The Tragically Hip: Song #1- Nautical Disaster.

This is one post in a series. Each post will focus on one song by the Canadian rock n’ roll band The Tragically Hip. I am a fan, not an expert. The thoughts expressed in these posts are my own, with the following two exceptions: I have drawn inspiration and knowledge from a book entitled The Never Ending Present by Michael Barclay. I have, also, learned much from a website dedicated to Hip fans entitled The Hip Museum. I will give credit to either source when applicable.

This is my favourite Tragically Hip song. This is a song that I like for many reasons. First of all, I love the history behind the song. Like “Lake Fever“, it is actually a story within a story….a retelling of a dream…..a conversation between the narrator and a woman named Susan who is either a lover or a therapist, take your pick. By all accounts, the song is based upon the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck during the second world war.

But, the story of the song actually begins a few decades prior, during World War One. The most famous ship sunk during World War One was the passenger ship Lusitania. It was sunk by a German U-Boat. U-Boats changed the way naval warfare was fought in a very significant way which influenced what happened years later when the Bismarck was sunk (and which, also, inspired my favourite Tragically Hip line of them all). In WWI when a ship was sunk, other ships in the area would stop and rescue any survivors who had ended up in the ocean. Humane treatment of prisoners was one of the unwritten rules of battle at the time and thus, the rescuing of survivors was a time-honoured naval tradition. However, with the advent of U-Boats, that tradition became deadly. What changed was that once a U-Boat sunk a ship, it would wait where it was until another ship in the convey stopped to rescue survivors. Then, as the rescue was being completed, the U-Boat would sink the rescuing ship while it was sitting “dead in the water” as the term has come to be known. Such was the alarming rate of ship loss that the Royal Navy passed a new rule: no ship was to stop for survivors any longer. If they did, their safety could not be guaranteed. Leaving fellow sailors to die in the ocean went against the moral code of seamen on both sides of the conflict. But that was modern warfare in those days so survivors were left in the water as ships sailed away to safety.

Fast forward, I once saw a documentary about the discovery of the wreck of the Bismarck. It was a National Geographic documentary featuring Dr. Robert Ballard (who discovered the wreck of the Titanic). In this documentary, Ballard set sail to locate the actual wreck site of the Bismarck. He also brought along a British sailor who had been in the battle that sank the Bismarck, as well as a German sailor who, despite all odds, managed to find rescue. After the wreck was discovered, Dr. Ballard and the two men held a peace ceremony and dropped a floral wreath of remembrance into the water. The sailors were interviewed about their memories and both said that they were haunted by the screams of the men left to die in the water. It was stated that some British ships left rope ladders down as they sailed past so that some men might be able to latch on as the ship sailed past. This is how the German was rescued. When Gord Downie was interviewed about this song, he mentioned having watched “a documentary”. I am fairly certain that he saw the same one I did because the lyrics match the eye-witness testimony too precisely for it to be a fluke.

Anyway, “Nautical Disaster” is a song about the callousness and inhumanity of war and what war makes us all capable of doing to our fellow human beings. Yet, it remains one of the most popular and requested Tragically Hip songs of all time.

“Then the dream ends when the phone rings
You’re doing alright he said, it’s out there, most days and nights,
But only a fool would complain.
Anyway, Susan, if you like
Our conversation is as faint as a sound in my memory
Of those fingernails…scratching on my hull.”

The link to the video for song “Nautical Disaster” by The Tragically Hip can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.

The link to the official website for The Tragically Hip can be found here.

I hope that you enjoyed this post. If you have checked them all out then, I hope you enjoyed the whole series. For now, I will thank you for being here and reading my work. But, most of all, I will thank Gord Downie, Gord Sinclair, Paul Langlois, Johnny Fay and Rob Baker for making such good art. I am changed for the better because of their efforts and their personal and professional integrity. This series of posts doesn’t begin to say Thank You in the depth required but, it is a start. Thanks, Boys! I appreciate it all!

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