The Tragically Hip Podcast Series by The Tragically Hip Podcast Series.

August 03, 2026 The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park

Episode Description

Number 31 on the countdown. First zoo animal on Prozac. JD is joined by Duxoop from Toledo — broadcasting from the actual birthplace of Gus the polar bear — plus Andrew from Winnipeg and Dave from Montreal to dig into one of the most quietly beloved songs in the Hip catalogue.

The panel gets into the Adam Kasper production that makes In Between Evolution sound the way it does, Rob Baker's untouchable outro solo, the Hip Museum's wonderfully unhinged George W. Bush theory, and the wordplay hiding in plain sight — because it was never what's troubling Gus. It's what's troubling us.

Fair warning: this one gets emotional. Duxoop tells us what the lyrics did to him last year from a nursing home wheelchair, and Dave tells us about his friend Al — nickname Gus — and the cover band he's fronting at Al's memorial this Friday. Then the whole thing derails beautifully into a full inventory of every animal in the Hip discography.

Explicit language. Recorded live on YouTube.

On the Panel

JD — host
Duxoop from Toledo — self-described part polar bear; born-in-Toledo credentials, same as Gus
Andrew from Winnipeg — arrived with facts and a News Radio shirt; host of Soup Full of Radio
Dave from Montreal — saw the Hip in Central Park; frontman of brand-new Hip cover band Colonel Mustard

Tale of the Tape

Pulled from The Hip Handbook, which amalgamates HipBase and setlist.fm data.

Album

In Between Evolution (2004)

Producer

Adam Kasper, recorded in Seattle

Single

Third single from the record

Countdown position

No. 31 on the Top 40

Times played live

327

First played

October 27, 2003

Last played

August 18, 2016 — the Ottawa show

As an opener

Once

As an encore

Five times

Poll Results

Love it

52%

Like it

36%

Tolerate it

10%

Skip it

Never heard of it

Possibly the most varied — and most indecisive — poll spread of the series so far. Duxoop's verdict: "That's crazy to me. These numbers should be way more lopsided toward the top."

Live Version Featured

Ottawa, 2004 — the Grey Cup halftime show. Andrew remembers watching it live and everyone around him asking why the band was opening the biggest gig of the year with a brand-new song. (They went into Courage right after.)

What We Talked About

The Album That Everyone Slept On

In Between Evolution debuted at No. 1 in Canada on roughly 22,500 first-week copies — then got knocked off the top by Avril Lavigne's new album.
Certified platinum in Canada that September. Dave notes it was one of the last Hip records to move real units.
Where does this song sit in the career arc? The panel lands on "the end of the middle" rather than the dawn of the final third.
Andrew's take: Gus is the first song on the record that sounds like the Hip you already knew — you lean back in the chair. Heaven Is a Better Place Today, Summer's Killing Us and Vaccination Scar are louder neighbours, so Gus hides in the first five.

Adam Kasper and the Seattle Sound

Andrew looked up Kasper's credits and it clicked: Soundgarden's Down on the Upside, Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf, Pearl Jam's self-titled (the avocado one), Foo Fighters' One by One.
Same studio was hosting the Big Fish and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind soundtracks around the time this record was being made.
The panel agrees Gus has a "weirdly familiar, warm Hip sound" — it could have sat on Day for Night with different production, or on Music at Work. Maybe it was on the shelf a while.

Rob Baker's Outro

Universal agreement: whichever live version you pull up, Baker is on fire. "A real showcase for him."
Dave's sharpest observation of the night — Gord never rants over this solo the way he does over others. It always gets its space, and that may be the only ad-lib that separates the live song from the record.

