The Tragically Hip Top Forty Countdown: Song 25 — Ron from Red Deer
Hey, it’s jD — and this week, I got to hang out with a legend. You probably know Ron MacLean from Hockey Night in Canada, Coach’s Corner, and Olympic coverage. But here’s what you might not know: the guy is a dyed-in-the-leather Hip fan, and holy hell, he’s got the receipts.
From watching The Luxury spin at 3AM in a Buffalo bar with Sabres players, to busting out karaoke versions of Boots or Hearts using just stomps and handclaps, Ron brings the goods. This is an episode that hops the fence between pop culture and personal resonance — exactly where The Hip have always lived.
We also talk about:
- Gord as a performer and poetic force
- Day for Night as a Rosetta Stone for fans
- The time Ron introduced the band from Rio during the final Kingston concert — and the weight of trying to honour a man who defined lyrical depth.
And yes, we get into “The Wherewithal.” In detail. Because that line about the guy who’s not on TV anymore? Yeah. It hits differently when it’s Ron saying it.
🎙️ Next week: We’re headed to Winnipeg for a conversation with Colin, a die-hard Hiphead who once blew his flyer-route money on Day for Night and never looked back.
💬 Pull Quote
“Only Gord could compare a lovesick heart to a worn-in pair of cowboy boots — and make it feel universal.”
👤 About Our Guest
Ron MacLean is a broadcaster, host, and storyteller with deep Canadian roots and even deeper Hip cuts. He’s introduced royalty and rockstars, but this episode? This one’s just about the band that’s been soundtracking the lives of people coast-to-coast.
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Transcript follows below.
The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown
2025-05-24, 9:00 AM
The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown
Join jD beginning Monday, January 6th, 2025 while he counts down the top 40 songs by The
Tragically Hip as voted by you! Every week on The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown, jD
welcomes a new guest to discuss their TTH origin story (hipstory) and dissect,
Artist: jD
Year: 2025
Transcript
[0:00] On Friday, May 26th, Podlist 6 is coming to you from the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown.
Hey, it's JD here, and I am fucking pumped to be filling you in on the latest Podlist. What is a
Podlist, you ask? It's a podcast playlist. In this case, it's a playlist full of Tragically Hip cover songs
by our talented listeners. Here's the deal this year. You can only choose a song that ranked from
169 to 41. To be included in Podlist 6, you'll need to submit your WAV files either by WeTransfer or
by emailing JD at tthtop40 at gmail.com with Podlist in the subject line. Are you ready to shoot your
shot and become podcast famous? What are you waiting for then?
[0:58] A member of the DATC Media family. Previously on the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown.
Alan from Federal Way, what are your initial thoughts about this particular song, My Music at Work?
Man, it's a great song. It really is. It's got a good beat and you can dance to it, so I gave it a 93. I
agree. It's just a really good song. It's like a lot of Gord's stuff, it's hard to understand what he's
talking about. Sure. I found out later that it's referring to an ad that a Canadian station had for
promoting their station.
[1:40] Hey, it's JD here, and welcome to the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown. It is my pleasure to
be with you week over week counting down the 40 essential songs by the hip that you selected with
your very own top 20 ballads. I then tabulated the results using an abacus and an abacus for
dummies book because if you give someone an abacus, you will get results for a day. But if you
teach someone to use an abacus, you'll be tabulating results for a lifetime.
[2:12] How will your favorite song fare in the rankings? You'll need to tune in every week to find out.
So there's that. This week I'm joined by tragically hip super fan. It's Ron fricking McLean. How the
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heck are you doing on this hip-tastic day, Ron? I am doing great, JD. It's fantastic to be a part of it
for sure. And what is hip? It's you. Oh, thank you very much.
[2:38] You as well. This is a great honor to be with, um, an icon in Canadian pop culture and sports
culture. Uh, you know, history and Olympic culture too, now that I think about it. So, um, fantastic
that you're joining me today. Well, it's always lovely to talk about the band, uh, as you and I
discussed, even before we started, uh, it's incredible, the connection, uh, what it does to, uh, unite
us, but also, uh, just so many friendships and stories, uh, that revolve around the, the telling of the
tragically hip. I mean, obviously the documentary and the book, the coffee table book having come
out, uh, just extends our, our, our fascination with, uh, I I'm, I'm sure you are too blown away by
how well they chronicled, uh, their amazing story, the video, the, the notes, the hockey pool
selection charts, everything is available. And, uh, thank heavens. It's so, yeah, it's so very cool. I
have yet to really dig into the book. Like I've flipped through looking at pictures, but my intention is
to read it like cover to cover. And, uh, I just cannot wait. I, the documentary was.
