Perhaps Downie was simply drawing a parallel between the inexperienced Henry Hudson, who piloted the ill-fated flight that went down with Barilko, and the neophyte pilots of the Allied Air Forces. However it’s tough to disregard the imperfections on this picture of elite army pilots, these dashing and supposedly unquestionable heroes. A few of them have been simply youngsters. A few of them weren’t heroes in any respect—no less than not but. They have been working it in. And if that picture of Canadian historical past might be sophisticated so rapidly, as a chaser to a narrative a couple of vanished hockey participant, all the pieces was questionable.
Elsewhere the lyrics have been extra straight adversarial. “Wheat Kings” was torn straight from the headlines, an acoustic observe about David Milgaard, a 17-year-old wrongly convicted of a brutal rape and homicide in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Milgaard served 23 years in jail earlier than being launched earlier that summer season of 1992, and finally totally exonerated. The tune begins in a watercolor picture of rural Canada, Downie singing of “sunset within the Paris of the Prairies,” however the veil is rapidly pulled again to disclose the nightmare in Milgaard’s thoughts, “the place the partitions are lined all yellow, gray and sinister/Hung with photos of our dad and mom’ prime ministers.” 5 of them had served within the time it took Milgaard to be convicted, undergo behind bars, and discover freedom.
Most pressing of all was “Searching for a Place to Occur,” which instructed the bloody and bitter story of European annexation of Place of origin from two views. First, Downie gave voice to French explorer Jacques Cartier, who callously wished “To discover a place, an historic race/The type you’d wish to gamble with,” earlier than shifting the main target to an indigenous particular person fleeing for his or her life: “I’ll paint a scene, from reminiscence/So I’d know who murdered me.” The Hip weren’t telling the story of a harmonious nation. All over the place on Totally Utterly, there appeared to be injustice and dying, a beautiful-seeming facade melting away to disclose one thing grotesque and disturbing.
Totally Utterly exploded upon launch in Canada, promoting 200,000 copies in its 5 weeks. Within the States, it carried out so poorly that MCA pulled their advertising and marketing funds for it only a fortnight after its launch. “Two weeks earlier than the file comes out, all of the file firm is saying is, ‘It’s gonna be massive boys, look out!’ Then the week after, nobody returns our calls,” Sinclair stated. “That’s the way in which it’s.”
By July 1993, the band’s personal optimism had curdled. In an interview with the Calgary Herald, drummer Gord Sinclair put it right down to an perspective south of the border. “I believe Individuals have this bizarre factor about Canada,” he stated. “They appear north and determine it’s simply the 52nd state. Being from Canada actually doesn’t have a lot of an impression for them. They simply type of assume that you simply’re a second-class American or American with a humorous accent or French.”
