Fifty Mission Cap | What The Lyrics Mean And Dispelling The Misinformation For One Of Gord Downie And The Tragically Hip’s Most Famous Songs

One of Canada’s biggest rock songs, The Tragically Hip’s Fifty Mission Cap from the 1992 album, Fully Completely, was a minor hit when released as a single in January of ’93. It did crack Canada’s Top 40 chart by peaking at #40, while other singles from the album, such as Courage (for Hugh MacLennan) and At the Hundredth Meridian reached higher at #10 and #11 respectively.

But time is a better gauge than charts to know how good a song is, and Fifty Mission Cap has kept a steady pace. It is continuously played on many Canadian radio stations and nearly every hockey game. In 2016, the song’s high regard was proven when it was chosen as the opener for the band’s final performance in Kingston, Ontario.

Despite the song’s popularity in The Great White North, so few people understand why Gord Downie, The Tragically Hip’s lead singer and lyricist, connected a story about a long-gone hockey player and a pilot’s hat worn in World War II.

The Disappearance of Bill Barilko

The song’s opening verse is easy to follow as it tells the true story of Bill Barilko, a hockey player with an amazingly eerie tale. Barilko was born in 1927 in Timmins, Ontario, and played professionally for the Toronto Maple Leafs from 1947 to 1951. During his tenure, the Leafs won four Stanley Cups in 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1951. After the ’51 season, Barilko disappeared during a fishing trip with his dentist, Henry Hudson.

In April 1951, Barilko finished the hockey season by making the last play of the Stanley Cup Finals. Toronto was leading the series 3-1 over the Montréal Canadiens, when the low-scoring defenseman who averaged five/six goals per season, completed game 5 with a game-winning goal during overtime. The final goal of his career—and life—”won the Leafs the cup.”

On August 26 of the same year, Barilko and Hudson boarded a single-engine plane taking off from Porcupine Lake, a small town just North of Timmins, Ontario and headed for northern Quebec for a weekend fishing trip. During the return trip, the plane, its pilot, and its single passenger went missing for over a decade. Many wild conspiracies and theories surrounded the plane’s disappearance during this time, including a story of how Barilko was really a Communist spy who defected, divulged military secrets to Stalin, and was currently playing hockey in Russia.

The rumour mill spun until 1962, eleven years after the plane disappeared when a helicopter pilot discovered its wreck about 100 kilometres north of Cochrane, Ontario, about 56 kilometres off course. A combination of pilot inexperience, poor weather, and overloaded cargo were deemed to be the causes of the crash.

It is a sad and unfortunate conclusion for Barilko, but the story doesn’t end here for the Toronto Maple Leafs. During the eleven years Barilko was missing, the Leafs did not win a Stanley Cup. Twice during that time, they squared off against the Canadiens in the finals only to be dominated in both series 4-1 and 4-0 in ’59 and ’60 respectively. It wasn’t until 1962, the same year Barilko’s body was discovered, that the drought finally ended as the team won another Stanley Cup.

The order in which the story is told in the song makes it sound as if the Stanly Cup wasn’t won until Barilko’s body was discovered, but the reverse is true. The Leafs championship was clinched on April 22nd, 1962 after a 2-1 over the Chicago Black Hawks in Game 6 of the series. The wreck where Barilko was killed wasn’t discovered until June 7th. Does this mean he wasn’t ready for discovery until the Leafs won the Cup? Either way, it is an uncanny connection between the team and the crash.

The Embellishment Begins…

All is well and good to this point in the song as Gord lays out the story simply enough:

Bill Barilko disappeared that summer
He was on a fishing trip
The last goal he ever scored
Won the Leafs the cup
They didn’t win another ’til nineteen-sixty-two
The year he was discovered

The next two lines in the first verse are when the lyrics become open to interpretation:

I stole this from a hockey card
I keep tucked up under

It is a safe bet Gord is telling the truth when he says Barilko’s story was taken from a hockey card. Although he has never specifically said which card, there is one strong possibility. Some believe it to be No. 52 in the “PARKIE” 1951-52 Hockey Series:

It is unlikely, though, as the card highlights Barilko’s winning goal, but doesn’t mention the disappearance or the plane crash. (The back of these cards were blank). This is because the rest of the story was either too recent or had not yet occurred. I do not know the exact date when Toronto’s Parkhurst Products printed its 1951-52 cards, so it is possible Barilko’s disappearance happened before the cards were made. But the discovery of the plane wreck and Barilko’s body would not transpire for at least another decade.