[3:46] Just fantastic. The thing that really strikes me about them is obviously they touched on it in
the doc and again in the book that Gord Downey said, it's easier for me to sing my own lyrics. And
that's, you know, so true. I think when we trust a singer, whether it's Neil Young or Frank Sinatra or
Bob Dylan, it's kind of because we, you know, we connect with their truth and he needed to have
that. And what really hit me about the doc and the book is that the other four who all were brilliant
contributors, uh, musically, uh, to the success of the band, but they're all great writers. Every one of
them is a wordsmith. So that's a, it must've been incredible to sit around, uh, the five of them in
hotel suites and in back rooms and just listen to the conversations because, uh, you've got, uh, five
authors formed. Oh, that's great. Yeah.
[4:35] Well, let's get right into your hipstery, Ron, I'm very curious how you came about becoming a
fan. You know, the moment I think about that really made me truly a fan, I knew their music a little
bit, but by 1993, I think I was just a casual lover of the Tragically Hip. I loved up to here. I loved the
initial LP that they had put out, but I didn't really know them like I did after this one moment and it
was a kumbaya festival it was called it was held at then ontario place the budweiser stage andrew
cash has a song called hey maria and he invited gord downey to come up and sing the song with
him and gord had to have uh the lyrics of course on a piece of paper which is interesting because
the final time we saw them on tour he was using the teleprompter and having to read the song but
he was himself you know he was uh all over the stage uh he was sweating bullets within 10
seconds, fully, fully committed to, uh, Andrew Cash's Hey Maria. And it was, uh, I just looked at the
man and I thought, oh my God, you're a good heart. Uh, you, you're so, uh.
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[5:42] So dedicated to Andrew's, you know, art that I fell in love with Down here then. And that
became my moment to start a, you know, relationship that you have. And so many of us have trying
to see them as often as possible and recalling where you're here for the first time, every new
release. Right. I heard Little Bones.
[6:01] I was in St. John, New Brunswick. It was pouring out of a Mustang at a red light. I heard
Phantom Power for the first time in a hotel in Halifax, Nova Scotia by The Citadel. I heard Trouble
at the Hen House for the first time on the 403 between Ancaster and Brantford. That's the kind of
thing that happens to you when you love a band the way we do. Oh, absolutely. And the cool thing
about that drive from Hamilton to Brantford is you pass Fiddler's Green Boulevard or Fiddler's
Green Road. I forget which it is exactly, but. You might know I don't, but I feel like they played butts
wiggling first. I think that was a world premiere. By then the hip were a deal, right? As Mordecai
Richler used to say, world famous in Canada. But they played, if I'm not mistaken, Butts Wiggling
and then Fireworks, but I'd have to go back and see that release. What is your go-to album at this
point? Do you have one? Well, I will say, I've always said my favorite song is The Wherewithal, so
Fully Completely is hard to top. It is. My wife is a fan of that song itself, Fully Completely. Me too.
And I'm a big fan of The Wherewithal. I saw Johnny Fay do a drum solo. You know, one of the guys
that I didn't know a whole lot about, Dave Koster, you know, the drum technician who became a
technician for guitars and really a key roadie for the Tragically Hip. And he goes by the nickname
Billy Ray because there were two Daves that were directors of the tour.
[7:20] So his insights into the band are amazing. But Johnny's drum solo to the wherewithal, I had
originally liked the song because of the lyric, I always loved that guy. He's not on TV anymore. To
get out before, he had the wherewithal.
[7:35] Which is how I introduced them for the final show in Kingston. I was in Rio de Janeiro at the
Olympics, and I actually screwed it up, JD. I said he had the wherewithal to get out before. I might
as well have said it was the night Christmas before. I got those words in the wrong order because I
was under a count, and I'm excusing my mistake. It was just a mistake. Sure. But I was, you know,
miles away and it was the weirdest thing I almost have ever done. I was overlooking Copacabana
Beach and all the Olympic athletes are looking at me wondering what am I talking about? And I'm
actually introducing that show at Kingston at Market Square where there's viewing parties all across
Canada. But I quoted the wherewithal because I love the line of the guy not being on TV anymore.
