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I’ve noticed over the past few years that the surest sign of one’s advancing years is that I’ve found myself much more aware of when the unwelcome news comes that artists that have been beloved companions through my years have passed on.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it: this bit of unwelcome news was probably the worst gut punch I’ve gotten in quite a while.

Gordon Lightfoot has passed away at the age of 84.

Darn it all…this is the second Canadian Gordon I’ve lost this year in the past couple of months (previously was actor Gordon Pinsent who played the delightful ghostly RCMP Sgt Robert Fraser in the TV series “Due South”).

I’ve come to accept that my musical tastes are not necessarily in step with others of my generation but I decided long ago I could truly care less about the many poseurs who professed to be artists that littered the Billboard charts of the 1970s and 1980s and concentrated on following real artists with a passion for creating music with meaning that strikes you straight to the heart.

When it comes to Canadian folk singers, there is a triumvirate amongst them that stood head and shoulders above everyone else: Joni Mitchell, Stan Rogers, and arguably the greatest of them all was Gordon Lightfoot.

Don’t just take my word for it as this quote comes from arguably Gord’s biggest fan who was the one who inducted Lightfoot into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame:

“I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like. Every time I hear a song of his, it’s like I wish it would last forever.”

Bob Dylan

I’ve been running the Gordon Lightfoot playlist on WFOX pretty much all week and whilst my kids might well think that tribute has lasted well nigh to forever, I’m of the mind that the best way to celebrate the life of a truly special artist is in the spirit of how Lightfoot himself lived his music right up until the end.

That means singing my favourite Lightfoot tracks as loud and with as much heart in the performance as I possibly can!

After all, I’ve been singing his music pretty much as long as I’ve been alive!

There are a few of his tracks (in no particular order) that have a very special meaning for me and I’d like to share the stories as to why they’re my favourites.

Carefree Highway

Carefree highway
Let me slip away on you
Carefree highway
You’ve seen better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you

“Carefree Highway” chorus — Gordon Lightfoot

This one is arguably my favourite Gordon Lightfoot song (I love them all but this one really speaks to the depths of my soul).

One of my favourite things to do is just hop a wind and go walkabout without necessarily knowing the path I’ll take or the places that I’ll stop.

Most of the time it’s a matter of picking somewhere new on the map I’ve never been and then navigate my way there mostly by dead reckoning and often on the less traveled routes to see the places and people most travelers can’t be bothered to visit.

Other times, it’ll be a well-traveled route whether it was returning home to North Carolina on a bit of holiday from university or doing the run up I-95 to visit Dad at Arlington Cemetery.

No matter the planning (or lack thereof!) that went into the trip, you can bet that this will be the first track that’ll be playing on WFOX when the journey begins.

This tradition started out as a cassette mixtape (remember those?), then it was the CD of Gordon’s greatest hits, and now WFOX is a MP3 playlist that connects to the stereo via Bluetooth.

It’s just a delightful song for traveling and whilst it wouldn’t be the only Lightfoot track on the journey, it was always the first one I’d be singing to get the trip going on the right foot and in the right mindset! 🙂

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” — Gordon Lightfoot

If you ask the average person in the street to name a Gordon Lightfoot song, this one is the one you’re probably hear the most because it was easily one of his most popular tunes here in the United States and one that got some serious air play after that doomed freighter sank in 1975.

Like any good song of the sea, it’s a wonderfully singable tune even if you can’t carry a tune to save your life. That’s often handy aboard ship where the musical talent that is available is notoriously variable at best.

This is a tune you’ll find me singing if I’m feeling a bit down as a reminder that no matter what clouds might be following me or problems I might well find vexing on that day, things could be much worse.

I don’t think I ever truly appreciated how massive the Edmund Fitzgerald was until I had a chance to visit the SS William Mather in Cleveland which is listed at 610′ long. The Fitzgerald was even longer at 728′ and remains the largest of the lake boats to have ever sunk in the Great Lakes.

The Edmund Fitzgerald makes a clandestine appearance in the two-part episode of “Due South” called “Mountie on the Bounty”. The show was originally planning on licencing and using the Lightfoot song (as they had for many Canadian musicians) but Gordon would only allow that if the show had gotten the permission of the surviving family members of the sailors who went down on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Paul Gross (who played RCMP Constable Benton Fraser on the show) would write a fictional tune “32 Down on the Robert McKenzie” that broadly followed the basic elements of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s fateful journey.

