walking upstream…
Tragically Hip
photo: kim pardi · cc by-sa 2.0 ↗Tragically Hip
sourcesThe Tragically Hip — Wikipedia (formation, early cover years, discography) · Gord Downie interview, Ear of Newt — on the band's early Yardbirds/Rolling Stones covers and motivation · CBC Music, "The 10 best Tragically Hip covers" — on the band's covers repertoire including Them's "I Can Only Give You Everything"
Formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, the Tragically Hip cut their teeth as a bar band covering the British Invasion blues-rock of the Yardbirds and Rolling Stones before finding their own voice as chroniclers of Canadian geography, history, and small-town longing. Gord Downie's oblique, image-drunk lyrics and the band's tightly wound, guitar-driven arrangements made albums like Up to Here, Road Apples, and Fully Completely into era-defining Canadian rock records, even as the band remained a cult act south of the border. Downie's death from brain cancer in 2017, a year after a nationally televised farewell tour, turned the band into a genuine national institution.
the sound in question
1998
BobcaygeonTragically Hip
walk the tributaries ↓
The Yardbirds1960s · Blues rock / Psychedelic rock
Downie recalled that when the band first formed, "we found that we were gravitating to a lot of Yardbirds, early Stones covers" — the freight-train rave-up energy of the Hip's earliest, bluesiest material grew directly out of nights spent playing that repertoire in Kingston bars.
listen: upstream & here
1966
Train Kept A-Rollin'The Yardbirds
1989
New Orleans Is SinkingTragically Hip
listen forThe Yardbirds' chugging, ever-accelerating rave-up "Train Kept A-Rollin'" sits behind the driving, riff-first blues-rock of the Hip's own "New Orleans Is Sinking" — the same relentless, train-like momentum.
The Rolling Stones1960s-70s · Rock / Blues rock / Hard rock
Downie recalled that in the band's earliest days "we found that we were gravitating to a lot of Yardbirds, early Stones covers" — among the specific songs the Hip covered was the Stones' "2000 Light Years from Home," part of the wide net of 1960s British material the band drew from before writing original songs.
listen: upstream & here
1967
2000 Light Years from HomeThe Rolling Stones
1991
Little BonesTragically Hip
listen forThere's no direct riff-for-riff descendant here — the influence is mostly that the Hip cut their teeth playing this song note for note before finding their own voice; that same period's fascination with a hypnotic, droning vamp resurfaces in the trance-like verse groove of the Hip's own "Little Bones."
Van Morrison1970s · Celtic soul / Folk-jazz / R&B
Among the Hip's early cover staples was Them's "I Can Only Give You Everything," sung by a young Van Morrison — Downie's own impassioned, half-spoken vocal delivery on the Hip's most soulful material carries an echo of Morrison's snarling, R&B-inflected phrasing on that record.
listen: upstream & here
1966
I Can Only Give You EverythingVan Morrison
1992
At the Hundredth MeridianTragically Hip
listen forCompare Morrison's urgent, almost-shouted vocal on "I Can Only Give You Everything" to Downie's own building, increasingly unhinged delivery on "At the Hundredth Meridian" — both singers use barely-contained vocal urgency as the song's emotional engine.