Gus Himself

Born 1985 at the Toledo Zoo, died August 27, 2013. A 700-pound icon of the Central Park Zoo, seen by over 20 million visitors.
Began swimming obsessively — up to 12 hours a day — in the 1990s. Reporters called him neurotic, depressed and flaky, and he became a symbol of the stress of living in New York.
The first zoo animal in history to be treated with Prozac. Also got a jacuzzi and, at one point, two girlfriends. Duxoop: "Why is he the one on Prozac and not me?"
Gord wrote the song in 2004, nine years before Gus died — so this wasn't an obituary. He'd seen the bear and then done the second-sourcing, as Gord always did.
There's a children's book called What's Worrying Gus? The True Story of a Big City Bear. On Amazon, the cover has Gus on a therapist's couch.

The Toledo Connection

The Hip played the Toledo Zoo twice in the '90s — where Gus was born.
When they played Toledo in 2004, Gus was the show opener. The stats say it only ever opened once, so that was absolutely on purpose.

The Bush Theory

The Hip Museum reads Gus as partly about George W. Bush and the invasion of Iraq. Andrew read the paragraph aloud; it describes the two as "lovable, loutish, and incredibly accomplished guys… not bad for a pair of dudes with limited mental capacity."
JD's verdict: lots of love for the Hip Museum, but that one's a reach.

Gus / Us

Dave's thesis: he doesn't hear a bear at all. "It's not what's troubling Gus. It's what's troubling us." He's been on that line for twenty years.
JD points out the Gordism that makes it work — dropping the G, so "troublin' us" and "troubling Gus" are phonetically the same thing.
Duxoop extends it: we've all watched a zoo animal pace or swim figure eights, and that should be troubling us.
On the lyrics generally: Gord's word-smithery rewards straining to hear it, and the panel confesses to mumbling through parts for two decades. Compared to Nautical Disaster — all story, no chorus, no pattern — Gus is manageable, but only just.

Duxoop's Story

Last year, when the countdown hit No. 31, Duxoop was three months into a nursing home stay with medical issues. Twenty-odd years earlier he'd started going to karaoke — big, scary-looking, socially awkward, mistaken for the bouncer. Now he was in his 60s, in a wheelchair, and the line landed like a ton of bricks: old and grey, and no one's afraid anymore.

He sang it at the nursing home. "I don't think I've ever sung a Hip song with more feeling than I do with Gus." Grace, Too he can't fake — he feels like a schmuck trying to match Gord's intensity. Gus he doesn't fake.

And after a week of thinking about it for this episode, he made a bold statement: Gus is now his favourite Tragically Hip song, over Grace, Too.

Dave's Story — Al, Gus, and Colonel Mustard

Dave's friend Al Morton died suddenly last November. They bonded over the Hip and golf at Dave's club. Al's nickname was Gus.
In their fantasy football pick'em league, Al's picks stayed on the board for the rest of the NFL season. "A real lump in my throat."
Al's memorial is this Friday at the Dunany Country Club in Wentworth, Quebec — halfway between Ottawa and Montreal. Ashes scattered around the course in the morning; speeches and a gathering at night, billed as his "after par-ty."
The family asked for seven or eight Hip songs. Dave and friends have twenty ready, after two nights jamming at his buddy Chris's place. He made them learn Gus — he couldn't imagine doing a show for Al without it.
The band is named Colonel Mustard, after Al's imported 1970s Mercedes. Wentworth, Quebec's Tragically Hip cover band. Dave waited 45 years to do this.
His approach: very much not trying to be Gord. "I'm just trying to sing it with my truth."
Hardest songs to sing so far — Fireworks (the National Fitness Program cadence) and Fully Completely (Gord's offbeat entrance in the middle section). Bassist John Roy has been cueing him in.
Also on the setlist: Grace Too, Wheat Kings, The Good Life, Three Pistols.

One Bucket

Dave loves the way Gord says "whippoorwill" — audible in the Grey Cup version JD played. He'll be attempting it Friday.
"Used to be enough to make every bird stop singing." There's a lot of beauty in this song.
Dave also went to bat for Sharks as an all-time Hip song — lyrically perfect, everyone gets to shine — while fully admitting he's a party of one on that.

The Countdown Neighbours

No. 30 The Darkest One · No. 31 Gus · No. 32 Emperor Penguin — with Pigeon Camera at No. 28. As JD put it: their arctic phase.

