Tragically Hip – Little Bones

My Canadian friends Deke, Dave, CB, and Randy got me into this band and Deke (check his YouTube channel out) mentioned how he really liked this 1991 album Road Apples. Before I started blogging I only knew The Band, Guess Who, Neil Young, and Rush were from Canada but these guys have filled me in. 

I’ve posted a few of their songs but nothing off this album. After listening to them this past year…I don’t understand and wonder why they didn’t explode over here. 

The two songs I’ve posted are great. New Orleans Is Sinking (great classic rock sound) and Ahead By A Century. The Tragically Hip is an institution in Canada, and still something of a cult band everywhere else… I love cult bands such as Big Star and The Replacements so that is fine with me but it’s not fair. 

This song was inspired by a conversation lead singer Gord Downie had with a cab driver in New Orleans. The driver explained the basics of life and survival, saying something like “you gotta eat—it’s just little bones”, which stuck with Downie. This was their second album and it did great. It peaked at #1 in Canada but failed to chart on the Billboard album chart. The song peaked at #11 in Canada in 1991.

They got their name from Elephant Parts. That was a video by Michael Nesmith (Monkee guitarist) and they heard it in an Elvis Costello song (Town Cryer) also. Gordon Downie said: “There’s one skit in there that is sort [of] like a TV plea: ‘Send some money to the Foundation for the Tragically Hip.’ And that phrase has also appeared in an Elvis Costello song. It crops up every now and again, and it’s just a name that we like.”

They formed in 1984 in Kingston, Ontario. They were together until 2017. They have released 13 studio albums, one live album, one compilation album, two video albums, two extended plays, and a boxed set. In 2017, lead singer Gord Downie passed away. 

Little Bones

It gets so sticky down hereBetter butter your cue finger upIt’s the start of another new yearBetter call the newspaper up

Two-fifty for a highballAnd a buck and a half for a beerHappy hour, happy hourHappy hour is here

The long days of Shockley are goneSo is football Kennedy-styleFamous last words taken all wrongWind up on the very same pile

Two-fifty for a decadeAnd a buck and a half for a yearHappy hour, happy hourHappy hour is here

I can cry, beg and whineTo every rebel I findJust to give me a lineI could use to describe

They’d say, “Baby, eat this chicken slowIt’s full of all them little bonesBaby, eat this chicken slowIt’s full of all them little bones”

So regal and decadent hereCoffin-cheaters dance on their gravesMusic all it’s delicate fearIs the only thing that don’t change

Two-fifty for an eyeballAnd a buck and a half for an earHappy hour, happy hourHappy hour is here

Well, nothing’s dead down here, it’s just a little tiredNothing is dead down here, it’s just a little tiredWell, nothing’s dead down here, it’s just a little tiredNothing is dead down here, it’s just a little tired

Oh baby, eat this chicken slowIt’s full of all them little bonesBaby, eat this chicken slowIt’s full of all them little bonesLittle bonesFull of all them little bonesAah, little bones

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

52 thoughts on “Tragically Hip – Little Bones”

  2. Pingback: Tragically Hip – Little Bones – MobsterTiger

    1. Randy….they had a classic rock sound that I don’t understand why it didn’t resonate over here…well they weren’t exposed…that would be it. I read a story of them selling out a huge 10,000 seat arena in Canada and then the next night playing in an empty bar in America…just odd.

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      2. Oh yes…I like Blue Rodeo also. I’m still stuck on the Blue Shadows…I’ve played their debut album over and over…great alt country/Americana.

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  7. There are so many great groups and singers from Canada like Andy Kim, Barenaked Ladies, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, k.d. lang, Shania Twain, Bryan Adams, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Rush, Leonard Cohen, The Band, The Guess Who, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Paul Anka, Hank Snow, Guy Lombardo and Celine Dion. Chocking on a chicken bone is no joke, as if it gets stuck in there, you will have a hard time breathing. interesting group and a cool song, Max.

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    1. Thanks Jim…yea this band was huge up there…as I was telling Randy…they would sell out huge arenas 10 to 20 thousand and then play in an empty American bar the next night.

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  8. This has that U2ish arena feel to it; Max, funny with what you say about them playing to a swaying baying crowd one night, then crossing the border and playing to a their roadies, the barman and a waitress. Life ain’t fair! Nice playing around with the lyrics in the chorus too.

