as if you’d been watchin’ me.” A Natural seems to be about one of his kids, as well, and is one of the only upbeat songs on the album. He could have named it Bedtime, which is actually the standout song for me. Some other choices must have been laboured over for the title. But he also says this is the person who “helped me out of so many scrapes…helped me wait and wait and wait…helped me when I had to pretend…helped me walk through thickets again and again.” Photo: Youtube Unless he chose the experience over the person because the figure from Introduce Yerself doesn’t seem that close to him still – he says “When I see you, I’ll show you my hand” meaning this person hasn’t seen him for awhile. I trust it would have been difficult to choose one person to dedicate the album to, and that’s what choosing one song would do. So why is this so important to name the album after? Is it about the person or the experience? It was such an impactful experience that he later considers getting the tattoo of that same message on his hand. We then presume she introduces herself to the driver and Downie learns his name. So, why Introduce Yerself? It’s a story about him in the backseat of a car where he’s forgotten the driver’s name so he pens an arrow to those exact words on his hand and shows it to the person beside him. This album is for the people closer to him, the ones that helped shape him. He said goodbye to his fans on the Man Machine Poem tour. Knowing that death is coming, he is saying goodbye to his family, friends, bandmates, and the landscape of Canada in a way he has chosen carefully. There is very little figurative language on Introduce Yerself. No, this is a collection of letters and journal entries. So, for a poet, this is not an overly poetic collection. And I do love the cryptic wall – it’s what impresses me most about his songwriting – but it’s nice to have him simply open the door to his memories and let us walk into that room and hangout for a little while. He’s letting us into his life without the cryptic wall he usually puts up. He’s as far away as he can be in a metaphysical sense, but he’s never been so close on an album. We all know the distance that exists now between us and him, his persona and the country that loved him. There are sometimes sounds of children in the background, or audio clips of him talking, so the experience feels direct and immediate. He’s also using many of his first takes so the emotion is raw, not over rehearsed. He’s equipped himself with a piano and a handful of minor chords that give it an eerily beautiful sound. And I’ll get to that in a second, but I want to explain why ‘haunting’ is the right word. Each song is a letter to someone in his life. Gord’s speaking to us from beyond the grave.īut he’s not actually speaking to us. But I’ve seen a few headlines and one word that’s being used is ‘haunting.’ And, yes, I agree – I think this album is haunting. Or maybe I’m just meticulous and slow to grasp concepts. This album takes a few listens to truly understand it. I’ve been avoiding all reviews of the album because I wanted this to be fresh from my own listening experience – one that had me lying on my couch in the dark with headphones on Saturday night, instead of dressing up in some crazy costume and going out to celebrate All Soul’s Day.Īnd I don’t trust the reviews that came out too early. I was walking along the Bruce Trail this past weekend listening to Gord Downie’s posthumous album, enjoying one last collection of songs in a strange kind of mournful trek, when a thought struck me: why Introduce Yerself? I mean, why, out of all the titles he could have used from the twenty-three song collection, did he decide on that one?
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