Bill Barilko 50 Mission Cap

I bought The Tragically Hip’s “Fully Completely” album (on casette!) in 1993, the spring of my junior year of college. We were playing the single “Courage” on WQRI-FM, the Roger Williams University college radio station, and I bought the album on the strength of my liking for that one song. I played the tape over and over until I had every song and every note committed to memory. That’s why this song "50 Mission Cap" came to mind today in that insidious way. It was easy to diagnose why. I never got the spelling of the hockey player’s name straight, and I was cooking a dish to bring to a potluck dinner at my friend Jason’s place. He had thrown it together to introduce his new girlfriend, whose name is Marilka. Easy diagnosis, eh?

I remember a radio interview with the band where they explained how they come up with their songs; The band jams, and Gordon Downie, the lead singer, “stands in a corner” and just comes up with stuff. I don’t know what a “50 Mission Cap” is. The comment in this YouTube video is a better guess than mine. I thought it was a sports thing, not an aviation thing. I wonder how he introduces it in concerts.

Here again, through numerous YouTube postings of the song (an apparently very popular one) si an example of how you get more insight into a song, and get the rest of the story that didn’t fit into the song format. Most of the comments on this page were again about the Maple Leafs.