The Tragically Hip Top Forty Countdown: Song Thirty-Eight – Lynn from Maine

Hey, it’s jD, and this week I’m joined by Lynn from Maine — a self-described “black-and-white music listener” who found her way to The Hip in full Technicolor thanks to a box of CDs, a pandemic, and a husband with very good taste.

Lynn’s Hipstory is one of slow-burn devotion: twenty years of casual exposure through her partner’s fandom before a pivotal night during the Tiger King era unlocked something deeper. That something? Long Time Running — the doc, the music, the feeling of a country coming together. It all hit just right. From there, it was a deep dive through Hex and Kettle, live DVDs, YouTube rabbit holes, and eventually a Courage mask worn into cancer surgery — because if Gord could go on tour, Lynn could go get chemo and go to work the next day. Gord Fucking Downie, indeed.

She’s got stories. About concerts she barely remembers (hello, elevator packed with 19 Canadians and one mouthy dietician). About using The Hip to reconnect after a hard stretch. About rediscovering beauty and grief, sometimes in the same verse. And about naming her pandemic cat after the man himself — full government name and all: Gord Effing Downie.

🎙️ Next week: We’re heading north of Toronto for a chat with Devon from Stouffville — a teacher, poet, and fan who once swore off The Hip… and then came back like the rest of us do: hard and fast and all in.

💬 Pull Quote

“I wore my Courage mask into surgery. If Gord could do it, so could I.”

👤 About Our Guest

Lynn from Maine came late to The Hip — but not too late. A John Prine fan at heart and a lyrics-over-melody type, she credits the band with helping her and her husband reconnect, survive the pandemic, and find something beautiful to share after 20 years of marriage.

She listens to Trouble at the Henhouse in her car, has strong opinions about We Are the Same, and named her cat after Gord (with the full “effing” included). She’s a reminder that fandom doesn’t need to be loud to be life-changing.

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📜 Transcript follows below.

The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown

2025-05-23, 6:11 PM

The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown

Artist: jD

Year: 2025

Transcript

[0:00] A member of the DATC Media family. Previously on the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown.

Darren from Toronto, what did you think of You're Not the Ocean when you heard this kickoff track

the first time? I loved the whole album from the beginning, the whole World Container album. It was

definitely more polished, but I loved the track. Like You're Not the Ocean was another in a long line

of amazing opening songs for hip albums. Oh, great. Great. It's uncanny, their ability. They had a

great ability to begin and end albums with great, great songs.

[0:44] Music.

[0:51] Hey, it's JT here, and welcome to the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown. It is an absolute

pleasure to be here with you week over week, where we're counting down 40 essential tracks by

the hip that you selected with your very own top 20 ballots. I then was responsible for tabulating the

results using an abacus and bottomless joe, bacon, hash browns, and three eggs, any way you like

them. 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 TTH superfan Lynn from Maine. Lynn from Maine, how the

hell are you doing on this hip-tastic day? Oh, we are doing great down here.

[1:38] Fabulous oh no yeah oh gosh let's get right into this let's uh let's roll the die here and go right

down to your origin story your tragically hip origin story all right well this is it's a bit long and

convoluted but my husband is from northern Maine which is all the way up in caribou so about I

don't know 20 minutes half an hour from the border so he is a hip fan and when we met in 1999, I

knew this about him and he had been trying...

[2:11] To, you know, get me addicted as, as he was. Cause he lives, breathes everything, the hip.

And I just don't see or hear music like, like you guys do. Like I hear music in black and white and

you guys hear it in Technicolor. And so, you know, I'm more of a John Prine kind of like Brandi

Carlisle, just singer songwriter, kind of just basic music person. Um, and so, but the hip has been

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so instrumental in his life. He was always just trying to like, push on me or slip a CD in or, or

anything like that. So for 20 years that went on for 20 years and then 2020 came. And, uh, you

know, during the tiger King portion of the pandemic, when there was nothing on television, uh, you

kind of felt like the whole world was falling apart. Uh, you know, there was the anti-maskers anti

this, and, um, we both worked for, um, um businesses that were straight out we were both so busy

at work during the pandemic um.

