The Tragically Hip - Bobcaygeon

submitted by Zifnab
1 decade 5 years 11 months 2 weeks ago
"Bobcaygeon" is a song by The Tragically Hip, from their album Phantom Power. The song, which won the Juno Award for Single of the Year in 2000, remains one of most famous and best-loved songs the band has recorded.

The song is about a police officer who meets a woman who lives in Bobcaygeon, Ontario; he sleeps at her house (they have sex while listening to Willie Nelson & drinking wine) and the next morning drives back to 'town' (Toronto) while thinking of 'quitting & leaving it behind'. That night, he is assigned to work the Christie Pits anti-semitic racial riot, which breaks out after a softball game during which one of the teams was primarily Jewish. Although the essence of the song is the love that the officer feels for the woman he has met, as 'in the middle of that riot I couldn't get you off my mind', the song does make several references to Bobcaygeon that could ring true to locals. Firstly, the woman that he is with is construed by the song to live in a rural area; most of Bobcaygeon is rural. Secondly, many references to '[watching] the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time' are made; Bobcaygeon is famous for the success of stargazers situated there as the town is far enough away from Toronto to have a view of the night time stars without the interference of light pollution.

The song is fictious in that it is highly unlikely there really was a police officer who fell in love with a girl from Bobcaygeon the night before the Christie Pits racial riot; however the riot itself did happen and its inclusion in the song is another example of the Tragically Hip highlighting anecdotal parts of Canadian history that many people are unaware of.

Lead singer/songwriter Gordon Downie was asked about the name of the song during an interview on an American radio station; he said that the band really could have used the name of any Canadian town but chose Bobcaygeon as it rhymed with 'constellation.' (Thanks Wikipedia)

28 Comments

Kruposays...

So we have a bit of *obscure (by definition) Canadian *history here. As popular as the Hip are in Canada, they're insanely obscure outside our wonderful country. This deserves way more votes.

bareboards2says...

Helluva story. Here's the whole thing from Wiki:

The Christie Pits riot occurred on 16 August 1933 at the Christie Pits (Willowvale Park) playground in Toronto, Canada. The riot can only be understood in the context of the anti-semitism, Swastika clubs and parades and resentment of "foreigners" in Toronto, and the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany in 1933.[1]

The riot, which lasted six hours, broke out after a quarter-final baseball game at Christie Pits Park between two local clubs, Harbord Playground, predominantly Jewish, and St. Peter's, a baseball team sponsored by a church at Bathurst and Bloor.[2]

The riot occurred soon after Adolf Hitler took power in Germany and in the midst of the Great Depression. The Toronto papers, including the Telegram and the Toronto Star, as well as the Yiddish journal, Der Yiddisher Zhurnal, reported on how Jews were being dismissed as lawyers, professors, teachers, etc. in Germany, as well as incidents of violence against them. Thus to Jews the swastika represented degradation and physical violence against Jews, and was inflammatory.[3]

At that time, the Jewish community in Toronto was predominantly poor and working class. They were also the subject of discrimination and were excluded from summer resorts outside of the city. Jewish families and youths in particular would therefore cool off during the hot summer months by staying in town and going to the predominantly Anglo Beaches area in order to swim. This resulted in complaints and resentment from some local residents. Some of the locals formed "Swastika Clubs", which openly displayed the Nazi symbol to express their displeasure and make Jews feel unwanted.[4] The leaders of the Swastika Club initially insisted that the swastika had nothing to do with Hitler. They said they merely wanted to keep the Beach clean. After a meeting with Jewish leaders backed by City officials, the Swastika club agreed to drop its symbol and its name. At that point, several of the members joined the Swastika Association of Canada that was much more open about its links to Hitler.[5]

The night of the riot was the second game between Harbord and St. Peter's. Two nights earlier, at the first game of the series, a swastika had been displayed. Police were warned that there could be trouble at the second game, but those warnings were ignored. After the final out of the second game, Pit Gang members displayed a blanket with a large swastika painted on it. A number of Jewish boys and young men who had heard about the previous Swastika incident rushed the Swastika sign to destroy it, supporters of both sides (including Italians who supported the Jews) from the surrounding area joined in, and a fight started.[6]

The Toronto Daily Star described the event the next day:
“ While groups of Jewish and Gentile youths wielded fists and clubs in a series of violent scraps for possession of a white flag bearing a swastika symbol at Willowvale Park last night, a crowd of more than 10,000 citizens, excited by cries of ‘Heil Hitler’ became suddenly a disorderly mob and surged wildly about the park and surrounding streets, trying to gain a view of the actual combatants, which soon developed in violence and intensity of racial feeling into one of the worst free-for-alls ever seen in the city.

Scores were injured, many requiring medical and hospital attention... Heads were opened, eyes blackened and bodies thumped and battered as literally dozens of persons, young or old, many of them non-combatant spectators, were injured more or less seriously by a variety of ugly weapons in the hands of wild-eyed and irresponsible young hoodlums, both Jewish and Gentile".[7]
”

No one was killed in the riots. There was criticism of the police for not being ready to intervene, as they had been during previous potential problems in the Beach area.[8] After the riot, Mayor Stewart warned against displaying the swastika and there were no further riots.[9]

The riot revealed the xenophobic attitudes toward Jews and other non-Anglo immigrants among Anglo Canadians. Jews represented the largest minority in Toronto in 1933 and were thus a target of xenophobic residents.

In August 2008, a Heritage Toronto plaque was presented to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the riot.

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