A HOMAGE TO LIGHTFOOT

A HOMAGE TO LIGHTFOOT

Apart from the inevitable aches and pains, one of the draw­backs to aging is that you think the singers who were your sound­track are for­ev­er the age they were when you first heard them, and only real­ly accept that they’re not when they die. And so it was this week with Gor­don Lightfoot.

I’m will­ing to bet a case of beer that pret­ty much every Cana­di­an of my gen­er­a­tion can iden­ti­fy a Light­foot song by the open­ing chords.
Each one of them sparks a mem­o­ry, and many car­ry a per­son­al meaning.
Cana­di­ans tend to be intense­ly, if restrained­ly, proud of being so, although we gen­er­al­ly have dif­fi­cul­ty artic­u­lat­ing the what and why of our nationalism.
“Cana­di­an Rail­road Tril­o­gy”, which most of us just call “Tril­o­gy”, prob­a­bly sums it up bet­ter than any­thing. It’s prac­ti­cal­ly our nation­al anthem, after all.
It res­onates with me not least because I grew up around and worked on trains, and laboured at drilling and blast­ing the gran­ite that forms the Cana­di­an Shield. It was my ‘lived ver­sion’ of the line: “We are the navvies who work upon the railway/swingin’ our ham­mers in the bright blaz­ing sun.”
I can sing (tune­less­ly) “Tril­o­gy” and many more Light­foot songs word for word from mem­o­ry, and those I can’t remem­ber per­fect­ly, I can sing along with, only a word or two behind, so close that in my head I’m in per­fect sync.
I can do the same with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen songs, and, odd as it may seem, ABBA and even a few Bee Gees, but nowhere even close to the num­ber of Lightfoot’s that I remember.
A lot of them were embed­ded dur­ing my stu­dent days in Mon­tre­al, when many a Sat­ur­day night was spent with friends in somebody’s basement.
One of our num­ber played great twelve string gui­tar. There were a cou­ple of six string strum­mers and a ban­jo pick­er. Anoth­er had a  “gut buck­et”, which is a met­al wash tub with a bro­ken ski pole attached by a sin­gle cord, to pluck bass.
Every­body chipped in what­ev­er they could for a cou­ple of ‘two-fours’ (a case of 24) of Mol­son Cana­di­an, and what more did we need?
We paid homage to oth­er folk singers, but most­ly, we sang Lightfoot.

                                           ONE OF “US”

The music apart, what made Light­foot “a nation­al trea­sure” and “a Cana­di­an icon” was that while a host of Amer­i­can singers cov­ered his songs, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and four-fifths of “The Band”, among oth­er Cana­di­ans, migrat­ed to the U.S. to make their names and for­tunes; Light­foot “stayed home”, both lit­er­al­ly and in his music.
Can the lines“Is the home team still on fire/Do they still win all the games” from “Did She Men­tion My Name”, be about any­thing but small-town hockey?
“Moun­tains and Mar­i­an” takes you a thou­sand miles in two lines: “And the prairie towns go sail­ing by, Saskatchewan there’s mud in your eye/I’m leav­ing you behind”.
When­ev­er I think back on dri­ving from Toron­to to the north­west cor­ner of British Colum­bia to start my first full-time job, the end­less­ly straight “rib­bon of high­way” from Man­i­to­ba to the Rock­ies brings back a line from  “Cross­roads”: “And on the gold­en prairie I rode the big combines.”
All of that may come across as slight­ly jin­go­is­tic. It isn’t meant to, but if so, so be it.
Every per­son, every nation and indeed eth­nic­i­ty has songs they would and can say rep­re­sent who and what they are.
Gor­don Light­foot can lay seri­ous claim to hav­ing writ­ten the ones for my gen­er­a­tion of Cana­di­ans. The only lines we don’t want to take to heart are from “Cold on the Shoul­der”:
“And you know that we get
A lit­tle old­er every day”.

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12 thoughts on “A HOMAGE TO LIGHTFOOT

  1. Before my Cana­di­an cit­i­zen­ship I lived as a Land­ed Immi­grant in P.E.I. for sev­er­al years in the ‘70s. A few years back I was vis­it­ing there buy­ing some­thing at the local liquor store. The cashier asked me if I was Don McGuire. On answer­ing yes, she said you might not remem­ber this, but back in the ‘70s you used to invite a bunch of us over to your place to lis­ten to the lat­est Gor­don Light­foot album. I’d for­got­ten that, but remem­ber when that was a think & Light­foot songs were easy to sing along with.