[3:15] Both i work for a closing attorney so we handled real estate transactions my husband spells

sell electrical supplies we were like bombarded with work so we basically just came home, watched

tv and went to bed and then got up the next day went to work and you know we did that for months

so we were out of things to watch and um we he said well can we watch long time running And I

was just like, okay, because I had just gone to Netflix and did it.

[3:44] And it just hit me at the right time. So I think it was just like the perfect moment where I just

wanted to see people come together for something. Yeah. First of all, like, you know, we couldn't

agree on anything down here, probably a lot like that going up there. But down here, we couldn't

agree on anything. There was no country. It was just a bunch of different people disagreeing about

everything. And what I saw on that is, first of all, a country getting together behind this group of

individuals just for their joy. But also the friendship and the holding up of your friends. And you saw

that in the documentary repeatedly over and over again. And so that kind of started my spiral

towards, okay, well, what's next? I will listen to this. And so, you know, the following weekend.

Yeah. So the following weekend, my husband comes down with his, you know, a box of stuff. Stuff

and we watched hex and kettle and a couple other things he had and this and that and we ended

up just going through his whole collection of everything um and that got me hooked and it gave us

something to talk about as well because you know when your only communication is that one

person.

[5:02] There's not a lot to talk about after 20 years um and you know except work but the work is the

same you know we didn't go out or do anything so um so there was that and so that ended up, you

know for like a year that's what we did and um then this then may of 2021 came and we all had

these hopes like okay it's gonna be over we're getting vaccinated um and then the day i got

vaccinated i also found out i had cancer and in my um there's a line in sorry yeah there's a line in

long time running when when gorge just goes and you know we're all ready for this and then brain

cancer and um luckily i did not have glioblastoma thank god um and it was breast cancer which

was difficult um enough but at least it wasn't that right um.

[5:55] But because of that, we also we remained isolated basically just ourselves for a whole nother

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year. And listening to the hip and having that to communicate kind of really cemented our marriage,

which could have gone either way because a lot of marriages did during the pandemic.

[6:10] But it yeah, but it really gave us something to talk about and sending memes. Or did you see

this in it?

[6:15] Because, you know, there was all this information on TikTok and, you know, YouTube and all

that.

[6:22] So it's like, well, did you see this interview? Did you see that interview? and you know just

sending things back and forth to each other and you know listening to music and of course then the

music the lyrics itself kind of like bring you by so yeah um the before mask were readily available

the first mask we bought we bought um the hip we're selling them on all the courage ones they had

courage on the front and so when he dropped me off at uh to get my surgery because you get just

dropped off at the door you can't go in um oh you know you're just going by yourself during the

pandemic you know that's what i wore to surgery was my courage mask because you know you're

there all by yourself um and i had amazing medical professionals like i can't get over how um

phenomenal they were but still you're still by yourself because you don't even have your husband

or a friend there with oh that must have been so tough um it was tough but i mean we got through it

and it you know it ended up being complicated as hell and this side effect and this thing went wrong

and that thing went wrong but um but we got of it and part of the reason we got it got through it not

only for me was the hip because like I said the songs just kind of me through even if it was just so it

was just funny like you know Gus the polar bear like just cracks me up because you know

especially where it was against Bush and I just uh I thought he was whole um I'd love to have him

back but um yeah.

[7:46] It just, you know, the funny parts and the funny bits and, you know, long time running became

my, um, I would put it on when I, if I go, when I went to bed, I would just put it on and listen to it as I

went to bed. And yeah, I mean, it's a horrible story of, you know, somebody dying, but on the other

hand, just has so many good moments of people being humans, good humans, you know, showing

love and support and the country getting together and, and whatever. And so, um, that's what got

us through the past few years. That's tremendous. That's my origin story. Did you? Oh, and also I, I,

I, I would be, um, I have to mention that when we did get a cat during the pandemic, that was my,

um, when things were going really crappy with the cancer part, we, my husband let me get a cat

and we did name him Gord the cat. Oh, that's spectacular. Official name is Gord effing Downie.