In other words, not so stuck on himself or so attached or clinging to fame or the possible
remuneration. I just love that. But then I saw a Faye drum at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto and it
was unbelievable. So that's my favorite song and I would say by extension my favorite album.
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Yeah, that's a good one. You can't go wrong with it for sure. Because I love, I honestly love
Phantom Power. You know, it was neat when Gord came out of his cancer and he was in a coma
and came out of his coma. And then the first song he sang was Vapor Trails, which is a song I truly
love off Phantom Power.
[8:57] Again, Road Apples. It's just amazing. I was in a little bar, places I remember, you know,
hearing songs by the band. And so we're in Mothers in Buffalo. I have gone down to Buffalo to the
Sabres game to do a little work on the intermission big screen. I was hosting guests, Teter
Kennedy, Doug Favell, and so on. I did it four times a year. And then after the games, we would
usually end up at Mothers Bar and Grill was the favorite haunt of the Buffalo Sabres. Daryl
Shannon was a member of the Sabres, a defenseman. And finally, we get a hold of the jukebox at
about three in the morning.
[9:30] Everybody's cleared out. The doors are locked and it's just a few of the Buffalo Sabres and
myself. And Daryl gets over to the jukebox and he plays the luxury by the tragic off-road apples.
And that got me hooked on that song. So yeah, we could go two days, I'm sure. What's great is
your explanation of the wherewithal. I don't know of many rock and roll bands that you can spend
that kind of time pondering on. you know, lyrical depth. Well, that's the thing about the hip, right?
Gord and his lyrics are, you know, a lot of specifics over generalities, over loopholes. He, you know,
as an example, nautical disaster. Now, he rounds numbers all the time. He will say 4,000 men died
in the water here and 500 more. So he's not saying 398 or 4,004.
[10:23] In fact, I don't know, you may know this is, again, sort of an urban legend, but in the
Millhaven tribute, 38 years old, Uh, he says 12 men broke out. Supposedly it's 14 men break out.
Oh, really? 14 is two syllables, 12 one. Maybe it was just a case of cadence. He had to sort of alter
the number in order, you know, for the sake of the song. But, but he's big on, he's big on these
stories. That, that whole story is still true and, uh, nothing, you know, is as true as the truth. So
when somebody starts telling you something that you can relate to because it's true, you know it's
factual, that trust already is starting to build between you and whoever is speaking or in this case
singing.
[11:08] Absolutely. So I got to go back to Rio with you. So did you watch the final show from Rio
then? Yes. And it was, it was so, it was a late night for us. So I had worked the morning show and
now I introduce the band that must've been 11 at night or I don't know what it was. We were on the
same time zone. So a little early. Oh, okay. So it was nine, I think. Nine. Okay. So we finished at 11
is what I guess I remember. And then, and then, you know, I had to drive two hours back to where I
was staying in the Rio de Janeiro area. And I was back on the air three hours later. And I was
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hosting the men's marathon was taking place in Brazil. And I'm fatigued from having experienced
that incredible thing the day before. So I have two names I have to, I'm almost like Gord when he
was saying before he went onto the stage for the final show at Market Square, he said, I just got to
remember two words, First Nations. Well, I'm kind of in the same boat the next day doing the
Olympic telecast, all I have to remember is John Walker and Mike Connolly. John Walker and Mike
Connolly, how tough can that be? But I was so sleep deprived that I might as well have been
hammered because I could not remember those two names. Every time I went to throw back to the
marathon, I had to kind of look at my notes or scramble around. It was awful, but nobody cared.
And I mean, it was the marathon is like David Byrne of the Talking Heads used to say, I like a good
story and I like to stare at the sea. Do I have to choose?