  2. So well done this reflec­tive piece about Gordy. Cana­da is a vast coun­try yet one-tenth the pop­u­la­tion of the US. Due pri­mar­i­ly to cli­mate, most of its cit­i­zens gath­er along the US-Cana­di­an bor­der. We get bom­bard­ed by US cul­ture, yet we con­tribute much back (actors, singers, writ­ers, comics, philoso­phers) larg­er than our pop­u­la­tion. I think there’s a rea­son (beyond how you put it so well in the col­umn) that Light­foot has con­nect­ed deeply to Amer­i­cans, is that we’re a younger coun­try by about 100 years. So the puri­ty of Gor­don’s sto­ry­telling is OF Cana­da, but also an ear­li­er US (rail­road build­ing, ship­wrecks). The first time I heard Gor­don’s voice (while in the States) I mar­velled at how pure a folk sound it was, yet with orches­tra behind him it was­n’t hokey. The music plus the amaz­ing lyri­cal poet­ry was descrip­tive and clas­sic in a tra­di­tion­al sense. Lis­ten­ing to his music melts the bor­ders: both of nations, gen­ders, demo­graph­ics. It just does­n’t get any bet­ter! In his house once, post his con­cert in down­town Toron­to, he soft­ly played “Beau­ti­ful” for his girl­friend sit­ting next to him. When fin­ished he asked me how I felt about it. Although new at the time, I told him it felt like your favourite pair of shoes or best gloves that fit per­fect­ly the first time you wore them; you could swear they’d been with you for­ev­er; like­wise that song and his music, were “home” in the heart.

  3. gor­don light­foot was a ter­rif­ic singer, writer,
    and musician…
    his six-minute musi­cal doc­u­men­tary about
    the Edmund Fitzger­ald hooked me…
    we also heard a lot of “care­free high­way” and
    “sun­down” in the states…enough that I bought
    his albums and dis­cov­ered much of his best
    bal­lads nev­er were heard by Amer­i­can ears…
    what a shame…

  4. Gord holds a very spe­cial place in my heart, and it may sur­prise you to learn it all began for me in Cleve­land. And it’s not because he wrote the beau­ti­ful “Song for a Win­ter’s Night” dur­ing an August thun­der­storm in a Cleve­land hotel room.

    It began in Sep­tem­ber, 1975. I was begin­ning a job at an all-news radio sta­tion in Cleve­land, and was mov­ing into a high rise apart­ment build­ing a block from my sta­tion and over­look­ing Lake Erie. 

    As I fin­ished arrang­ing the fur­ni­ture, I paused to look out my 22nd floor win­dow, and admire my view of the lake. The after­noon sun was at an angle where, as it reflect­ed off the water, it bounced seem­ing­ly right into my eyes. I had to squint to see what was out there.

    To my far right, at the dock, was the longest ship I had ever seen. It was long, low to the water, and impos­si­bly red. It seemed to stretch halfway to Toron­to. I learned it was an ore car­ri­er. The Edmund Fitzger­ald. The sun shone so bright­ly against the water, I could bare­ly make it out, and I only saw her a few times after that, as she spent most of her time going back and forth, sail­ing, car­ry­ing ore from the ports of Lake Supe­ri­or to the man­u­fac­tur­ing cen­ters of the upper midwest. 

    One ear­ly morn­ing, ten weeks after my first glimpse of the big red boat, I walked in dark­ness the block and a half into work to pre­pare my morn­ing dri­ve shift. As I entered the news­room, a col­league thun­dered, “have you heard? The Eddie Fitz is missing!” 

    Lat­er that morn­ing, when we were spec­u­lat­ing about recov­ery, my col­league Bri­an Hodgkin­son told me “Lake Supe­ri­or does­n’t give up her dead. The water is too cold down there and the bod­ies don’t decom­pose.” “Hodge,” a tall, dap­per Cana­di­an with a fan­tas­tic deep bari­tone radio voice, would be my teacher, instruct­ing me on the his­to­ry, and the ways and tra­di­tions of the Lake.
    A for­mer RCAF pilot and POW (his Spit­fire was shot down and he was cap­tured, and helped plan the Great Escape from his POW camp), he lived on a house­boat on the lake. 