And, um, so that way when my husband gets irritated, he can yell the whole name, but, um, he's,

he's our little addition. Oh, that's really special. I love the name.

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[8:54] So what, what record do you go to at this point? Or are you still like indoctrinating yourself

with the records at this point? Are you listening to singles? Like how, how do you go about, um,

going from somebody who didn't really like the band to seeing a long time running and then, you

know, getting into them? Did you start at the start? Did you cherry pick? What did you do, Lynn?

Yeah.

[9:20] Well, so we did originally start at the start. So when we have to go to Caribou from here, it's

about, I don't know, five, six hours, depending if we leave from here or work.

[9:30] And like we'll put in like CDs the whole way. So, you know, we'll listen to it that way. And we'll

start from the beginning when we do that. But I kind of picked my, just picked random ones right

now. Trouble at the Hen House is in my car. I still have a CD player in my car. So that's what I'm

listening to right now. but it changes whatever I have in there. I listened to it and that's my favorite

until I listen to something else. Um, getting my husband to part with his CD because I'm a klutz and

I will break, like I will drop, you know, just the way I am. So like I have to get my own. So, um, I

don't have all of them myself. Um, I have to borrow his with, uh, barely, you know, touching it, but at

home he'll put, different ones in and then we also went you know through all of gourd's stuff as well

so we're just kind of because it's kind of like you have to listen to it a bunch of times and every time

you pick up something else so right now i have trouble at the house repeat and i do have your uh

your favorites and you know in there as well as like on constant rotation uh we we are the same

used to be my favorite which is really funny and i think it's just because you know the depression

suite at home but it's like i always felt there was like it needed something more and now that i you

know watch the documentary now i can see why what's missing you know the lyrics are there but

the.

[10:58] The soul is missing a little bit, I think. It doesn't feel like a hip album. But that's just me. The

same way. Yeah, it's too much. It's too clean sounding. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think so. I'm

not the pro that you guys are with describing music, but it's a little too clean to me.

[11:20] And it just doesn't have as much grit, I guess. Yeah, I would agree with that. I would agree

with that. It's pretty. It's a very pretty album. but that's not really who they are it's one level instead

of multi it's funny though because there are no like bad hip albums it's just not in my upper tier you

know yeah i will still throw that on every once in a while though i will still totally throw that i'm with

you i like depression sweet a lot i guess it and it really and it's funny so it's like it is like a whole new

discovery because it's not the music i mean again music has always been mostly in the background

for me Like at work, I listened to, you know, um, show tunes or John Prine and now the hip, but I

mean like that, my Spotify playlist is pretty boring. Um, it's not like, I'm not the person that's, Oh, did

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you hear this new band? You know, I mean, once in a while, like Chapel Rhone has really like hit

me right now, but you know, but the hip, it's just always something different. Every time you sit

down and listen to it, it's, it's really rewarding music, isn't it? If you put in the time, like you get

something larger out of the songs.

[12:26] Than the songs themselves, if that makes sense. But I think you have to be like, I mean, I

think I just had to be in the right space and yeah, it took 20 years to be able to settle down and

listen, but you know, Did your husband ever drag you to a show or did he ever get to see a show?

Oh yeah. So that is a funny story. So back in the early days of our relationship, Um, when we still

were trying harder to get into each other's likes, um, he actually, we went to St. John, New

Brunswick in 1999 in December, uh, 2000, excuse me, 2000. Uh, we went to, we went to St. John,

New Brunswick. And so we drove there and his whole thing of getting me away for the weekend

was, oh, we're going to stay in a hotel. There's going to be a mall, you know, whatever. It was just a

miserable trip. it was so cold it was so miserable and my anxiety was like 110 and um at that point

in my life anyway and it was just to be in a concert or whatever with all these uh very enthusiastic

Canadians it was fine he enjoyed the concert but it was just a whole I I don't I don't remember it

because I was just my anxiety was like up to a million and then um St. John which is a lovely the

city and we've been back um has these like skyways because it's so cold because the water.