[12:35] If you were watching me, you were basically staring at the sea because I didn't have a story
in me. But back to that day, I had prepared a little bit. I think I had a minute, maybe 45 seconds to
introduce the band. Insight Productions were a huge part of that undertaking. So they had arranged
for me to throw to the band hitting the stage. What an honor. Yeah, crazy honor. And, uh, and I, I
wanted to acknowledge all five members of the band. I didn't want it to be just about Gord. Uh, and
I certainly based it on, uh, Bonfires of the Vanity. The whole idea for me of that song, you know, not
being stuck on yourself on television, uh, represents kind of their ethos of, uh, of a very humble,
um, of a career of service. And I wanted to acknowledge that, you know, uh.
[13:26] Samuel Johnson, who was a Shakespeare critic, a writer in his own right, but always talked
about we all feel that we have something that's unique to ourselves that makes us special. But
Gord had a way of stepping out of that. He was very much in the shoes of another all the time. And
I wanted to sort of have that message as I introduced the band. So I did my little wherewithal
reference, got the order of the words wrong, and kind of stopped in my tracks mentally. Nobody
would have known because it's not a famous hit, but I knew.
[13:58] You knew as soon as you started that? Yeah, I was already getting a little dopey because I'd
been up since five in the morning. Right. And had worked a long Olympic shift, driven two hours, so
not to make excuses again. No, no, no, no. So all that's contributing plus the pressure of a
countdown. When you're listening to somebody say 30, 20, 15, 10. Oh, they're in your ear saying
you've got five seconds left? It's all exact to the T, right? And I'm thousands and thousands of miles
away. So it's all electronic. So I remember saying something about a late breaking story on the
CBC, which it was, doing the wherewithal reference, acknowledging the five members of the band
and throwing up to Kingston. So crazy. And I remember even just before I went on, the producer for
the Olympic telecast, not the Insight Productions people, but the producer for the Olympics said,
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Scott Russell is going to check off the viewing parties that are happening. And that was going to be
part of my little introduction. So I had to, again, do a quick adjustment to what my 45 second intro
would be. I can't remember in detail for the life of me, but I know it was inspired by bonfires of the
vanities and this idea of, you know, no conceit, just of service.
[15:15] That is, you know, a tremendous honor, but also a lot of pressure, right? Like to try and find
the right words for somebody who's a wordsmith, who, you know, and a man that is so iconic. Well,
I've had, you know, I closed Maple Leaf Gardens. I did the last time Queen Elizabeth was on
Parliament. I'm not bragging, Lord. I'm just saying these were assignments I had. But, you know,
when Her Majesty, and a funny story about Her Majesty was 2011 when she came to Ottawa for the
last time. And I'm the master of ceremonies. And she, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, had requested
that she be introduced by Christopher Plummer, star of The Sound of Music. She loved it from The
Sound of Music, which he wasn't particularly fond of. He was kind of sick, I think, of, you know,
being known for just that and not all his illustrious career. Anyway, he wrote his little introduction to
Her Majesty, and it had to be vetted by.
[16:07] Buckingham Palace and Scotland Yard and the Prime Minister's office, because it's Canada
Day. The RCMP had a look at it. All these different people are looking at the words that are going to
be uttered on stage at Canada Day. And they come back to Christopher Plummer and they say,
Christopher, it's too highbrow. We need something that's a little more plain spoken. And he said,
well, you can tell Her Majesty to go fly a kite. And he used stronger words, but something to that
effect. So he said he wasn't coming. Then at the last minute, He'd been performing in Stratford at
the festival. He has a change of heart on June 30th and decides to get in a car, come to Ottawa,
and do the intro. He arrives at 10.30 in the morning. We're on at noon. He arrives. He's 80 years
old. He arrives at 10.30 in the morning. He and I are sharing a dressing room, Christopher
Plummer and Ron from Red Deer. And I remember showing him where he would do his little
introduction. I showed him the mark on the stage, stage left, and I kind of gave him the room to
himself. I sat out in the blazing sun. It had to be like 40 degrees that day. And I let him kind of
gather himself. And he hit the stage, JD, and he did his intro magically, as you would expect. He's
80. And then two years later, he won an Oscar, Academy Award No. 1. And then six years after
that, at the age of 88, he was nominated for yet another. So crazy to have been part of that. And it
was crazy to have been part of, obviously, Kingston. Yeah.
