I was talking to a client yesterday about The Tragically Hip. The base of the conversation was about a live monologue that was done in one of his songs.
TTH, has some of the best live monologues I have ever heard. I have seen them 4times.
This one is hilarious.
TTH, has some of the best live monologues I have ever heard. I have seen them 4times.
This one is hilarious.
She had a beautiful apartment. She had a beautiful apartment.
Well, actually it was a lousy apartment, but she — she’s very handy with her hands and she’s got Architectural Digest magazine, so she knows what she’s doing.
She likes to decorate her apartment in the Santa Fé tradition. I told her it was dated, but I see more of the world than she does.
She got an apartment where the property was cheap. Next to the freeway. She said, “I save lots of money, but I lose lots of sleep. In my apartment where the property is so cheap.”
And we’d laugh, and we’d laugh, and we’d laugh.
Oh, we’d take pot-shots at the passing cars.
And we’d laugh. Oh, we were dumping the body and we’d laugh. We found a place that was dark and rotten. A place where the police helicopters would never spot it. I destroyed the map that we’d so carefully dotted.
Every day we’re dumping a body, she and me. Every single day. And we’d laugh about it.
That’s when I knew it was time that we’d both kill ourselves, together. Together, we were nothing but a menace. Apart, we were nothing but lonely.
I read too much. I thought we should kill ourselves. She doesn’t read a thing; she believed me. “Are you really the messiah?” “Yes, I am.” She was younger than me, too. She was younger than me. And I said to her. I said, “You know, Pauline? No one stamps on a burning bag of shit any more. Nobody.”
“Are you really the messiah?” “Yes, I am. Believe it.”
So we, uh, we opted to kill ourselves, as I said. But we had but one rifle, and one bullet, so I told her to put her head down close to the barrel and put the barrel sort of into her mouth. And I’d be right behind her, with my head right behind hers.
And I said her life would end instantly, mine might have a few extra minutes of agony and suffering. She couldn’t pull the trigger, so we attached a string to it, around the lamp to the doorknob. The first person to come into our cheap fucking apartment would blow both our heads off.
And we got, we got to thinking. We changed our minds, you know? I mean, we got scared, and, uh, we kind of chickened out. And we laughed, you know? We laughed a little. What were we thinking? We’re not — together, we’re not that bad, we don’t — we’re not that bad. We don’t need to kill ourselves. We don’t need to kill ourselves.
And then the D train rattled overhead, and knocked the joor a, the door ajar, the joor adar, the door ajar, the jar a door, the door ajar.
And oh — the faulty lock — the door swung open!
And killed her.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
— Performed by The Tragically Hip at The Roxy in Hollywood, California on 3 May 1991.