Ever since Gordon Lightfoot died at age 84 on May 1, lines and verses from his songs have been ricocheting around in my head.
“I think you have somebody standing outside in the rain – to take you away.” (“I’m Not Supposed to Care”)
“High-stepping strutters who land in the gutters sometimes need one too.” (“Rainy Day People”)
“Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” (“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”)
I became an instant Lightfoot fan in 1967 when I heard an album by him entitled “The Way I Feel.” To this day, two of my all-time favorite songs – by anybody – are from that album: “Song for a Winter’s Night” and “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.”
Bob Dylan said it best: “When I hear a song by Gordon Lightfoot, it’s like I wish it would last forever.”
There’s a powerful lyric from the last verse of “Edmund Fitzgerald” that goes like this:
“In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
in the maritime sailors’ cathedral.
The church bell chimed ‘til it rang 29 times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
On May 4, Lightfoot’s funeral service was held in Orillia, Ontario in the same church in which he often sang as a wee lad with a pure soprano voice. During the service, the church bell rang 30 times – 29 times for the doomed sailors who died when that ore freighter in 1975 sank and one more time in tribute to the man who wrote and sang that haunting, mournful song.
I have so many favorite Lightfoot songs that they keep jostling one another, bumping around for a number-one spot in my head. But I’ve decided my favorite, if I have to choose one, is “I’m Not Supposed to Care” from the “Summertime Dream” album (1976).
That song is one of Lightfoot’s ballads of romantic relationships on the skids, of love gone astray. The woman had accused the man of not caring about her and decided to leave him. Somebody (her new lover?) is parked outside in the rain to pick her up. Thoughts flow through the mind of the spurned lover (Lightfoot singing). The song is a kind of prayer with touches of lonesome longing, wishful thinking, pleading, blaming, self-pity and a sly-ironic recrimination (that he’s not supposed to care). It’s a song that unfolds like a long sad sigh. This is its second verse:
“I wish you good spaces in
the far away places you go.
If it rains or it snows may
you be safe and warm and never grow old.
And if you need someone who loves you,
you know I will always be there.
I’ll do it although I’m not supposed to care.”
Some other Lightfoot favorites, besides those mentioned above, are “Early Morning Rain,” “Old Dan’s Records,” “Minstrel of the Dawn,” “Cotton Jenny,” “Protocol,” “Did She Mention My Name?” “Don Quixote” and “If You Could Read My Mind.”
The latter song was written in 1969 during the break-up with Lightfoot’s first wife, Brita, after 10 years of marriage and two children. He wrote it one summer afternoon in Toronto inside his empty house that was up for sale. Lightfoot’s smooth, intimate baritone delivery, his impeccable phrasing, his images and his spot-on rhymes tell a tale of broken-hearted abandonment.
Here is the opening verse:
“If you could read my mind, love
what a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old-time movie
‘bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
with chains upon my feet
you know that ghost is me.
And I will never be set free
as long as I’m a ghost that you can’t see.”
Listening to a great Lightfoot song is like sitting by a late-night campfire, hearing an old wise friend, strumming his guitar, sharing his deepest thoughts and feelings. Thank you, Gordon Lightfoot, for giving the world such wonderful songs.
