The Tragically Hip: Blow at High Dough Meaning
Blow at High Dough Lyrics
Every body was in it from miles around
Out at the speedway some kinda Elvis thing
Well I ain't no movie star but I can get behind anything
Get it out get it all out
Yeah stretch that thing
Make it last make...
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There is an old Scottish expression
"She’s up tae high doh"
It mean’s she’s riled up and flustered, the original context coming from ‘doh’ being the highest note on the scale, so really worked up high! Not sure why Gord wrote it 'dough' but most likely he had only heard the expression used by his grandma, but only knew what it meant, not its origin. We didn't have the same access to information back in 1989. -
It’s about Elvis coming to the Kingston, Ontario, Canada area to shoot a film and its a small town and got everyone excited.
Every Hip song is about small towns and murder cases in CANADA.
Whoever got going about a teenage murder in Tucson, Arizona; doesn’t understand that The Tragically Hip is Canadian and they only sing about Canada....well except for New Orleans Is Sinking- but that is just a redo of an OLD blues song from the early 1900’s.
The Hip NEVER sang about the U.S.
And the song has nothing to do with drugs, sex, pornography. Stretching it out is what a small town would do if, say a film, or any money source would come to that town. The townies would stretch out the financial opportunity as hard as they could. And about the wedding ring bit, think about it, a whole American film crew would be in Kingston, so a small town with sudden new faces would make for lots of screwing around which caused either a townie or an American film crew member to get knocked up or knock up a local.
Gord Downie (the song writer) NEVER sang about drugs or pornography. He told Canadian stories, that’s it. So get your smutty minds out of the gutter and out of the U.S. He is OUR story teller thank you very much! -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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the song yes refers to the ELVIS movie
it also refers to the LOCAL Kingston Speedway
where locals would go for weekend excitement
the speedway was rich in mining ores and was bought and closed up to mine up all the $$$ located on the grounds of the speedway
hence BLOW AT HIGH DOUGH!
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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My idea is spewing verbal bullshit.
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It turns out that Elvis shot a film in 1968 called Speedway. He starred with Nancy Sinatra. GOrd was a film student at Queens so he likely knew that.
Moreover Kingston, where I grew up has a speedway where teens used to go and make out.
I suspect many of the sexual references connect to that as described in another post.
Meanwhile the blow at high dough???Cocaine, or weed... "Whoa baby I feel fine..." "Make it last..." Is that about sex or the drugs?
Or is it about a relationship that ended up with a teen pregnancy and forced a young man into that "wedding ring"?
We'll never know for sure.
And now we are thinking even more about Gord.
Rest in peace our brilliant bard. -
Speedway is a 1968 American musical action film starring Elvis Presley as a racecar driver and Nancy Sinatra as his romantic interest...
That is why they mention some kind of Elvis thing... Cool eh?
And Kingston had a speedway where kids went to make out...Did Gord and the Hip do a video there?
My literal mind interprets the "let it out, stretch that thing, make it last" and maybe being caught in a marriage "how'd you move so fast into that wedding ring)
seems pretty sexual...and the blow at high dough makes me thing o using Blow/cocaine, or smoking a joint....
And now in these sad days of Gord's death, we may never know... -
You all are thinking way to hard on this one..they are from Kingston, Ontario. They sing about their home and native land much like Bob Dylan about the US. Blow at high dough was a reference his grandma used...meaning don't go too hard too fast.
The song is also referencing their hometown of Kingston. -
Burning the candles at both ends.
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PS. The 'teenagers gone bad' murders case involving teenagers who hung out at the Speedway at Tucson in the 50s became major news during the trial of the killer, Charles 'Smitty' Schmid, not just because it was so horrendous and seemed to have been done out of sheer boredom, but also because F. Lee Bailey was co-counsel for the defence of the psychotic Elvis wannabe murderer.
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Look up the murder/disappearance of the Fritz sisters, and Charlie Schmid 'Smitty' from the 50s. There was a bored, 'bad' crowd of teenagers that would hang out at the Speedway. Schmid was the ringleader. He wore pancake makeup and eyeliner because he thought it helped him look more like Elvis. He was charismatic, and psychotic, and talked 2 other teenagers into helping him kidnap murder and rape a girl (he did it, they did nothing except help bury her), and bury her in the desert. Later, on his own, he murdered the Fritz sisters singlehandedly, and also buried them in the desert. He was eventually arrested but was clearly not just a domineering, charismatic personality, he was also spiralling downward into pyschosis. 1st big news boomers case of 'teens gone bad'. Creepy, but it all centered around bored kids hanging out at 'the Speedway'.
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I know it may sound obscene, but hear me out, it is about pornography... listen to these lyrics
"They shot a movie once in my hometown"
"Well, I ain't no movie star but I can get behind anything
Yeah, I can get behind anything"
"Get it out, get it all out, yeah, stretch that thing
Make it last, make it last, at least till the supper bell rings"
"Throes of passion, throes of passion, then something just threw him off"
"Well, sometimes the faster it gets
The less you need to know
But you got to remember the smarter it gets
The further it's going to go
When you blow at high dough"
"Whoo, baby, I feel fine, I'm pretty sure it's genuine, It makes no sense, no, it makes no sense, but I'll take it free any time
Whoever fits her usually gets her, it was the strangest thing, How'd she move so fast, move so fast, into that wedding ring?"
To me thats what it seems like Gord could be going for here. they are a band that gets very deep and meaningful, but who is to say they werent just having fun on this one! -
What is the meaning of the Beauty Queen Contestants picture inclusion during the Vevo video, please?
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Don't blow on bread dough that has already risen (is high). It's an old expression that can be applied to a lot of things these days.
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