![]() Everyone involved in the making of Away Is Mine refers to it as “a gift,” and rightly so if you were fortunate enough to have your imagination captured by Gordon Edgar Downie during his lifetime, rest assured these recordings will capture and captivate it again.įirst, some context: Gord Downie, longtime frontman for a rock-‘n’-roll band of some repute from Kingston, Ontario, called The Tragically Hip, allowed it known to the world on May 24, 2016, that he had been stricken the previous December with an inoperable form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma. Also, you hold in your hands right now another superb Gord Downie record – one as singular and unpredictable and challenging and worthy of your prolonged, scholarly appraisal and/or simple enjoyment as Coke Machine Glow or Battle of the Nudes or The Grand Bounce or Gord Downie, The Sadies, and the Conquering Sun or Secret Path or Introduce Yerself – and that, in itself, should be cause for joy. There’s joy to be found within Away Is Mine despite the grim undercurrent gnawing away at its conception and its unguarded lyric sheet: joy in friendships, joy in family, joy in collaboration, joy in writing, joy in music and joy in mystery. And yet it took a fearless reckoning with his own mortality to get us here.ĭon’t give into the “sads,” though. Like all of the music and the poetry and the memories and the mad genius with which Gord gifted us during his 53 years on our planet, it is immortal. ![]() Away Is Mine is Gord Downie’s final solo recording, a characteristically questing and idiosyncratic piece of work steered to life by “my oldest Toronto friend,” guitarist and co-writer Josh Finlayson, that holds fast to its author’s unwavering artistic spirit, deft hand with words and forever inscrutable sense of humour even as he locks eyes head-on with the Great Inevitability. This, as decreed by fate, is the last one. “Eventually” just came to Gordon Edgar Downie with inconsiderate haste. It was after the second outing that Gord asked if Bob had music he could write to, leading to Lustre Parfait: the ninth album to bear Downie's name outside the Hip, and the first to bear Rock's.Gordon Edgar Downie would have made this album eventually. Inspired by their brotherhood under the muse of rock n' roll, their work together began when Bob produced The Tragically Hip's World Container (2006) and We Are The Same (2009). In contrast to the raw intimacy of Downie's posthumous solo releases – 2017's letter-to-loved-ones Introduce Yerself, and 2020's ghostly goodbye Away Is Mine – Lustre Parfait is unabashedly infectious, a gift of unbridled expression from one of Canada's most cherished voices, belting out pristine lyrics from in-the-pocket of a gleaming rock band, relentless, and charged with the unifying forces of poetry and power. Recorded between 20, Rock's Grammy Award-winning flair lights up Downie's peerless lyricism and incendiary heart. Gord Downie, the iconic frontman of The Tragically Hip, and legendary producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Bon Jovi, Motley Crüe, Michael Bublé) combine on a fourteen-song double-album with the newfangled energy of two restless talents in lockstep. More than a decade in the making, Lustre Parfait is the long-mythologized collaboration of rock n' roll giants. * ‘Understand? No, but it’s brilliant’ (from the film ‘The Red Circle’) They keep saying, “Ya gotta live in the moment” They keep saying, I gotta live in the moment They keep saying, ‘Just live in the moment’ Hey Hey Hey - Clear eyes and full heart – we can only connect Hey Hey Hey - We gather in the dark – we can only connect Yesterday, I watched that hawk just staring at a raven Like a rock, onto something in the grass below See a red-tailed hawk, drop-drop-drop from a flying stop, The clouds break up, windows down, windows up, the curtains puffĮnough! Enough! Time to get on with the day Maybe we were never really gonna be good friends anyway Maybe nature’s war, or maybe war is nurtured ![]() Some days I can’t do it, some days I just can’t do it Some days, I can’t do it, sometimes I just can’t do it It’s not like we were gonna be good friends anyway The raven cawed and slowly, indolently flew away I tossed a rock, it echoed cross the vacant lot, Yesterday, saw that raven picking at an empty hard-hat Rock-to-rock, still hot round the house fire’s afterglow
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