[13:51] The air coming off the water so like you have these skyways so you can just walk between

buildings, and so when we got back to the hotel we got back with everybody else that had gone to

the concert, and they overloaded the elevator so there were um 19 of us in the elevator and it

started going and we got stuck in the elevator with get this the worst the worst profession in my life

is a dietician and the dietician looked at us and said i estimated all your weights and we're way over

the weight limit shut up so i mean that was hysterical but you know if you're going to be trapped in

the elevator with a bunch of people a bunch of hip fans you know i mean they were everybody was

so nice besides that one lady um you know and whatever and long so short we ended up because

it was such a miserable trip for me the concert like i said i blacked out but it just everything kept

going wrong you know one of those trips that we ended up getting engaged on that trip so i guess it

worked out 25 years later right here we are 20 years later over you know 24 years later so we're

still together um so that i it so yes i've been to a show but i i don't remember it at all like i remember

like just get like i said the skyways walking to the concert and that's about it. So I feel terrible about

that. That's like my one chance. Yeah, can't go back.

[15:20] Yeah. I mean, my husband's seen them 17, and I could have gone. He's seen my husband

17 times. Plus individual gourd shows. And only two of them had been in Canada. He only, he went

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to Fredericton, New Brunswick, and St. John, and that's it. So everything else was around here. So

it would have been all intimate shows, but I just wasn't intimate at the time. Oh, rats. Rats rats rats

yeah that's one of my biggest regrets not coming down south and seeing a show in a smaller venue

you know i would have really enjoyed that because they were always full but they were just smaller

you know they were always full so the yeah he went to the um it's the one on youtube tt and the

bears with gourd it's just a gourd show yeah yeah yeah it's in boston they.

[16:07] They, yeah, he went to that. He was right up front. And, um, like in Portland they played once

and it was like snowing, like really bad, like super heavy snowstorm. So it was only, it was a small

venue anyway, but it was only half full. I guess people couldn't get out in the storm. Well, I think like

when they played in Portland, they probably got a lot of people coming down from. Oh, okay. Like

New Brunswick. Yeah. I wish I had done it, but the closest city for me is Buffalo and it, Buffalo was

a giant hip city they would play the arena there right so yeah well lynn from maine should we uh

spin things around here and talk about the featured song of the week sure yes we'll be right back

hey this is paul langwell from the tragical hip saying hello now on with the countdown.

[16:56] Music.

[21:33] I can still recall the first time I heard that song. It was Springtime in Vienna. Lynn from Maine,

what do you remember about the first time you heard this song? Well, I saw it on YouTube. So I

saw the video the first time. And I was just a little confused because I obviously didn't understand

what Springtime in Vienna meant. But I went right to the paradoxes, you know, that life is basically

full of paradoxes. And that kind of hit me because that's pretty much how life is, right? At least like

with my origin story, you know, you find you have to find beauty and the humor and everything. And

that's pretty much, you know, you live in this amazing space because Maine is absolutely beautiful.

But horrible things happen and you just kind of like, yeah, good and the bad, you know. Where did

you do your research for this song? Do you have like a go to place that you go? i have been to the

hip museum um yeah pretty much this i think that's probably where i got it from you know the um

there's a few things yeah theories here and there you know and it you know as far as i mean and

the thing is is it's gorge song right so there's probably five different references that he puts in here

not one and it's never all one thing so you get a piece of um.

[22:56] Different things like i mean the blues are still required like is that literal like that they were

upset that their music always had to be a little bluesy for the fans to get along or the blues are still

required because everybody still needs to listen to music that's bluesy because it makes you feel

better oh i like that there's you know a whole bunch of things you can take from every line so a lot

of people i know a lot of people um you know take that literally like and it's gourd So it's probably

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taken three ways since, you know, three, four or five ways, because that's just how he is. But to me,

it just means like the blues are still required. Like, you know, the blues make you feel and I don't

know what makes you feel a little bit better as well. And so to me, music is still required. Like you're

still always going to going to need that to get by in life. I mean, unless you're just lucky and don't

have any woes. Yeah, I mean, and I think that brings the whole, just the whole thing, like, you know,

with Vienna is, you know, beautiful in the springtime and here comes Hitler going in. You know what

I mean? Like you just have, you're just like in a beautiful spot, whether it's, you know, figuratively or

literally, you know, you're just in a beautiful spot and there's just always going to be something that

you're going to need to help lift yourself up.

