New Orleans Is Sinking

When performed upon a stage, the middle section of the song was typically given over to an extended jam in which lead singer Gord Downie would perform a story or another song. The most famous such version, commonly referred to as "Killer Whale Tank", featured Downie improvising an extended story about working as a cleaner in the killer whale tank at an aquarium.^[2] It first appeared as a B-side on the band's 1991 CD single for "Long Time Running"; in 2022, it was featured on the live album Live at the Roxy.^[3]

In another well-known version which has been widely circulated as a live bootleg, Downie performed Joni Mitchell's "This Flight Tonight";^[2] in the version which appears on the band's 1997 live album Live Between Us, he performed David Bowie's "China Girl" and The Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby".

This tradition has also been used by The Hip as a "workshop" to test out and develop new songs which have not yet been recorded; several of the band's later singles, including "Nautical Disaster" and "Ahead by a Century", began as bridge jams during live performances of "New Orleans Is Sinking".^[2]

In a 2000 poll conducted by the music magazine Chart, "New Orleans Is Sinking" was voted the seventh-greatest Canadian song of all time.^[4] In 2005, it was named the 16th greatest Canadian song of all time on the CBC Radio One series 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version. In 2008, the song was ranked No. 24 on a CFNY-FM (102.1 "The Edge") list of the Top 200 New Rock Songs of All Time.^[5] From 2005 to 2016, "New Orleans Is Sinking" was the second best-selling digitally downloaded 1980s song by a Canadian artist in Canada and the best-selling digitally downloaded 1980s song by a Canadian band in Canada.^[6]

In October 2005, several radio stations, including CKQB-FM and CHEZ-FM, temporarily stopped playing the song out of sensitivity to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated the city of New Orleans in early September of that year.^[7][8][9]