Episode Four - The Music

A percussionist who couldn't swing, a chart that changes time signature every bar, and basic tracks cut at the Bathouse in Bath, Ontario.

You know what these songs are supposed to feel like. jD has been carrying 'Courage' around since the fall of 1992, and he walked into this one bracing for jazz hands, a key change nobody asked for, and somebody belting 'Bobcaygeon' from the lip of the stage with their arms out like they were hailing a cab.

Day four of It's A Good Life is the one every fan of The Tragically Hip walked in nervous about. The music. Trust was yesterday. Courage and hope come back today, and all three have to hold. So jD went and found the people who held the songs in their hands: the music supervisor, the musical director, the man who wrote the Middle Eastern music, and the producer who made two records with The Hip and then made the original cast recording. One of them saw the band in Calgary in the eighties, back when he was playing bars there himself. None of them came at this lightly.

Gord Downie's phrasing is hard to write down. Steve Berlin says there's no such thing as swing in Arabic music. And 'Gift Shop' just goes - no verse, chorus, bridge to hang on to. This is how a theatre band learned to play them anyway.

WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE

• Bob Foster (orchestrations and music supervision) on the only way to treat this catalogue, and the nights he went down to the basement with a guitar and came back up with something.

• Richard Evans (music director) on notating Gord's melodies by ear, and why a singer who doesn't sound like anybody else is so hard to put on paper.

• Levon Ichkhanian (music coordinator and composer of the Middle Eastern music) on horizontal versus vertical, and why nobody can explain Middle Eastern music in five minutes.

• Steve Berlin on cutting the basic tracks at the Bathouse, finishing the vocals and the Arabic parts in Toronto, and the counting trick that got a percussionist swinging.

• A chart for 'As I Wind Down the Pines' that Steve says he couldn't read at all, and his story of how that song came together in the first place.

• Why 'Grace, Too' runs long on the record, and a session somebody was in and out of in about ten minutes.

• 'Fireworks', and a little nugget lifted from the way Gord used to close it out live.

• Jesse LaVercombe (co-writer) on the song he'd put up against any end-of-Act-One number in contemporary musical theatre.

• Jake Gold, manager of The Tragically Hip, on what the crowd almost did at 'Ahead by a Century', and Rebecca Auerbach (Abigail) on a standing ovation nobody saw coming.

• Levon at a CD table after an outdoor festival in Waterloo, and a couple who heard something through their balcony doors.

• Opening night, and the producer who went back the next night knowing exactly what was coming.

Also in the room: producer Michael Rubinoff, Ali Momen (Waleed), Talia Schlanger (Kate), and Sameer Cash (Fadi).

IN THEIR WORDS

"If you don't respect The Hip's music and want to do it for that reason, then just don't do it." - Bob Foster

"Everything through the lens of gratitude." - Levon Ichkhanian

Thanks to Bob, Richard, Levon, and Steve for handing over the songs and every story that came attached to them. jD came in braced for the worst and owns up, at the end, to exactly what he had wrong. Tomorrow: Curtain Up, in Kingston, in front of the people who know these songs best.

IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN - KINGSTON

The Thousand Islands Playhouse production, with songs by The Hip, runs at the Kingston Grand Theatre from October 22 to November 8, 2026. Opening night is sold out.

Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026

THE ORIGINAL CAST RECORDING

Produced by Steve Berlin, out the same day the curtain goes up in Kingston.

THE TIP JAR

Four days of this in one week. Editing is hard. Buy jD a coffee and help keep the battery charged.

buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40

MORE IT'S A GOOD LIFE

Setting the Scene: LINK NEEDED

The Players: LINK NEEDED

The Craft: LINK NEEDED

It's A Good Life is part of The Tragically Hip Podcast Series.

Facebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com

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