This reminds me…at some point I’ve got to unearth the pictures I took of the SS William Mather and put them in the walkabout section of the site. 🙂

Sundown

Sundown, you better take care
If I find you been creeping ’round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it’s a sin
When I feel like I’m winning, when I’m losing again

“Sundown” — Gordon Lightfoot

“Sundown” was Gordon’s sole song to sit astride the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number 1 during the week of 29 Jun 1974 and arguably his most lucrative single.

When you listen to it, it’s not hard to imagine why…it’s so much fun to play and sing even though the lyrics bring to mind a tumultuous relationship between Lightfoot and Cathy Smith who was instrumental in being the mistress that would ultimately doom his first marriage to divorce and Gordon paying out the largest settlement ever in Canada to that point.

She would later achieve notoriety as a drug dealer to the stars and was convicted of injecting John Belushi with the dose of heroin and cocaine that would ultimately kill him for which she served fifteen months in prison before being deported back to Canada.

Adultery is a touchy subject at the best of times and one I’ve always seen end in tears…always. This song exemplifies what I’ve always loved about true musical artists when they’ll admit to their flaws and imperfections in the music. As much as I’ve always loved Gordon’s artistry and talent, I knew he had his problems with drink and relationships and more than a few tunes of his would touch on those subjects.

Four year-old me hearing “Sundown” for the first time wouldn’t have had the faintest clue about the underlying meaning of this particular tune.

Check that…four year-old me certainly didn’t.

As of today, nearly 53 year-old me still can’t fathom how in the hell anyone could think it’s at all a good idea much less that they will get away with it without the tears and pain that always comes. It’s probably a good thing that I never will.

Oh, I get the “we grew apart” and “person B really gets me and I want to follow my feelings” and the endorphins that come with really going all-in on earning the scarlet letter often followed by the delusion that they can get away with it undetected and unscathed. And for a time they may well do so…until their luck runs out or their conscience decides it’s had enough.

I’ll leave this subject (thankfully!) with this observation: whilst there’s many instances of personal stupidity that I regret when I think back to when things fell apart in the one marriage I’ll ever know, I can at least say with 100% confidence that was one line that I never dared to cross nor did it ever enter my mind to try my hand at it even in when I felt I was in the lowest depths of despair and feelings of loneliness in a crowded room.

Perhaps that’s the reason that whilst tears and sadness came in abundance anyway in the years that followed, what ultimately emerged was far more healthy and positive for all concerned and something I’ve learned to appreciate and cherish.

If You Could Read My Mind

I never thought I could feel this way
And I’ve got to say that I just don’t get it
I don’t know where we went wrong
But the feeling’s gone
And I just can’t get it back

“If You Could Read My Mind” — Gordon Lightfoot

See above.

And whilst this particular stanza definitely spoke to my heart at the worst of times, I’m glad that what would eventually come my way might not have been exactly the same as it was before but it’s far better than what it could have been. 🙂

Rainy Day People

Rainy day people always seem to know when it’s time to call
Rainy day people don’t talk, they just listen till they’ve heard it all
Rainy day lovers don’t lie when they tell ‘ya they’ve been down like you
Rainy day people don’t mind if you’re cryin’ a tear or two

“Rainy Day People” — Gordon Lightfoot

Wow.

That took rather a turn, didn’t it?

That my friends is why we need and should cherish art when it comes our way. You never know what revelations may come of it but I’ve tried through the years to be thankful for the messenger and that’s why I’ve loved Gordon Lightfoot through the years. The songs and the stories speak to the heart, even when you’re not quite expecting it.

Take “Rainy Day People”, for example.

When I think of this song or hear it, there’s one person that comes immediately to mind: Aunt Judy.

She was my stepfather’s mother and I met her right about the same time “Sundown” was playing on the radio and right away, four year-old me couldn’t help but to fall in love with her and it started with what I should call her. She would eventually become what the legal eagles would describe as my “step-grandmother” but she knew full well that was way too pretentious and so she became Aunt Judy and her husband was Uncle Walter and so they remained until they finally took their leave for the final time.

Aunt Judy was one of those truly special ones who could brighten up even the stormiest of days with the simplest technique known to human beings…being a fantastic listener.

