Ahead by a century: The Hip imagines a better future

Ahead by a century: The Hip imagines a better future

By Robert Morrison, Professor, English Language and Literature

August 18, 2017

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"The Tragically Hip in concert"
A still from the documentary, Long Time Running, premiering at TIFF next month, captures frontman of The Tragically Hip, Gord Downie, as he leads the band through a concert in Vancouver last summer. Robert Morrison (English Language and Literature) attended The Tragically Hip鈥檚 final tour stop in Kingston. (Courtesy of TIFF)

This column was originally written for and published by , which provides news and views from the academic and research community. Queen鈥檚 University is a founding partner. Queen's researchers, faculty, and students are regular contributors.

Good poetry is explosive. It makes us re-examine what we thought we knew, and in some instances it urges us to start again with a different, usually broader, viewpoint. Good songs 鈥 as Bob Dylan鈥檚 Nobel Laureate reminds us 鈥 have a similar impact.

One year ago, on Aug. 20, The Tragically Hip played the final gig of their 2016 summer farewell tour. Their lead singer, Gord Downie, had recently been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and many thought it might be the last time they were together on stage. If you missed their shows, the documentary, , premiering next month at the Toronto International Film Festival, chronicles those exhilarating and emotional performances. I watched the final show on the big screen in Kingston鈥檚 Market Square. I wanted the Hip to play several songs, but none more so than 鈥淎head by a Century.鈥 It is, I think, their 成人大片 hit, and it was wonderful to hear them perform it as the last song of the show.

Why is it such a fitting way to finish? What about it is explosive? What does it mean to be 鈥渁head by a century?鈥 The song is so rich that there are a variety of good interpretations, but here is one way of thinking about it.

At its most basic level, 鈥淎head by a Century鈥 is a song with a broad sweep, as it weaves together past, present and future. It is about time, memory, loss, disappointment and desire. But it is also about Canada鈥檚 identity and the politics of hope. It is a song in which the Hip asks us to shed what holds us back, and to imagine a future that sets us free.

Childhood鈥檚 golden years

Ahead by a Century
First we鈥檇 climb a tree and maybe then we鈥檇 talk
Or sit silently and listen to our thoughts
With illusions of someday casting a golden light
No dress rehearsal, this is our life
That鈥檚 when the hornet stung me and I had a feverish dream
With revenge and doubt, tonight we smoke them out
You are ahead by a century
Stare in the morning shroud and then the day began
I tilted your cloud, you tilted my hand
Rain falls in real time and rain fell through the night
No dress rehearsal, this is our life
That鈥檚 when the hornet stung me and I had a serious dream
With revenge and doubt tonight, we smoked them out
You are ahead by a century
But this is our life and disappointing you getting me down
Songwriters: Gordon Downie / Johnny Fay / Joseph Paul Langlois / Robert Baker / Robert Gordon Sinclair
Ahead by a Century lyrics 漏 Peermusic Publishing

The opening verse recalls childhood. It begins with the words 鈥淔irst thing,鈥 which immediately captures the excitement children feel when they recount their day. The singer and his friend have played together many times: 鈥淔irst thing we鈥檇 climb a tree / And maybe then we鈥檇 talk / Or sit silently / And listen to our thoughts.鈥

Among other things, the two discuss what they will do when they get older, or what they think their future will be like. They have 鈥渋llusions of someday鈥 that as children cast 鈥渁 golden light.鈥 But as the rest of the song reveals, their ideas of the future are 鈥渋llusions.鈥 It will not be as they planned or hoped. Having been back to childhood, and then forward to 鈥渟omeday,鈥 the verse closes with the present and an insistence on living as fully and genuinely as possible: 鈥淣o dress rehearsal / This is our life.鈥

