https://youtu.be/S2eP09VIOEA

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/tragicallyhip/lookingforaplacetohappen.html

Hello everyone, I hope all is well. We are going from one classic album, to another classic album. This week we are going to be looking at the band’s highly successful third studio album Fully Completely, with the album’s fifth single and second track, “Looking For A Place to Happen.”

Now I’m not sure about you guys, but when I first heard this album, I was blown away with opener “Courage.” So much so that it took me a long time to connect with it’s follow up song “Looking For A Place to Happen.” On first listen it sounds like a better produced Road Apples song, but after subsequent listens, you hear a lot of interesting features of the song to make it quite remarkable.

The song starts off with a beefy guitar riff, one that hints at their first two albums, but with Chris Tsangarides’ production, it sounds massive. After the riff plays through once by itself, it’s doubled with Rob’s guitar, and the fabulous rhythm section of Sinclair and Johnny. Gord’s vocals follow closely behind and his voice not only cuts through the music with a lot of confidence, he’s singing at a register of his voice that I’ve always thought suits him the best. It’s not shouting but it has a good amount of power behind it.

As for the lyrical content of the song, there’s a lot to digest. On Wikipedia, it describes the song as “dealing with the subject of European encroachment and the eventual annexation of indigenous lands in North America.” That’s a mouthful so I wanna break it down line by line.

“I've got a job, I explore, I follow every little whiff. And I want my life to smell like this.” So right from the start we Gord singing through the perspective of an explorer, someone mapping out North America. I believe the lyric “To find a place, an ancient race. The kind you'd like to gamble with” is a reference to finding indigenous people who explorers at the time deemed as gullible. That and the gambling lyric could have the double meaning of casinos and their connection to Native Americans.

We then get to the very catchy chorus of the song where Johnny’s hitting that ride cymbal perfectly. Gord sing’s the title of the song and we got ourselves a great little rocking tune so far. “Looking for a place to happen, making stops along the way” sounded like a dream to explorers back then.

Getting into the second verse, Gord sings “it's a shame to leave this masterpiece. With its gallery gods and its garbage-bag trees” which is note worthy because he also sings about garbage bag tree in “At the Hundredth Meridian.” Now I’m not sure what type of tree looks like a garbage bag but apparently Gord saw something like that to reference it not once but twice on this album!

Now from here on out, the song seems like it’s possible it shift positions from someone who is an explorer, to the complete opposite, an indigenous person. This is backed by the line “So I'll paint a scene, from memory, so I'd know who murdered me.” It was common for natives to paint their environment and life on cliffs and caves. And although “organized extermination and land-wars” mostly happened in the US, “the Canadian Indigenous population still dropped from over 2 million in the early 17th century to just over 300,000 by the early 20th.” If you want to read more about the deep history, go over to: https://www.hipmuseum.com/looking.html where I originally got most of this information.

We get another chorus where the Hip does what it does best by slightly changing the progression at the end to launch us into a scorching guitar solo by Rob! What I especially love is as the solo is finishing up, the band keeps this new chord progression and we get another chorus during this new part. It’s great because it keeps the song sounding fresh.

The third verse keeps the point of view of an indigenous person. We know this because of the line “Jacques Cartier, right this way I'll put your coat up on the bed. Hey man you've got the real bum's eye for clothes.” As you may know, Jacques Cartier was an explorer for Frances and was the first European to map the Gulf of Saint Lawerence and to use the name the “Country of Canadas.”

Now at the time, it was very common for Natives to welcome Europeans into their homes, so the lyric “right this way, I’ll put your coat up on the bed” makes complete sense. Also the lyric “no you're not the first to show. We've all been here since, God, who knows?” makes more sense when you think of that line being sung by a Native person. It’s them telling the explorers that they weren’t the first people here, although sadly that didn’t seem to make a difference to the explorers as they stole from them and murdered them anyway.

The song continues with another chorus, and then Gord goes back to singing the previous verse. The chord progression goes back to that one we got after the solo earlier on in the song and the song ends with a long fade out with Sinclair adding in some backing vocals.

On first listen, this song sounds like a normal rocker for the band. And although musically that may be correct, lyrically it’s as dense as anything else on the album. If you’ve heard The Secret Path, some of Gord’s other solo songs, or even other Hip songs, you know that First Nations was an extremely important topic for Gord. And this song is just a stepping stone for it. It’s a song with some great one liners and some fantastic guitar licks from Rob, but ultimately it’s steeped with history if you are willing to take that deep dive. And I’m glad I gave it other listens so it could become a favorite like it did for many other fans.

But what do you think? How does this song rank amongst the other singles and songs amongst the others on the album? What do you think the song is about? Favorite musical or lyrical moments? And did you ever catch it live?