She’d joke about her technique as being able to “let things go in one ear and out the other” but you could tell her your deepest, darkest secrets and in so doing often find the way through your troubles without her having to say a single word. She was the sort of person you would *WANT* to unload your worries and anxieties of the day with because she truly understood them because she’d seen and heard it all.

Gordon could have been writing about her with “Rainy Day People” which in spite of the title is actually referring to someone with such a sunny disposition and outlook on life that clouds would not dare to cross their path for fear of offending the sensibilities of the universe.

To be sure, Aunt Judy had her challenges and occasionally if you turned her technique back upon her you might hear of them but I never saw an instance where she’d let the things that vexed her win the day. All it’d take would be one of her strays coming in the door into that small kitchen and sitting down and having the conversation and she’d be back in her element being the rock that the rest of us depended upon to get through our days.

Canadian Railroad Trilogy

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real

“Canadian Railroad Trilogy” — Gordon Lightfoot

This song is another one of my favourite traveling songs that speaks to taming the wild frontiers of Canada with the building of the transcontinental railroad.

Arguably, this is Gordon at his storytelling best (which was a very hard call to make because he’s a consummate storyteller in every song he wrote!).

Listen to it (sing it if you will…it’s a load of fun!) and you can’t help but be transported back to those days where laying the rails was backbreaking and exhausting work that would claim many lives before the rail line was complete and the occasional bits of respite in the pubs in the company towns that sprang up along the way.

I can feel the sun baking my back and head and my shoulders aching as I’m swinging the hammer and tying the rails together.

That’s when you know you’ve found a real gem of a song when you feel it so viscerally as you hear it that you literally believe that you’re a character in the story.

Song For a Winter’s Night

The lamp is burnin’ low upon my table top
The snow is softly falling
The air is still in the silence of my room
I hear your voice softly calling

If I could only have you near
To breathe a sigh or two
I would be happy just to hold the hands I love
On this winter night with you

“Song For a Winter’s Night” — Gordon Lightfoot

This song is one that shows just how versatile Gordon’s songs can be.

He was rather famous for having other artists cover his songs and often in such a way that when you’d read the liner notes to see who actually wrote the song, many people would be surprised at just how many times Gordon Lightfoot’s name would show up in those credits.

In a way, he rather strikes me as the songwriter equivalent of Electric Light Orchestra’s Jeff Lynne whose writing credits show up in such surprising places (and his producer/mixing is so legendary that artists would fight to get him rocking the mixer boards for their tunes!).

This song is one that I actually heard the cover version done by Sarah McLachlan which was used in “Due South” (more than a few Canadian artists would find their music featured on that show and get a boost in American audiences as a result and Sarah’s songs featured at least 5-6 times which is the most of any guest musical artist on the show).

If you’re a fan of Sarah McLachlan (and even if you’re not you ought to be because she’s right awesome!), you can imagine how she covered this tune. It’s wistful and sorrowful in ways that it’s hard to describe and a song that perfectly suits the dark days of the season in which it’s set.

This was one of those cases when I’m looking at what passes for liner notes these days (OK, it’s Wikipedia!) and was shocked to find that it was originally written by Gordon Lightfoot.

When I finally heard his original version of the song, it couldn’t have been more stylistically different from Sarah’s cover if it tried…definitely a more peppy and upbeat cadence and listening to both versions back-to-back is truly surreal.

Truth be told, I liked his original version of the song.

Sarah’s version often speaks more to my usual state of mind when I cue the track but this is a case where I can like both versions and not feel quite as schizophrenic as a result. 🙂

Summer Side of Life

He came down through fields of green
On the summer side of life
He prayed all night

Then he walked into a house
Where love had been misplaced
His chance to waste

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

“Summer Side of Life” — Gordon Lightfoot

I’ll leave this post the way I started it with the title of Gordon’s track that speaks to the cyclical pattern of feelings through the year from the approaching darkness of fall and winter to the rebirth that is spring and the joy of reconnecting with life and the environment that comes with summer.

This track is another one of my favourite songs to sing whilst on walkabout…a bit of indulging in escapist fantasy to those times when life was much less complicated and the only decisions that truly mattered was which direction I would wander today and what I’d see along the way.

Going walkabout is a very emotional experience for me and it always has been.

I never really truly appreciated just how much until I saw this scene in “Babylon 5” where Dr Franklin has reached the end of his rope due to trying to be everything to everyone in the midst of unimaginable stress of war and casualties constantly coming through the door of Medlab.

