Top 60 Gord Downie Quotes

Even ‘The Inevitability of Death’ is kind of a funny song more than anything. I mean, I thought it would be funny imagining radio deejays cueing it up and announcing it as people are driving off to work.

I have no illusions of the future. Or maybe it’s all illusion. I don’t know. I’ve always been ready for it.

You sort of get so lulled into thinking of yourself as this five-headed thing, the group, the band, The Hip. I guess you just forget it’s a family, and like every good family, you can forget. But you’re also committed to each other, so there’s always room to grow, to learn and relearn.

We got instant gratification when we would slip in one of our own songs and people would cheer. We started getting a lot of gratification from writing.

The Sadies have the ability to create soundscapes, and to put you in places.

Bob Rock taught me a lot. His friendship has taught me a lot about what you should expect from a recording session and, more importantly, how you shouldn’t expect anything less than absolute joyousness. You should feel great. You should feel 14 to be doing it. It’s true and it’s rare.

I’m a music fan – I love meeting other musicians, I love talking to other musicians – and what greater opportunity to take advantage of whatever standing we might have to try and attract people? To say ‘We don’t know you, but we love you, and will you come play with us?’ Sometimes they actually do.

I was a rink rat growing up. I was a goalie and my father was a busy father of five, so he would come when he could. When he did show up, I’d look up and there he would be.

I feel like I’m playing the washboard more than the guitar.

I love dance – trying to express myself wordlessly.

Canada is not Canada. We are not the country we think we are.

I like hanging with my family and helping them on their way however I can. There’s a new tragicomedy every half-hour, there is laughter, there are tears, and it’s all real. They are endlessly entertaining, they have given me so much, they’ve given me a chance to ‘see’ things again.

I think the health of our water is tied to a lot: the health of our communities, hence our economy, the health of our basic human rights.

I like Al Purdy.

When someone gives you a piece of music, they are really giving you a piece of themselves.

If I’m to be an ‘ist’ then, like Bobby Kennedy, I’m probably more of a free market capitalist than an environmentalist. Rather than wanting to tell people to be less bad, I’m saying let’s make it fair across the board and stop subsidizing the big heavy-polluting fat cats, let’s make it a level playing field.

I stand in support of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations and all Canadians who find themselves with no voice in our present version of democracy, who are trying to come up with the entry fee that gets them a seat at the table where their pollution future is being discussed.

I think I’m a dancer in terms of what I do onstage.

I come to America because if you’re a rock ‘n’ roll musician you should come here every chance you get.

I’m just a student. I’m learning all the time, and, like anyone, I’m just looking for words I can use and a hummable melody.

I think the recording industry is founded on that principle: to approximate the live experience, to approximate that thing that evaporates as it’s happening, disappears as it’s happening.

If you work hard enough I don’t think it’s possible to just repeat what you’re doing.

We were big Clash fans, you know, big Who fans and I think we would listen to this music and talk about music and do nothing but music night and day, and when it came time to actually making our own music, you feel compelled to sort of tuck all those influences away, not show them.

Within the Universal deal, we’ve always felt like an independent act. We’ve never been told what to do. We’ve used their resources to our own design.

I’m a dancer. It’s what I love to do more than anything.

When you write and make music, there’s a tendency to save stuff… to be cagey, to be savvy.

Acting is like lifting a 400-pound feather. It’s a feather, how hard could it be? And yet, you go to lift it and it’s heavy. For that reason, I love it, because it’s very hard and difficult and challenging and obviously I want to learn more.

I haven’t written too many political lyrics. Nor have I written any pro-Canada lyrics, any kind of jingoistic, nationalistic cant… That stuff doesn’t interest me and I don’t even know if I could write that if I tried because I don’t really feel it.

It’s time to listen to the stories of the Indigenous; we are blessed as a country to look to the wisdom of a really old country.

I write lyrics. putting words and melodies to my songs. That’s a real challenge, I take it on vigorously.

As we move towards resolution and understanding and greater serenity in all aspects of our life, love’s pretty elemental and that’s nice to know. I think rock ‘n’ roll is the same. I don’t pretend to understand it; it feels confusing and frightening and wonderful.

I enjoy making and creating things.

I think you have to show people it’s cool and fun to work together. It’s your obligation. If you can’t do it, who can you expect to do it?

I like Raymond Carver’s poetry a lot.

We’re a band. We’re hired for parties. We have to know what to do.

I’m not a rock star writing poetry. I don’t feel like a rock star and I don’t know what one is, actually. I’m a goalie/poet or a hotel guest/poet or a father/poet.

I guess I want people to see me and to try to explain myself, and you don’t always get the chance. Sometimes you don’t get the chance and maybe no one ever gets the chance to really explain themselves, to have people see them. But I guess I’m doing that or I’m in the process of doing that.

The only criterion we used in doing cover material was we wanted to do songs that we wished bands would play when we went out. We were doing Yardbirds and Rolling Stones cover songs-which is not any big deal, but where we were from, all we were getting were Top 40 bands.

A live album is a no-brainer.

I’m agile.

When we watch dance, the artists and the audience are part of a momentary collective experience that will never happen again.

If you’re aiming for a hole in one, and you get one, you feel lucky – but at the same time you can justifiably say, ‘Well, I was aiming for the hole anyway.’

I always like to have a glimmer of hopefulness, even in collapse.

When I’m in front of a crowd, I don’t think ‘Oh, there’s some hard-core metalheads and some alternative fringe types, so we should be okay.’

It will take 150 years or seven generations to heal the wound of the residential school.

Canadians can be funny.

You know, I’ve been hit with a Greb boot in the face and I’ve been spat on. And my kids light up when they hear these stories. It really takes their minds off their troubles.

Our sound is nothing like the Doors.

When we started in university we were wearing lampshades on our heads and playing wacky covers like ‘I’m a Believer.’

Being a dad, and being in a rock band, it’s harder than it looks. But we tried. And we try.

When you’re opening for someone, there’s no pressure.

Once we went into the basement and learned a song, we felt successful. Then we learned two songs, and then we got a gig, and on and on – and that’s the way musicians think. I don’t know about other people – I mean, I don’t know about all musicians either – but some are more driven than others.

I’ve always liked R.E.M. because, like so many things I like, they exude a warmth; I like to think that we do, too.

I want my kids to be good. I want them to be safe and have a great, long life. And take what they need from me and leave what they don’t. Definitely leave what they don’t.

I kind of love walking around with something nobody else knows about in my back pocket.

Rock ‘n’ roll is not unlike love. You find it oddly strangely comforting that no matter how old you get, when it comes to matters of the heart, you’re always 15 inside.

We did reach a wider audience with ‘SNL,’ but it’s hard to know what attracts people to your band in the long run.

I work at being a better member of my family. So I know that that affects and drifts and soaks into my work, and my art.

I’ve always kept a notebook in my pocket, I’ve always written stuff down since I was a kid.

We were interested in making a long career out of this, rather than being ‘Canada’s Newest Hitmakers.’ It seems to work, and it trickles down to every aspect of the band.