    As the hours turned to days and weeks, we worked the phones at our sta­tion, call­ing oth­er radio sta­tions in Sault Sainte Marie and Detroit for the sounds of bells ring­ing at the two Saults and at the Mariner’s Church. Many of the 29 lost on the Eddie Fitz were from the Cleve­land area, and we cov­ered local memo­ri­als. And, of course, we cov­ered the inves­ti­ga­tions and studies. 

    Months lat­er, when I first heard Gord’s bal­lad on the radio, I savored every word. “Yes,” I said to myself, upon hear­ing each detail. I was as though he had been with me for every step, and every word of his was true. Every. Sin­gle. Word. As I lis­tened, I reliv­ed it all. 

    It was the Edmund Fitzger­ald that drew to me dis­cov­er the full bril­liance of Gor­don Light­foot and to a pro­found appre­ci­a­tion of his Cana­di­an roots. 

    Cana­da has con­tributed so much to our music, and so many Cana­di­an artists have become part of our shared cul­ture. You’ll find a lot of them in LA, New York, or Chica­go. But Gord stayed home.
    Like anoth­er Gord — Gord Down­ie of the Trag­i­cal­ly Hip — he told the sto­ries of HIS land, his peo­ple, and proud­ly sang of them. He gave them a deep­er sense of pride and iden­ti­ty, and gave the rest of us an appre­ci­a­tion that Cana­da is much more than just Uncle Sam’s north­ern suburb.

    One of my fel­low West­ern Penn­syl­va­nia heroes, Arnold Palmer, told his 50th high school reunion class that “your home town isn’t just where you’re from, it’s who you are.” 

    To that end, Gor­don Light­foot was­n’t just from Oril­lia, Ontario, Cana­da. He was Cana­da. He was Ontario. He was Oril­lia. As one who takes pride from the Amer­i­can side, I under­stand why Cana­di­ans loved him so and have a very spe­cial place in their hearts for their Gord.

  5. Her eyes were bathed in starlight
    And her hair hung long

    And if you saw them now
    You’d won­der why they would cry
    The whole day long

    He had a dis­tinc­tive voice both in his poet­ic sto­ries and in the way he sang them. He was pop­u­lar with those of us in that slice of the boomer gen­er­a­tion inch­ing our way into adult­hood. Or toward Viet­nam. His death is ter­ri­ble news.

  6. Before start­ing col­lege in the fall of 1968 I had the excep­tion­al good for­tune to see him in per­son at the Trou­ba­dour in West Hol­ly­wood. His artistry mes­mer­ized the audi­ence and undoubt­ed­ly many Los Ange­lenos left with a new­ly found appre­ci­a­tion of such a gift­ed singer / song­writer. Not only did he per­form his own music, but inter­pret­ed those of Phil Ochs, “the Cru­ci­fix­ion” and “Plea­sures of the Har­bor” in a stun­ning melo­di­ous way that Ochs could nev­er have done. A con­sum­mate artist and sto­ry­teller. Thanks for that trib­ute Pizzey!

  7. Well done Pizz. It was ” a mag­nif­i­cent out­pour­ing of that old famil­iar sto­ry…” that we “don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone”. With apolo­gies to two of Canada’s great troubadours.
    Gord was indeed the sound track of our youth. I can remem­ber a fel­low stu­dent rush­ing into the library at Clarke Road with the lat­est Light­foot album and demand­ing that the librar­i­an, (who had more in com­mon with Guy Lom­bar­do than Ligh­foot), play it over the PA. She did reluc­tant­ly and we savoured every word and by the third play­ing were singing the cho­rus­es ‑and still are.
    A few days ago we vis­it­ed our daugh­ter in Oril­lia and went by the stat­ue of Gor­don in front of the opera house. It was fes­tooned with flow­ers by the grate­ful peo­ple of his home town. Touching.
    One last thing. When Tim and I hitch hiked across Cana­da from Lon­don to Vic­to­ria after grade thir­teen grad­u­a­tion, we often spent many hours…“standing on the broad high­way, will you give a ride”… We filled the time with song. I was good at the tunes and Tim had an uncan­ny mem­o­ry for all the words to the songs so prompt­ed me when I fal­tered. We “sang up every song we ever knew” from the Light­foot collection.
    The Tril­o­gy was my favourite but there were so many close seconds.
    Any­way Allen you have kin­dled some great mem­o­ries and from the won­der­ful and insight­ful com­ments have struck a Gord chord with­in us all.
    Thank you.
    And by the way…did she men­tion my name?

  8. Love­ly piece Pizz, and com­ments. I have no claims, but when it rains in the ear­ly morn­ing, I sing his sing all day.

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