[17:29] So I want to talk a little bit more about your hipstery before we get into the featured song,
because as somebody who part of their career is travel, it was interesting when you mentioned
hearing some of those songs, like hearing it at the Citadel and, you know, various landmarks at
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various places. So other than Rio for the last concert, what is a memorable show for you in.
[17:54] A, in a not exotic place, but in a place that isn't Toronto, for example? Well, one of the funny
stories is I was doing, I was at the Canadians, they were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of
Fame at the Junos in Winnipeg in 2005. So I saw them, you know, that all happened. Sarah
Harmer did the intro. But this particular, you know, the gorilla. Yeah. I had that T-shirt on. It was a
long-sleeve T-shirt with this ape on the front. And I wore that to, there was a big reception after they
actually got inducted. And I'm standing next to Yvonne Fitzsand, who was the head of CTV, and his
wife, Sandra Fair, who produced lots of specials for both CBC and CTV. So they were dressed in
about, I don't know, $15,000 worth of suit and dress.
[18:44] And I'm in this gorilla. And I remember thinking, okay, maybe you're taking your hipsterdom a
little too far. But that's a favorite memory. I was certainly at the Hershey Center when Don Cherry
and myself were part of backstage. There's a lovely photo in the documentary, No Dress
Rehearsal. You see, I think, Gord Sinclair being interviewed and you'll see the photo of the band
and Don and me. And Don introduced them. You know, he was like us all, Don Cherry, spellbound
by Downey's onstage antics. Really? Yeah. He always admired performers, you know, obviously.
He studied from the beginning of time how to dress and how to light yourself and how to create,
you know, everything, I guess, in a way in show business is about appealing to emotion versus
intellect. Although I will say, uh, Gord Downie's, you know, lyrics appeal to intellect, uh, in a lot of
ways, but yeah, they, they have, he was the, Downie was the perfect, uh, author of both. And I, I
agreed to do that with Don and we loved it. And, uh, yeah, there's, there's some smaller shows
around, but I would say Winnipeg, uh, and, and the Hershey Center in Mississauga stand out. Do
you have anything else you want to share or should we get into the song of the week? I am dying to
get to the song of the week. Well, let's do that. We'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. Hey,
this is Paul Langlois from the Tragically Hip saying hello. Now on with the countdown. 25.
[20:14] Music.
[23:51] We're going all the way back to 1989 with Boots or Hearts. Sitting at number 25, this one is a
real stomper. Ron, do you happen to recall the first time you might have heard this one? Well,
obviously up to here is 1989, the year the Calgary Flames won the Stanley Cup. And Calgary is the
home of the stampede. So somehow Boots or Hearts seemed to be a perfect mix with my roots. I
grew up in Red Deer, Alberta, 90 minutes north of Calgary. So that's when I heard it, obviously. And
I remember they won the Juno for Entertainer of the Year. It's kind of a novel category, but it was
the first time they won Entertainer of the Year. They won it again in 93, again in 95. Because, you
know, Don Smith, the producer of that album, you probably know the story. in Memphis, he said to
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them, just play like you play live. I love your band. And Robbie Baker said, well, the only struggle
with that is we're used to, you know, thousands of people around us and the energy of a venue.
When you're in a studio in Ardent in Memphis, it's not as easy to create the phenomena that we
sort of were live. But anyway, they did it and the producer was brilliant and the song itself, again, I
was telling you about specifics versus generalities. It's a little detail in the song, but.
[25:11] You know, 40 fingers and toes, something we share is a specific number that you can say,
that guy's not lying to me. He's telling the truth. And then it's 41, just to show you don't care. But it's
a great song. And to set the scene briefly, I saw it open the tour, the final tour. The first show was
Victoria, and I happened to be there. I had a dear friend who's Mel Hurley. She was a longtime
producer of the Juno Awards. And so she got us, Carrie, my wife, and me, into a section of the
venue that was ideal. And Dr. Perry, who was an oncologist who had been working with Gord
Downey, was sort of explaining how they're going about this opening night and how if Robbie Baker
puts a guitar on this particular stand, it's an indication for him to get downstairs.
