One night in El Paso, the cops go into the crowd - and somehow, 32 years later, we're still unpacking what that means.

This week on The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream, the shuffle landed on 'Yawning or Snarling' from "Day for Night" - and it pulled 76% Love It in the community poll. Add in the Like Its and you're sitting at 95%. Not bad for track four on a record that doesn't exactly hand you easy entry points.

jD was joined by the most international panel the show has ever assembled: Andy from St. Thomas, Glynn from Melbourne, and Thomas from Oxford - who tuned in at 1 a.m. on his birthday, which is exactly the kind of dedication this community runs on.

The conversation went deep. Bass as MVP. The panning of that slide guitar in headphones. The way Gord built entire worlds by changing two words between verses - glaring to throbbing, day to night - and what that does to the light in El Paso, literally and otherwise. Glynn brought a photographer's eye to 'the bladder of light' and the science of bat sonar. Thomas picked up his guitar mid-episode to demonstrate what makes those interplaying guitar parts so quietly unusual. Andy connected the border tension of early 90s El Paso to the cop-into-crowd imagery and made it land differently than it did before. And the chat surfaced a connection between this bass line and REM's 'Undertow' that is frankly hard to unhear.

Oh, and the wheel spin at the end? Next week we're talking 'Bobcaygeon.' At the start of summer. So there's that.

About the Panelists

Andy from St. Thomas is a Tragically Hip fan whose entry into 'Yawning or Snarling' was sonic first - the vibe of "Day for Night" as a full atmospheric world - before digging into the lyric's snapshots of border tension and hollow men making purchases.

Glynn from Melbourne is a travel photographer and educator who leads international photo tours through his company Creative Photo Workshops (creativephotoworkshops.com.au). His visual brain is genuinely one of the great instruments for decoding a Gord Downie lyric. He came to 'Yawning or Snarling' bass-first, and he left having delivered the definitive explanation of Club 101 in El Paso. Find him on Instagram and Facebook.

Thomas from Oxford has a YouTube channel (Tommy KL) and a SoundCloud under his name, Thomas De Bock, featuring three Hip covers - including a recording of 'Cordelia' that predates the pandemic. He also plays guitar, and he used it. His breakdown of the interplay between the guitars - and why the slightly-off notes are the whole point - is the kind of thing that makes you want to listen to the song again the second it's done.

Tale of the Tape: 'Yawning or Snarling'

• Album: "Day for Night" (released September 19, 1994)
• Track: 4
• Times played live: 56
• First played: July 1, 1994 - Molson Park, Barrie
• Last played: August 1, 2016 - Calgary (Man Machine Poem Tour, twice as encore)

Resources & References

• Setlist data sourced from Hipbase - the essential Tragically Hip discography and setlist resource
• Live recording: Brussels, 1994 (Live from the Vault, Vol. 4) - sourced from The Tragically Hip Archive. Hat tip to the archivists who record, preserve, and seed these recordings. That work matters.
• Bass stem isolation performed by jD using stem separation tools - with a hat tip to Craig for the tutorial

Listen & Connect

New episodes drop every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Find the full show at home.tthpods.com. Join the community at community.tthpods.com. Subscribe to Yer Letter at subscribe.tthpods.com. Email jD directly at [email protected].

Follow on Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods

Next week: 'Bobcaygeon.' The wheel has spoken. See you Wednesday.

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