[24:18] And sometimes, you know, that's music and books and literature and and whatever. And

then, you know, to help you feel and make you feel a lot less alone. And sometimes it's, you know,

people.

[24:29] And I mean, and that's the other thing, you know, with this great community that the hip has

is that it's nice to have something in common with people. That's just, and I wouldn't say being a hip

fan is pure joy because obviously there's losing gourd probably didn't, you know, help a lot of

people, but still. He did inspire a lot of people, like you said, with his, the way he handled it, you

know, and as somebody who is a survivor yourself, that's got to be, you know, sort of uplifting for

you as well. and inspire for you as well. Yeah, well, while I was going through everything and I don't

want to get too political here, but I have crappy insurance and I work for a small business, so I

didn't have any, I had very limited sick time and no disability insurance. So I had to go to work on

days that I probably was not a good idea to do that. And I just got up and it's like, well, if Gord can

go on tour, then I can go have this procedure done and then go into work after. You know so you

just kind of get there and you drag yourself because gorg did it so why can't i you know and um and

i took i took a lot of strength from him for doing that because i mean yeah i went through crap but it

wasn't a brain tumor and i don't have children so i didn't i don't have to like worry about if i leave

like you know that horror i don't know how a parent can face that but um and i know my husband

took a lot of strength in how the members behaved as well.

[25:55] I mean, that's his story, so I don't want to tell it, but it helped him through it as well.

[26:00] I mean, it really did, because especially when we were we were so isolated because of the

pandemic, like we couldn't go out or be with people even after people started going out again,

because who knows where they were. And if I was exposed and then I couldn't get treatment, like

you couldn't go into the doctor's office and stuff like that. So it became just the two of us. So I think

it helped. It really helped us on so many levels get through that time in my life. And I don't want to in

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our lives and I don't want to like speak for my husband but I think hip's always been a presence in

his life so the fact that it helped us both kind of maybe it was meant to wait all those shows just so it

can help us through this yeah you know you needed it it couldn't have come at a better time the

courage right couldn't come over your story is inspiring too like if anybody out there is uh you know

battling this fucking terrible sickness definitely uh you know think about gourd and think about lynn

from maine and do your best to persevere i suppose right and don't forget gourd fucking downy

gourd fucking downy the cat yeah.

[27:09] He's he's something and uh it is a little tidbit we did name him gourd fucking downy because

after gourd we're going back and forth also he he was very licky so when we first got him he would

lick us like right on the face and when he when you watch long time running again yeah you know a

gourd kissing everybody on the lips. So we have trained him out of that. Cause that's just yucky.

But, um.

[27:33] That's why he got Gord and not Paul or Johnny because Gord liked to kiss. So then for

Maine, what's next? 20 years to catch up. I have all these years to catch up on, you know? So

maybe it'll get there if my husband releases his CDs out of his hands. Yeah. Are they easy to find?

Not much. I mean, we still can, though, like when the new stuff comes out, we go to our local

record store. We actually have a chain a local chain that are actual record stores and they're

absolutely fabulous they're they're um employee owned and they're fabulous so we can actually go

there to get all the new stuff coming out but they don't always have like the old stuff yeah so we can

just pick up like on record store day they're actually the guy that um no he wasn't our owner yeah i

missed out on that vinyl it was pink yeah so cool yeah so cool so we're able to get all you You

know, all of those. And, you know, obviously Maine, I mean, we're all, 40% of us have Canadian,

you know, French-Canadian ancestry. So we have that. That's fascinating.

[28:42] So, Lynn, it's been great talking to you today. Nice to speak with you. Enjoy, everybody.

Hope you guys all like springtime in Vienna as much as I did. And thank you for welcoming me to

the club. You're definitely welcome. And that's what I've got for you today on this, the second

episode of the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown. Once again, 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. Or

social. Find us on all the socials at TTH Top 40. Doovra!

[29:33] Music.

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