The Tragically Hip Share ‘Grace, Too’ Guitar Tutorial
The single from the band’s 1994 album ‘Day For Night’ is the subject of guitarist Paul Langlois’ latest tutorial.
The Tragically Hip have shared their latest guitar tutorial, this time for their 1994 hit “Grace, Too.” Guitarist Paul Langlois speaks from the band’s famous Bathhouse Studio, reflecting on some of the memories associated with the song in addition to providing instructions for any guitarists out there to play it themselves. “The whole band, we just fell into something that felt like it was meant to be,” Langlois says. “We all knew it was going to be a big song for us.”
“We would basically, a lot of times, go around the circle and each guy throws in an idea, a musical idea, and Gord [Downey] would sorta play with it,” Langlois recalls in the video of the band’s songwriting process. When they went to create “Grace, Too,” musical magic happened. “Everyone fell into their own parts without discussion, just played what we wanted to play. It fell together, that song. I would say very quickly, we knew it was special.”
Later in the video, Langlois walks viewers through the specifics of how to play the track on guitar, down to which chords and frets to use. As in other videos, Langlois takes some time at the end to answer questions from fans, such as one about how the band came up with the song’s build up and climax.
“Grace, Too” is the lead single from The Tragically Hip’s 1994 album Day For Night. The song was a major hit in the band’s native Canada, and was the subject of a memorable performance on U.S. television at Saturday Night Live. “‘Grace, Too’ always made us comfortable quickly, so we just thought we’re on Saturday Night Live, we need to be comfortable,” Langlois recalls during the fan Q&A portion. However, the performance is memorable for another reason; lead singer Downey flubbed the opening lyric to the song, saying, instead of “He said I’m fabulously rich,” “He said I’m tragically hip.” The band recovered quickly, though, and as Langlois remembers, “We were able to get into it quickly with all the cameras and the lights.”