[25:55] And then they might want to have a debrief backstage to see how it's going. There was so
much intrigue, right, about how will Gord look, how will the show go, can it go? And then he walked
out, obviously, as Dave Koster said, he went from all scruffy and a disaster coming out of all the
chemo and all the work that had to be done, the surgeries. He came out of all of that and hit the
stage like a god in a leather suit with this feathery hat. And then he sings Boots or Hearts. And the
line- That's what they opened with. That's what they opened the tour with. And that's the number
one songs why it will always be the most special to me. And for him to look us in the eye and say,
you see, when it starts to fall apart, Man, it really falls apart. And that was a wink to what he was
dealing with. That little paradise built in hell. We were all in paradise, but we also knew we were in
hell. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[26:50] And going back to his word smithiness, only he could compare a lovesick heart with an old
pair of boots. You know, a worn-in pair of boots. Like, who does that? Incredible you know and so
so accurate right if you've ever had your cowboy boots uh fall apart you you know that that's a
that's a great analogy or metaphor uh gorge you know gift and and i i love that uh i think maybe
he's uh you know a hockey goalie so maybe his his time with uh goalie gear that's fallen apart
might have helped to inspire it but the bottom line is it's just a it's a simple straightforward beautiful
metaphor and vintage gourd absolutely i can remember being at a pub once that had karaoke and i
went up to do my song and i was doing boots or hearts a lot at karaoke at that.
[27:51] But this particular bar didn't have it. And they were like, do you want to do another song?
And I said, no, I want to do this one. So I went to the mic and just, that's why I called it a real
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stomper. I did stomps and hand claps to sort of get the beat going and get the audience doing it
and then did the song. And like, you're right, it is. It's beautiful in its simplicity that I didn't even have
an instrument. You know, I just had the audience stomping and clapping and was able to perform
this, you know, song. Not well, but I think it will tell you, Gord Sinclair will tell you, you know, a lot of
the musicianship wasn't great at the get-go. They were incredible visual performers and their music
was so well-written. The song itself was so well-constructed that with or without, you know, pure
craftsmanship behind it, it was great. Anybody could have almost played it that was and they got
great as they as you do when you practice it's like a hockey player over the course of a career is
you know 10 times the hockey player by the end of it all just through reps but yeah they that you
know you think about that album obviously New Orleans is sinking and blow it high dough 38 years
old I mean you go through their concert lists you know you can't help but see boots each and every
time but it's a And I would say, you know, it's kind of a secret within the power that they were.
[29:16] Yeah, I think so too. I was sort of surprised to see it come in at number 25. I thought it would
have been in the top 40, but a little... Even at that, I might have been surprised, honestly, because I
don't know if 38 years old gets ahead of it. I doubt it if it's 25, but, you know, that would have been
my probably top three off the album. but that said, it's my favorite. So I'm grateful, you know, that
there's that connection. Yeah. Have you ever noticed the little sounds at the beginning and end of
the song? No. Okay. So I had this pointed out to me because I didn't notice it either. But in the
Getting Hip to the Hip podcast, yeah.
[30:04] Where I took, you know, the two Americans under my wing, um, and taught them about the
ways of the hip, um, Pete noticed that at the beginning, it sounds like a needle going on a record.
And at the end, it sounds like the needle hitting, you know, whatever that area. The center at the
end is. Yeah, it's going to boat to lift off. That's right. If it's automatic. That's right. You've got to get
it. Yeah. Or it just makes that sound of, you know, continuing to circle. So it's almost like it's written
to be its own little song in this, uh, murderer's row of, of, of songs. Like it, it, it's very, it stands out
on the record. It's very different.
[30:49] Yeah, no, I honestly, my association with the song is live versus off the vinyl, but I will now
make it a point to listen for that. You know, in the doc, it was hilarious when they, in Wheat Kings
and they use the loon and they find out that somebody had actually licensed that sound and you
can't just go ahead and it's like, once I did a, Eugene Levy and I did a mock-up Coach's Corner for
the, I guess they were the Gemini Awards back in the day, the TV Awards. How funny is that?
Dolores Klayman, we used the Hockey Night in Canada theme song. Big mistake. That cost us, I
think, $17,000. So you can't just go ahead and make sounds without paying for them. We grew to
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understand. Yeah.