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  9. Thanks for the mention! One of their early, straightforward rock singles, not a bad one though I think they got more interesting and variable soon after. As you correctly point out huge in Canada…10 000 fans, in Toronto they played the Skydome, closer to 50 000. Several diamond (10x Platinum) albums. But in US, nada. Only cities they could draw in really were Buffalo & Detroit because some there listened to Canadian radio nearby and lots of Canucks would cross the border for the show. Even appearing on Sat.Nt.Live in ’90s didn’t help them

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    1. I bet if they came out now…they would have had a better chance because they would have been heard regardless of the radio. I bet they have all kinds of American fans now…. now that we know about them.

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  11. Man do I like this cut, music and lyrics/vocals. Great hard rocker. I remember that cab story. Amazing what you learn from riding in them things. Always liked the line “Football Kennedy style” Watch out for them “Little bones ” Max.

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      1. ‘football Kennedy style’ was the line in the song that stood out the most to me too when I first heard it. Apparently the Kennedys were famous for their family football games at the New England retreat and they didn’t take it easy on their siblings when playing.

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  12. I like the fusion that’s going on here. I hear some twangy, western guitar that bleeds into alternative rock chords overlaid with the late 70s early 80s punk edged vocals. It’s a classic recipe that apparently they’re at the forefront of. I’ve heard of them, but I had no idea they’ve been around so long.

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      1. I’ve just heard of them. We used to get boxes of CD singles from the various radio stations my husband worked at. Some of bands that nobody had heard of yet…some that most likely nobody would ever hear of…and some from established bands/artists that didn’t fit the radio format. That’s how I got turned onto lots of bands and artists…and, as I’ve told you, we were friends with David Hall (David Hall Rocks Ya’ll); he was very in the know in the rock and alternative rock scene. He was always turning us on to artists .

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      2. Ok…Oh yes I was a huge fan of David Hall. He was the kind of DJ I could relate to…straight ahead and played the song. Plus he did an all night call in when Lennon was murdered…best tribute I heard period. That is when he was with KDF I believe. You told me what happened…that was terrible. Now I will be thinking of long gone DJs…like Patty Murray…I think she passed in a car crash.

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      3. Patty Murray was at KDF before we moved here. She was very beloved and we heard a lot about her. She was killed–yes, in a car accident at her new gig in…Miami, I think it was, a couple of years after we moved here. My husband had just started working for the Fox when that happened.

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      5. Tom Buddle…my husband produced his morning show at the Fox when it was Buddle, Robb and Roxx. I didn’t know him, but everybody liked Tom a lot. He was Carl P Mayfields sidekick at KDF back before we moved here…sure you remember that. The Nashville radio scene really loved and backed Buddle, but he had a very bad coke habit. He just couldn’t keep it together, even though the Fox was paying him a high figure 6 figure salary back in the day. He flamed out…of Nashville anyway, I don’t know what became of him.

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      6. Thats right! Thank you…and if I asked before I’m sorry…Tom Boodle…that was it. I remember him and Carl being partners and then he went to Fox. That sucks about his habit but those were the days where it was everywhere….I’m searching for him now. Thank you Pam so much.

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  13. the late great Gord Downie was an aquired taste indeed…but when he passed away after a prolonged battle with cancer in 2017 we lost one of the unique greats…I wasn’t always a huge fan, I was always a fan of the west coast’s 5440 … and i got tired of hearing New Orleans is sinking all the time….after I’ve come to appreciate that band more and more, man they were and are tight…I have to say my fave tunes would have to be Poets and Grace Too….but, there’s a verson of it’s a good life if you don’t weaken that the band did for the Canadian Juno Awards during the COVID times with singer Leslie Fiest that is amazing…it’s on youtube and ITunes…the melody, the chord changes and the playing is amazing…at times Downie tried to prove to us how thoughtful and smart he was, but the guy created some amazing amazing tunes, that pretty most Canadians that were awake in the 90s know by heart….

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    1. Thanks Warren…you gave me something else to listen to by them. I love what I’ve heard so far…they remind me of an edgier REM… I’m posted something by 54-40 I believe….a song called I Go Blind by them.

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  15. one of the best radio stations in Pennsylvania was from London Ontario and they played a lot of good bands from Canada that were new music and the hip were always one of the top.

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  16. I’ve not heard much Tragically Hip, but I like this – very ‘up’! I first came across the band quite late, when it was on the soundtrack of a tv show that I’ve got on DVD. Not sure which but probably Northern Exposure – though it doesn’t have the music that wa s originally broadcast, so might have been a sub for something else. The one I know from the DVD was The Hundredth Meridian. (I like the studio version – below – best but, if you want to check it out there are some good live performances of it on youtube.)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rnXo14Rqf0

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    1. I just found them not long ago but they were like The Stones in Canada…just very popular. They would play a sold out 20 thousand seat arena in Canada and an empty bar the next night here…it made no sense.
      I love that song you featured.

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