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"Bobcaygeon" is a song by Canadian rock band the Tragically Hip. It was released in February 1999 as a single from their sixth album, Phantom Power, and has come to be recognized as one of the band's most enduring and beloved signature songs.

Background

The song is named after Bobcaygeon, Ontario, a town in the Kawartha Lakes region about 160 kilometres (99 mi) northeast of Toronto. The song's narrator works in the city as a police officer, a job he finds stressful and sometimes ponders quitting, but unwinds from the stress and restores his spirit by spending his weekends with a loved one in the rural idyll of Bobcaygeon, where he sees "the constellations/reveal themselves one star at a time" in contrast to the city's "dull and hypothetical" skies that are "falling one cloud at a time".

In live performances, Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie typically explained "Bobcaygeon" as a "cop love song," though the identity of the narrator's beloved changed from performance to performance. In the original video, the male cop's partner is female, but Downie sometimes introduced the song in concert as being "about a couple of gay cops that fall in love".

According to Downie, the song was not specifically written about the town itself, but rather any small town would have worked for the theme and he settled on "Bobcaygeon" primarily because it was the only place name he could find that came close to rhyming with "constellation".

A secondary theme of the song addresses racism and anti-Semitism; Downie has sometimes introduced the song with "This one asks the question: evil in the open or evil just below the surface?", and Rob Baker's guitar has "This machine kills fascists" written on it in the song's video. In the song's bridge, the British rock band The Men They Couldn't Hang are performing a concert at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern ("with its checkerboard floors"); when they begin to perform their song "Ghosts of Cable Street", which is about the Battle of Cable Street riot in London in 1936, in an "Aryan twang", a similar brawl or riot appears to erupt between fascist and anti-fascist activists in the audience, which then weighs heavily on the officer's mind as he drives back to Bobcaygeon in the final verse. (In the video, however, the brawl is visually depicted as occurring at a concert by "The Constellations".) A common interpretation is that the lyrics obliquely reference the Christie Pits riot of 1933, which arose from tensions between Toronto's working-class Jewish community and anti-semitic Swastika clubs following a baseball game; although the song's otherwise contemporary setting leaves this interpretation in question, a similar albeit less famous public brawl between the Heritage Front and Anti-Racist Action did occur in Toronto in 1993 just a few years before Downie wrote the song.

The song won the Juno Award for Single of the Year in 2000.

Music video

Much of the "Bobcaygeon" video was filmed at a house in Scarborough, Ontario on Beare Road, a location formerly used in Canadian television productions including Anne of Green Gables and Road to Avonlea. The house burned to the ground in a fire in 2007.

Former MuchMusic and CBC personality Laurie Brown made an appearance in the video as a TV reporter.

Cultural impact

The song resulted in the town of Bobcaygeon coming to occupy what has been described as a "mythical" place in Canada's collective imagination, as the archetype of a Canadian cottage country paradise.

In 2011 the band performed their first-ever concert in Bobcaygeon, a town ordinarily too small to hold a concert by a major touring rock band; Toronto Star music critic Jason Anderson described their performance of the song at that concert as "a moment of Canuck-rock significance that's roughly equivalent to Roger Waters doing Pink Floyd's The Wall in Berlin."

Following the band's announcement in 2016 that Downie had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, both the Toronto Star and Maclean's sent journalists to the town of Bobcaygeon to write about the residents' feelings about the song and the announcement. On the final night of the Man Machine Poem Tour, which saw the band's concert in Kingston broadcast nationally by CBC Television, the town held a public viewing on its main street; in addition to local residents, the event was also attended by a significant number of people who had made a "pilgrimage" to view the concert there because of the song. The "Concert Under the Constellations" was the largest public event in the town's history, garnered more widespread media coverage than any other public viewing party anywhere in Canada outside of Kingston, and a fundraising initiative during the event resulted in the largest single tour-related donation to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Zoomer Media called it one of the ten best Canadian songs of all time.

The song is on the soundtrack for Trailer Park Boys: The Movie.

Covers

Pop singer Damhnait Doyle covered the song on her 2007 album Lights Down Low.

Singer-songwriter Justin Rutledge recorded a cover of the song on his 2014 EP Spring Is a Girl. It was originally recorded for his studio album Daredevil, which consisted entirely of Tragically Hip covers, but was held back for the follow-up EP.

During his 2016 tour, Dallas Green (City and Colour) regularly performed "Bobcaygeon". In a tribute to Downie at the Juno Awards of 2018 ceremony, Green, Sarah Harmer and Kevin Hearn performed a medley of "Bobcaygeon" with the title track from Downie's posthumous solo album Introduce Yerself.

At Blue Rodeo's concert in Toronto on August 20, 2016, which was occurring at the same time as the final concert of the Hip's Man Machine Poem Tour, Blue Rodeo performed a rendition of "Bobcaygeon" as video screens around the venue displayed scenes from the concurrent Hip concert in Kingston. Longtime Blue Rodeo guitarist and mandolinist Bob Egan, who was retiring from music and performing his final show with the band that evening, had been a guest musician on the original Tragically Hip recording of the song.

The Canadian indie rock band Paper Lions posted an a capella rendition of the song to their YouTube page in August 2016.

On the January 1, 2017 episode of CBC Radio 2's The Strombo Show, a special Tragically Hip tribute episode in which other Canadian musicians performed live versions of Hip songs, "Bobcaygeon" was performed by both Blue Rodeo and Rheostatics as the opening and closing song.

