Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)
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"Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)" is a song by The Tragically Hip, and the first track, and first single, from their 1992 album Fully Completely. It was written by Bobby Baker, Gordon Downie, Gordon Sinclair, Johnny Fay, and Paul Langlois. Though not officially credited, the lyrics were in all likelihood penned entirely by Downie, the Tragically Hip's lead singer.[citation needed]
"Courage" was a tremendous hit single in Canada and remains one of the band's most popular, and replayed, songs.
In 1997, the song was covered by Sarah Polley for use in the Oscar-nominated film The Sweet Hereafter. The cover version was also used in the television series Charmed. Polley, an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter better known for her career in stage and cinema, rendered a more brooding and haunting version of the song, which in its original form was a conventional guitar-driven rock song.
The song's bracketed title, which appears on the Fully Completely version but not the Polley cover, refers to the song's lyrical inspiration, the novel The Watch That Ends the Night by Canadian author Hugh MacLennan. The song's third stanza closely mirrors an internal monologue in the book, which reflects that the human condition is one where lives are affected by actions carried out under motivations and circumstances so chaotic as to defy understanding. Literary themes are a common theme in songs by The Tragically Hip.