In the bridge, the 鈥渋llusions鈥 of childhood are inevitably and almost accidentally punctured. The voice of the child is again captured when he explains 鈥 perhaps to a parent 鈥 鈥渢hat鈥檚 where the hornet stung me.鈥 This unexpected and unpleasant experience marks the end of childhood鈥檚 鈥済olden light,鈥 and brings on the 鈥渇everish dream鈥 of adulthood, where we are all addled by emotions such as 鈥渞evenge and doubt.鈥

The final line of the bridge 鈥 like the final line of the verse 鈥 returns us to the present: 鈥淭onight we smoke them out.鈥 Literally, of course, the 鈥渢hem鈥 in this line refers to the hornets, but it also refers to 鈥渞evenge and doubt.鈥 The singer plans to use smoke to drive the hornets from their nest, in the same way that he hopes to drive revenge and doubt from himself, in an attempt to return to an earlier time when he lived free of these emotions.

Political agitators were ahead by a century

The chorus is six words 鈥 鈥淵ou are ahead by a century鈥 鈥 repeated three times. The singer is addressing his partner, who is perhaps the same person he climbed trees with as a child. Yet the two are now far apart. He is thinking of the past and struggling in the present. She is living 100 years into the future. She has broken free of at least some of what thwarts and binds us now.

She is already thinking and behaving in ways that will eventually gain broad political and cultural acceptance, but that are currently deemed unacceptable.

For example, in Britain in the 1810s, tens of thousands of women and men gathered in open-air protests to demand the right to vote, but it was 1918 before there was universal male suffrage and 1928 before there was universal female suffrage.

Those early 19th century demonstrators were ahead by a century (and more). They recognized a blatant social injustice and started campaigning against it, but it took one hundred years for the rest of society to catch up.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. 鈥 another Nobel Laureate 鈥 of his 鈥渄ream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.鈥

Since then, 53 years have passed, and we are nowhere near living up to these words, as the recent bigotry in Charlottesville, Va., makes shatteringly clear. Will we live up to them by 2064, or will we discover 鈥 sadly and shamefully 鈥 that King was ahead by much more than a century?

"The Tragically Hip receive their honorary degrees"
Members of The Tragically Hip, from left, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair, and Rob Baker, received honorary degrees from Queen's during the 2016 Spring Convocation. (Photo by Bernard Clark)

A vision of Canada beset with tragedy and injustice

In the second verse, the singer continues to draw together the despair of adulthood (鈥淪tare in the morning shroud鈥) with the exuberance of childhood (鈥淚 tilted your cloud鈥), before anchoring himself in the present (鈥淩ain falls in real time鈥), and insisting again on the importance of using our time meaningfully: 鈥淣o dress rehearsal / This is our life.鈥

The second bridge runs revealing variations on the first, and deepens the themes already in place: This time it is not 鈥渨here鈥 but 鈥渨hen the hornet stung me,鈥 and the dream is not 鈥渇everish鈥 but 鈥渟erious.鈥 Then, as the band and the singer build toward the close, the chorus is repeated twice, emphasizing with more and more urgency the distance between the singer and his partner.

The song might have ended with the repetition of the chorus, but the singer has one final thing to say: 鈥淎nd disappointing you is getting me down.鈥 It is his acknowledgement that he wishes he was as far ahead as she is, and perhaps too it hints at her disappointment that he is unable to close the ground between them.

But thinking and feeling as he does, regarding the past as he does, misspending his time as he does, seeing a 鈥渕orning shroud鈥 instead of a morning sun as he does, he seems trapped while she moves into a far more expansive future.

More broadly, the Hip themselves in many ways invoke the dynamics that are at work within this song. They write about Canadian history, language, peoples, landscapes, and towns, and their sense of who we are, where we鈥檝e been, what we鈥檝e done, and where we need to go is at the crux of their music.

Their vision of Canada is beset by tragedy and injustice, but also lifted by beauty, humour, and courage. Most of all, at their finest, they urge us to rethink the present, and to imagine a more generous and accepting future that should not be ahead of us by a century.

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