Agent Palmer

Are you Canadian? Do you know The Tragically Hip? Odds are the answer to both of those questions is probably the same, but there are some of us from south of the border and from other parts of the globe who know Canadians and have been introduced secondhand to this wonderful Canadian music treasure. Now, a four-part documentary on Amazon Prime tells the story and importance of The Tragically Hip.

My friend Chris Maier, host of the Our Liner Notes podcast, invited me on the podcast to both introduce me to The Tragically Hip and as a tribute to Gord Downie…

Every week, we get up and live through the same seven days of the week.

Sure, the days themselves are never quite the same, but the names never change. It’s no wonder, then, that those days of the week are often the basis for popular music.

Tim Minchin is many things. In 2013, the University of Western Australia gave Minchin an honorary Doctor of Letters degree for his contribution to the arts recognizing his achievements as a “composer, lyricist, actor, writer, and comedian.”

That’s a lot of things, but all of that is important, so you understand that Minchin’s first serious musical album, 2020’s Apart Together, is brilliant. It’s critical to first understand that it’s not only a long time in coming: it’s unique, bibliographic, and poetic.

So, as you may or may not be aware, I created a “Promise” playlist back in November. In my research to create that playlist and the affiliated post, I encountered enough “Promises” songs to do a follow up.

The songs below are selected from the playlist, but they are not the entire playlist. The same rules apply to the Promises playlist that applied to Promise, only I’m throwing out the singular. This is only songs titled “Promises.” No “My Promises” or “Our Promises.”

In October 2023, the iconic Sydney Opera House had a birthday festival to celebrate the 50 years since it opened its doors to the world.

The Sydney Opera House website, under “Our Story,” explains why this building should be a little more celebrated than most in their short three paragraph history, which is honestly one of the more accurate and succinct art building histories I have ever read.