The card in question is far more likely to be #340 in the 1991 Pro Set hockey cards series, as it tells the complete Bill Barilko story.

It is understandable how people believed Gord’s card would be much older as the line “I keep tucked up under” sounds like an exotic description of a card kept from his childhood. Fans then embellished how he kept the card “tucked away” or “under” for a few decades before writing a song about it. But there is a much better explanation for the line, and it is in the song’s second verse.

A 50-Mission Crush

A “50 Mission Crush” was a hat worn by Canadian, British, and American Allied Army Air Corps, or Air Force members during World War II. It was first worn by Britain’s 9th Air Force members who removed an inner stiffening ring designed to keep a service cap’s shape. Without the ring the cap would become flattened on its sides, giving it a “crushed” appearance.

Wearing the cap this way was frowned upon and considered “out of uniform,” but most senior officers were willing to look past the appearance. The removal began with a practical reason to make the hats comfortable with in-flight headphones pressing overtop but later became a symbolic representation of irrefutable endurance while surviving. The 9th Air Force members were battle-hardened veterans after participating in over 25 combat missions before beginning the trend. Who will be the one to tell them to get a fresh hat? Not me!

The look became such an important badge of honour in the Air Force, that members began working in service hats like a baseball player breaking in a glove. The goal was to give the wearer an illusion of flying 50 combat missions or more, hence the name “50 mission crush” or “50 mission cap.”

With this in mind, the theory about the line “I keep tucked up under” is Air Force members would tuck a card under the front of the hat to keep its shape around the emblem. This is likely more embellishment since I doubt grizzled WWII veterans cared about keeping any part of the hat in good condition. If you want to put your experience on display with a worn cap, why work against that?

It is more likely that Gord used a cleverly worded metaphor for the line instead. He stole Bill Barilko’s story from a hockey card, a fact he kept “under wraps,” or “tucked up under” until he says it in the song. He does not begin the verse with “I stole this from a hockey card”, he waits towards its end for the reveal. So until now, the listener doesn’t know where Gord got Barilko’s story from. Was it from a history book, something he learned from a parent or sibling, or something he made up? No, he stole it from a hockey card.

Why not just say “under wraps?” Well, “tucked under” is a term used by pilots to describe when a plane enters an involuntary nosedive that is difficult or impossible to pull out of. He kept the origins of his story about a plane that took a nose dive “tucked under.” Double meaning—accomplished!

Now, what is this second “50-mission cap” verse about? Well, let’s take a look at the lyrics:

My fifty-mission cap
I worked it in
I worked it in to look like that
It’s my fifty-mission cap

Gord enjoyed the idea of freshly recruited pilots intentionally adding wear to their hats to gain authority and respect. He connects the story on the hockey card and hats worn by comparing himself to one of those new recruits with another metaphor. The story from Bill Barilko’s hockey card IS Gord’s “fifty mission cap”. He worked the story from the hockey card into the song like a new recruit working in their service cap. He pretended the story was his own, much like those pilots pretended their caps were worn in from combat missions. He “worked it in to look like that.”

Gord’s lyrics are usually abstract, so it is easy to understand why people embellish their meanings. His goal, after all, was to allow people to feel about his work in their own way. And, I fully admit, I might be doing just that— but this explanation makes sense to me. And you are free to disagree. It is art, after all, and how boring would it be if we all took it the same way?

Bonus Bill Barilko fun fact!

I’m a little surprised by how this isn’t mentioned more… perhaps it is too hurtful for most Leaf fans to think of. Thankfully, I’m not one, so I may pile on.

The modern version of The Toronto Maple Leafs is notoriously bad at making it past the first round of the NHL playoffs. In fact, the last time they made a deep playoff run was… you guessed it, the 1992-93 hockey season, the same season when Fifty Mission Cap was released on the album, Fully Completely (1992) and as a single (1993). The team was one win away from reaching the Stanley Cup finals when Wayne Gretzky and the LA Kings outplayed them to win the series. Many Leaf fans fuss over Gretzky’s high-sticking incident in Game 6, but the Leafers lost Game 7 a day later without help. So, there is that, lol.

Maybe the Leafs can convince Hedley to write a song about Harold Ballard… or something.

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Fifty Mission Cap | What The Lyrics Mean And Dispelling The Misinformation For One Of Gord Downie And The Tragically Hip’s Most Famous Songs