The Animal Album (An Idea That Got Away From Everyone)

Duxoop floated it — Weird Al did a food album and a TV album, so why not a Tragically Hip animal album? The panel then attempted a full inventory:

Emperor Penguin · Pigeon Camera · Dire Wolf · Problem Bears · Thompson Girl (polar bear reference) · The Bear on Music at Work
Tiger the Lion · The Luxury (zoo lion) · Little Bones (a teeny tiny little cat) · Sled Dogs After Dinner
Wheat Kings (loon at the beginning) · Bumblebee · Leave ("in this contest, a concave nest") · Sharks · Piano Spider · I'm a Werewolf, Baby · the killer whale tank one on the box set

Verdict: someone needs to make this playlist.

Quotable Moments

"It's not what's troubling Gus. It's what's troubling us. And that's just the best." — Dave from Montreal

"Gord Downie sells the fuck out of this song. He sells the flakiness of the bear. He sells the confusion of the person watching it being like, why aren't you like a real bear?" — Dave from Montreal

"It's funny — we're happy to hear a song about a sad animal." — Andrew from Winnipeg

"Gus is like you're leaning back in your chair and relaxing a bit." — Andrew from Winnipeg

"Grace, Too I feel like I'm faking it. Gus, man, I don't fake that one." — Duxoop from Toledo

"It's up to us now to keep these songs alive." — Dave from Montreal

"I live for that rare occasion where somebody goes, who was that song by? I got to look up that artist — and I get to make a new Hip fan." — Duxoop from Toledo

Mentioned in This Episode

The Hip Handbook — free Top 40 breakdown with episode links: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com
HipBase and setlist.fm — live-stat sources behind the Tale of the Tape
The Hip Museum — source of the Gus / George W. Bush reading
What's Worrying Gus? The True Story of a Big City Bear — the children's book
Hipeponymous — where the Summer's Killing Us video ended up
Adam Kasper's discography — Down on the Upside, Songs for the Deaf, Pearl Jam, One by One

Plugs & Housekeeping

Duxoop from Toledo

A friend of Duxoop's was hit hard by the death of Glen Hansard, who was killed in a motorcycle crash outside Dublin on July 29, 2026, at 56. There's a local Toledo tribute on Friday collecting donations for the Dublin Simon Community, the homelessness charity Hansard cared deeply about. Duxoop, who was himself homeless for a couple of years recently: "I would definitely promote that."

Andrew from Winnipeg

Soup Full of Radio — weekly on UMFM in Winnipeg. Every episode is the next letter of the alphabet. Next week: songs starting with "the." The week after: all covers, all Tom Jones covering other people.
Head Full of Radio — the podcast, where Andrew plays Radiohead to a guy who's never heard it. Google "Soup Full of Radio" and you'll find both.

Dave from Montreal

Google him for his Hip-related writing; Instagram @DaveKaufman1
Dave used his plug to point people at JD's buy-me-a-coffee instead — noting how many unpaid hours go into this and how much the shows are worth to him. JD's reiteration: this stuff is free forever, don't worry if you can't swing it.

The Gathering — Kingston

Registration deadline is Friday for all activities. (If you're hearing this on the podcast feed, you've likely missed it.)
Three days in Kingston for the 10th anniversary of the Hip's final show: a brunch, an album listening party, a first-day mixer, and hotel blocks. Come for one day or all three.
On the 22nd, the national celebration screens in Springer Market Square — side by side with other fans, the way everyone watched it ten years ago.
Live stream of the final episode of Your Hipstories: Reflections from the Final Tour. Location to be announced in the coming weeks.
Panel call-out: three spots on that final panel go to people who submit a video under one minute explaining why they should be on it, by sharing their favourite memory of August 20th.
120 people signed up so far. Kingston is finally embracing and showcasing this band — the banners are up, and JD hopes they're permanent.

Next Week

Pigeon Camera. Brand new panel, brand new song, a biggie. Live on YouTube, Wednesday at 8 o'clock.

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