Bourbon blues on the street, loose and complete
Under skies all smoky blue green
I can't forsake a dixie dead shake
So we danced the sidewalk clean
My memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in?
New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don't want to swim
Colonel Tom, what's wrong? What's going on?
You can't tie yourself up for a deal
He said, Hey, north, you're south, shut your big mouth
You gotta do what you feel is real
Ain't got no picture postcards, ain't got no souvenirs
My baby she don't know me when I'm thinking bout those years
Pale as a light bulb hanging on a wire
Sucking up to someone just to stoke the fire
Picking out the highlights of the scenery
Saw a little cloud that looked a little like me
I had my hands in the river, my feet back up on the banks
Looked up to the lord above and said, Hey, man, thanks
Sometimes I feel so good I got to scream
She said, Gordie, baby, I know exactly what you mean
She said, she said, I swear to god she said
My memory is muddy, what's this river that I'm in?
New Orleans is sinking, man, and I don't want to swim
Swim
The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, were a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker (known as Bobby Baker until 1994), bassist Gord Sinclair, and drummer Johnny Fay. They released 13 studio albums, one live album, one EP, and over 50 singles over a 33-year career. Nine of their albums have reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts. They have received numerous Canadian music awards, including 17 Juno Awards. Between 1996 and 2016, the Tragically Hip were the best-selling Canadian band in Canada and the fourth best-selling Canadian artist overall in Canada.
Following Downie's diagnosis with terminal brain cancer in 2015, the band undertook a tour of Canada in support of their thirteenth album, Man Machine Poem. The tour's final concert, which would ultimately be the band's last show, was held at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in Kingston on August 20, 2016, and broadcast globally by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a cross-platform television, radio and internet streaming special.
After Downie died on October 17, 2017, the band announced in July 2018 that they would no longer perform under the name. The surviving members have, however, continued to pursue other musical projects, and have begun releasing compilation albums of previously unreleased songs from the band's archives.