Stephen Franklin:
You know, as a Foundationist, I was always taught that if you’re not careful, you can lose yourself in the world. You get too busy with things, not busy enough with yourself! Spend your days and nights living someone else’s agendas, fighting someone else’s battles, and you’re doing the work you’re supposed to be doing, but every day there’s less and less of you in it all! Till one day, you come to a fork in the road, and because you’re distracted, you’re not thinking. You lose yourself. You go right, and the rest of you, the really important part of you, goes left! And you don’t even know you’ve done it till you realize, you finally realize, that you don’t have any idea who you are when you’re not doing all those things!

Michael Garibaldi:
Stephen…you don’t really believe there are two of you, do you?

Franklin:
[chuckles] No, it’s a metaphor! All right, there isn’t literally another me walking around the station. But the principle is real! I realized I didn’t have any idea who I was when I wasn’t being a doctor, and I think I was using the stims to avoid facing that. Now I gotta fix it.

Garibaldi:
How?

Franklin:
By going walkabout. You just leave everything, and you start walking. I mean, the Foundation adopted the idea from the Aborigines back on Earth. The theory is, if you’re separated from yourself, you start walking and you keep walking until you meet yourself. Then you sit down, and you have a long talk. Talk about everything that you’ve learned, everything that you’ve felt, and you talk until you’ve run out of words. Now, that’s vital, because the real important things can’t be said. And then, if you’re lucky, you look up, and there’s just you. Then you can go home.

“Walkabout” — Babylon 5

It’s just as meaningful for an IT weenie who was rocking 100+ hour weeks for six months straight desperately trying to finish a six programmer project completely converting our application from SunOS Openlook window manger to Solaris Motif (imagine completely rewriting a massive application where the entire user-interface and look and feel changed completely) on time in spite of the other five programmers being reassigned to a sexier project literally one day after I was asked for a estimate of how long it’d take.

And in spite of that, I darned near pulled it off.

I had one last bug before I could sign off on deploying and delivering the new version and asked for one week to finish it. Management reminded me that they’d promised the customer the original date at which point I had a rather infamous Nikita Khrushchev moment where I actually took my shoe off and banged it on the table to emphasize every syllable of “you took away every other person working on this project…I’m only asking for one bloody week to finish that six-person job single-handedly!”

I got the week and finished it as promised and shipped the code and that’s when I met my brand-new boss who was in the shadows of the conference room to watch that bit of Soviet-era UN performance art.

He put a chart on his whiteboard with a six month horizontal axis for the six previous months and a vertical axis for hours per week that topped out at 60 and asked me to plot my last six months on it.

After asking him if he *REALLY* wanted to know, I added four more items to the vertical scale: 100, 110, 120, 130.

That’s when I plotted the line graph that never strayed below 100 the entire time and was closer to 120/130 more often than was healthy.

As I’m plotting the data points, I can see his expression getting progressively more horrified as I approach that week gained by the shoe. After I’m done, it takes him several minutes to process what he’d just seen and he can’t say a word. When he finally had the wits to speak, it was to order me to my desk and collect my things and walk me to the security guard post at which point I thought I was being fired.

He then gives the guard orders to shoot to kill if he sees me come back in the building for any reason in the next week. If my new boss saw my login on the system for any reason, I’d be fired. If I communicated with my co-workers or anyone else at the company in that time, I’d be fired. And if he saw me lurking anywhere near the building for a “chance meeting” about work, I’d be fired.

I was to go the hell away for a week with no contact with anyone (and he truly meant it!) and then when I was allowed to return we would return to that whiteboard which he hadn’t erased and then he plotted the hours per week I would not exceed for the next six months.

Truth be told, I really don’t remember what I did in that week I was exiled from the office other than I did hop a wind and just drove in some random direction with plenty of time to think about what I’d just endured and whether it was truly worth it.

The rest of my time at that job, I rarely went past the 50-hour per week hard deck that was established with a schedule that allowed for actually having something resembling a life worth living.

I’d actually found the “Sunny Side of Life”, if you will.

What I found was that I was far more productive with the much shorter work week than I ever was rocking 100+ hour work weeks and that’s stuck with me ever since. There have been the occasional projects that require really burning the midnight oil since then but the emphasis is on “occasional”.

Thank you, Gord!

It might have been a really hard road to find the “Sunny Side of Life” but you helped me to find it through the gift of your music.

That is something I will never forget for as long as I shall live. 🙂