Tonight the winter may have missed its mark
you can see your breath in Springside Park
coffee-coloured ice and peeling birch bark the
sound of rushing water in the dark
– Taken from “An Inch An Hour” from The Hip’s Day For Night album
This song took me to Napanee, Ontario, not too far away at all from my home in Toronto. The exact location that The Hip mention in “An Inch An Hour” is Springside Park. Coincidentally I visited Springside Park in the spring (April, 2013) and it’s a pretty nice park indeed. Napanee used to have a busy mill and the historic remains are located right near the falls. As Gord sings in the song, the water at the falls is definitely “coffee-coloured” and you can’t escape the sound of the “rushing water”.
Like so many other Hip songs, I can’t 100% figure out what “An Inch An Hour” is about, although my guess is that it expresses the feeling of being stuck in traffic in the winter – or just taking a long time getting anywhere in the winter. There are some other notable guesses at the Hip Museum, including speculation that it could be about glaciers. They do move slowly afterall! Read the rest of the lyrics and listen to the song here. Check out the photos below.
In case you missed it, Part 2 of the Tragically Hip tour was about Millhaven Maximum Security.
