(“Edgar dealt with it in the most zen way,” says Patrick, “even though he had no idea what that word meant.”) Days after the funeral, Gord had his first seizure, which led to the glioblastoma diagnosis. Both men split from their long-time partners in 2015, the same year their beloved father, Edgar, who’d had Parkinson’s for years, succumbed to cancer at age 84. Patrick Downie has a unique take on his brother’s final years. All I knew is that if I got this one out first, the rest will make more sense.” I wanted people to be in a place where it’s okay to treasure him. I wanted to be respectful and time it right so people can hear it in the right way, and not be compulsively turned off by it. He isn’t just the thing that is often associated with him. At the same time, it is important to me to show people the depth of his talent. “I didn’t want people to be sick of Gord Downie. “I didn’t want him to be a caricature,” says Gord’s younger brother, who, three years later, is still struggling to speak for the sibling he grew up idolizing. The closing track, Untitled, speaks of a “good journey, good discovery, a good plan for what’s ahead.” His daughters Willo and Clare did the artwork.įor the last three years, fans who knew about the final creative spurt have wondered when the wealth of Downie material would be released. And though there’s an added element of mortality on Away Is Mine, it’s far from a sombre record. That said, it shares some similarities with the work Downie made after turning 50 in 2014: the reverb-drenched vocals deliver lyrics displaying humility and self-doubt. Engineer Nyles Spencer added synths, drum machines and textures that make it unlike anything else in Downie’s catalogue. The only guests were the Sadies’ Travis Good (another relationship dating back to Coke Machine Glow) Downie’s best friend, Dave “Billy Ray” Koster and Downie’s eldest son, Lou, on drums. Three months later, they were in the Hip’s studio making a record over the course of a weekend. Downie responded within hours with lyrics and melodies. “He was a man of letters,” says Finlayson, “like people who used to spend the morning just corresponding with people.” In April 2017, Finlayson sent Downie some acoustic sketches he’d recorded on his phone. Similarly, when assembling a band to present Secret Path live in 2016, he asked Finlayson to join a group of otherwise newer collaborators.ĭuring his final year, Downie kept in constant contact with his extended circle of friends. When Downie assembled a band for his first solo album, Coke Machine Glow, recorded in June 2000, Finlayson was the first person he called. READ MORE: Gord Downie wasn’t just a rock star-he was a real poet, tooĪway Is Mine was co-written and performed with Finlayson, one of Downie’s oldest friends. Right to the end.” In the words of the late Texan songwriter Townes Van Zandt, “It’s easier than just waitin’ around to die.”
“He didn’t allow the illness to take that away from him, even though it compromised him and his memory. “It was his language, it was where he lived,” says Finlayson, of his friend’s drive to create new music. The workaholic wanted to work, debilitating brain condition be damned. Downie wasn’t in the mood to be alone with his thoughts. He went through several iterations of writing a memoir, which he found too solitary a process. He improvised vocals over a furious and wild recording by his friends in avant-garde noise-rock band the Dinner Is Ruined, all of whom were part of Downie’s solo band, the Country of Miracles. Many considered it an epitaph.īut Downie had also made new recordings with eclectic Toronto roots-rock group the Sadies, following up a full-length 2014 album they did together. Many fans found it too raw to listen to at the time.
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And there was the elegiac, piano-driven record he made with Kevin Drew, Introduce Yerself: a concept album in which he wrote a series of love letters to family and close friends (and one to Lake Ontario). There was a small series of shows that fall to promote his Secret Path project. There was the Hip tour in the summer of 2016, obviously.
Though Downie became more famous in 2016-17 than he had been during his 30 years fronting the Tragically Hip, many fans don’t realize just how productive Downie was in those final two years of his life, post-diagnosis. It’s not the last we’ll hear from him, but it is the last thing he did it was recorded with the Skydiggers’ Josh Finlayson a mere three months before Downie’s death. There’s a new solo album, Away Is Mine, which will come out this month-three years less a day after he died of brain cancer on Oct. Downie and Finlayson performing together in 2016 (Lindsay Duncan/Eldie Photography)
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