[31:34] Well, my rule is I do it until I get told not to do it. Well, funny story. I'll tell you, Jake Gold,
bless his heart, when we did the Commonwealth Games in 1998, so Trouble at the Hen House is
new, and Ahead by a Century is the big hit. And we want to, the games are being held in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia. It's their coming out party. It's a fascinating country, and nobody knows anything
about KL. So Ahead by a Century is a perfect choice to open the show. In fact, we're using it again,
coming up on a Hockey Night in Canada, Boston, Montreal matinee. But anyway, we, we phoned
Jake Gold and he's unavailable. Jake, it was a huge Jewish holiday and he was away. So he never
got back to me. And I said to our producers at CBC in Malaysia, don't worry about it. I'm kind of
friends with the band a little bit. I know Jake Gold, you know, playing the big shot. We can use it
and it won't be well. Then the trouble at the hen house begins. And Jake didn't really know, but the
word got out that we had used it without clearing it, which is what you have to do. You pay a certain
amount and you're allowed to use the song once.
[32:41] We didn't do the proper due diligence or cross our, you know, T's. So we ended up getting a
bill. And so I picked up the phone and said to Jake, Jake, what the heck? You know, like I thought
we were all friends. And he said, oh, sorry, Ron. We didn't. That didn't even cross my desk. That's
just the people that take care of who plays what, where, and when doing their job and realizing that
you owed us money. So he then waived it. But I was in big trouble. I'd already had this fiasco with
Eugene Levy and the $17,000 for the Hockey Night theme, and now it was about to cost us again a
fortune. So thankfully, they got us off the hook on that one. Yeah. Oh, that could have been terrible.
And that was for CBC? That was CBC's coverage of the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Thank you.
Alex Depaté, a 13-year-old kid, won the diving, 10-meter platform diving. It was incredible. Among
the highlights, you had a 13-year-old win a gold medal for Canada.
[33:42] Yeah, I don't recall that. I guess I was listening to Trouble at the Hen House too much. I
probably didn't even have a TV at that time. It's a powerful part of the doc, isn't it? I would go to the
pub. Robbie Baker says, it wasn't our favorite. We self-produced Trouble at the Hen House. And
when there's no producer, the seat of power is empty. And as a result, we were all trying to get into
that seat. And Paul Langlois says, okay, I'll take the blame. Maybe it was Gord Downey, but it's
probably me, you know, was calling too many of the shots or trying to. And he says, but Robbie, he
says, it gave us a head by a century, maybe our greatest song. And Robbie says, well, I didn't say it
was a shitty record. I said it was a shitty time doing the record.
[34:26] All worked out. Yeah, it worked out well for them. My last question for you is, did they not do
a song or a series of songs for Hockey Night in Canada at one point? Like, didn't they play? I want
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to say it was in between Evolution when it came out. Or am I just totally off the track? I don't recall
it. I know Don Cherry appeared in Violent Light. Uh, he, you know, I think it was, uh. Oh, the
darkest one. He's in that darkest one. Yes. So there's that. Uh, I know Gord Downey was, this is a
funny story. Gord was supposed to come down and do the, uh, NHL awards with Don Cherry and
something came up at the last minute and Gord Downey couldn't make it. So they sent Don onto
the stage with a woman presenter who was about a foot and a half taller than Don. And back to
Don's, uh, you know, he, he sees everything in terms of what looks right on television. and he didn't
feel that looked right, but he wasn't mad at Gord Downey and Gord Downey felt terrible about not
being able to make it. So I think that's why he offered them the chance to come into the darkest one
as a kiss and make up. But I don't recall, it's entirely possible, you know, Tragically Hip are certainly
interwoven with, you know, I'm in almost 40 years at Hockey Night in Canada, so it's hard to
remember every connection, but I bet they did. If you say it, J.D., it happened. Oh, yeah.
[35:55] Well, that's what I've got for you this week. I really want to thank you for dropping by. Now,
this episode isn't going to drop for a while, but is there anything you would like to plug? Like, I
mean. No, no. No, all right. I'm happy to plug your podcast. So keep up the great work and lay on
me the final signature closing. That's what I've got for you. And I appreciate you stopping by. This is
really cool. This was song 25. We're nearly into the top 20, folks. Shit is picking up, so pick up your
shit. Thanks for listening to the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown. To email us, send an email to
tthtop40 at gmail.com. We're social. Find us on all the socials at TTH Top 40.
[36:59] Music.
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