For CBC Music's "Juno 365" project, a promotional initiative for the Juno Awards of 2018 which featured contemporary artists performing covers of past Juno-winning songs, Scott Helman and Midnight Shine both performed covers of "Bobcaygeon".

In 2018, Canadian indie folk band Reuben and the Dark recorded a cover of "Bobcaygeon" as a charity single to benefit the Gord Downie and Chanie Wenjack Fund.

In 2022, sibling singer-songwriters T. Buckley and Mariel Buckley released a cover of the song.

At a May 2024 concert in Vancouver, American rock band Pearl Jam interpolated parts of "Bobcaygeon" into their own 1993 single "Daughter".

In 2024, country singer-songwriter Owen Riegling covered the song as an Amazon Music exclusive.

On September 5, 2024, it was one of three songs, alongside "Ahead by a Century" and "Grace, Too", performed by Choir! Choir! Choir! in a public singalong following the premiere of the documentary series The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

Charts

References

1. ^ "Town of Bobcaygeon reflects on The Tragically Hip". Toronto Star, August 17, 2016.
2. Smith, Ryan (12 July 2013). "RBC ROYAL BANK BLUESFEST: DAY 7 – THE TRAGICALLY HIP, THE JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION, AND L.P." eastscene.com. East Scene. Retrieved 20 August 2016. Downie introduced the next song as one "...about a couple of gay cops that fall in love. One lives in the city, and the other lives in the country. You can see the dilemma... the commute," and the band started playing "Bobcaygeon".
3. "CONCERT REVIEW: The Tragically Hip". TBNewsWatch.com. 30 January 2013. Retrieved 2019-07-29.
4. ^ "Searching for the Tragically Hip's mythical Bobcaygeon". Maclean's, July 15, 2016.
5. ^ "Bobcaygeon references". A Museum After Dark.
6. "Looking for a place to happen". CBC News.
7. "That Night in Toronto: Shalom to the Tragically Hip". Canadian Jewish News, October 7, 2016.
8. "Leader of neo-Nazi group charged with assault in brawl". Toronto Star, June 18, 1993.
9. Foley, Doug (2000-03-13). "Super Celebration; Junos are a crowd pleaser for TV and music fans alike". The Spectator. Hamilton. Archived from the original (Pay-per-view) on November 2, 2012. Retrieved 2010-05-11.
10. Boon, Mike (2024-08-26). "10 Things Filmed in Toronto with Jeremy Hopkin: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1541". TorontoMike.com. Retrieved 2024-08-27.
11. "Hip fans the real stars of Bobcaygeon". Toronto Star, November 16, 2012.
12. ^ "Bobcaygeon belts out its Tragically Hip moment". Maclean's, August 21, 2016.
13. ^ "Biggest party leads to biggest donation". Kawartha Promoter, October 4, 2016.
14. "Tragically Hip’s last show about more than the music for Bobcaygeon, Ont.". Toronto Star, August 20, 2017.
15. "10 Best Canadian Songs Of All Time—As Chosen By You!". Zoomer, August 30, 2017.
16. "City and Colour wallow in their woe during Saturday night Saddledome show". Calgary Herald, June 12, 2016.
17. "Blue Rodeo drummer talks new album, Tragically Hip tribute" Archived 2017-03-01 at the Wayback Machine. Penticton Western News, January 17, 2017.
18. "Paper Lions post a cappella cover of Tragically Hip's Bobcaygeon". CBC News, August 22, 2016.
19. "Strombo pays tribute to The Tragically Hip". Kingston Whig-Standard, December 24, 2016.
20. "Juno 365 session: Scott Helman covers the Tragically Hip's 'Bobcaygeon'". CBC Music, February 15, 2018.
21. "Reuben and The Dark Cover The Hip’s Bobcaygeon to Raise Money for Downie-Wenjack Fund" Archived 2018-08-29 at the Wayback Machine. Samaritan Magazine, August 2, 2018.
22. Martin Noake, "Single Release: T. Buckley & Mariel Buckley, "Bobcaygeon'". Great Dark Wonder, December 8, 2022.
23. Megan LaPierre, "Watch Pearl Jam Cover the Tragically Hip's "Bobcaygeon" in Vancouver". Exclaim!, May 6, 2024.
24. Rosie Long Decter, "Owen Riegling Celebrates The Tragically Hip's 40th Anniversary With "Bobcaygeon" Cover". Billboard, June 29, 2024.
25. David Friend, "Tragically Hip fans belt out band’s classics en masse as TIFF gets underway". Toronto Star, September 5, 2024.
26. "Top Singles - Volume 68, No. 24, April 5 1999". RPM. Retrieved 2011-09-08.
27. "Rock/Alternative - Volume 69, No. 4, May 17 1999". RPM. Archived from the original on 2012-10-14. Retrieved 2012-05-22.
28. "Adult Contemporary - Volume 69, No. 10, June 28 1999". RPM. Archived from the original on 2012-06-24. Retrieved 2012-05-22.
29. "The Tragically Hip Chart History (Canadian Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved 2016-08-30.
30. "Top Singles - Volume 70, No. 8, December 13, 1999". RPM. December 13, 1999. Archived from the original on March 10, 2016. Retrieved November 21, 2017.

• 1999 singles
• 1998 songs
• The Tragically Hip songs
• Universal Records singles
• Juno Award for Single of the Year singles
• Songs about Canada
• Ontario in fiction
• Songs about racism and xenophobia
• Songs about police officers
• Songs about music
• Songs written by Rob Baker (guitarist)
• Songs written by Gord Downie
• Kawartha Lakes
• Songs about towns