One of the best songwriters in his genre…RIP Gord.
RIP Gordon Lightfoot.
- Thread starter brianhos
- Start date
Was just listening to “Carefree Highway” when the news came out. One of the last great troubadours of our times. RIP.
Saw him in concert in Minneapolis years ago. He put on a good show. I really enjoyed his music. He was an outstanding songwriter.
Was chatting with my 24 year old son when I saw the news. Told him it hit me pretty hard.
I mentioned he was probably too young to even know who he was. He put the phone on speaker, picked up his guitar, and started playing The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He said he could play several others by memory. I was shocked and comforted at the same time.
I mentioned he was probably too young to even know who he was. He put the phone on speaker, picked up his guitar, and started playing The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. He said he could play several others by memory. I was shocked and comforted at the same time.
Gordon Lightfoot was part of the soundtrack of my childhood. My folks were not huge music people, but that kind of folk/country was their genre, especially Dad.
Waylon & Willie, Johnny Cash, Tom T. Hall and Roger Miller, Charlie Daniels, Kenny Rogers, Statler Brothers...
A lot of that is still taking up space in my brain decades later.
Waylon & Willie, Johnny Cash, Tom T. Hall and Roger Miller, Charlie Daniels, Kenny Rogers, Statler Brothers...
A lot of that is still taking up space in my brain decades later.
And he was so great in Guardian of the Galaxy.....I kid I kid. But that pic looks like Chris Pratt.
My mom used to listen to lots of 70s soft rock so his voice is ingrained in my head. Love Carefree Highway too. First song that popped in my when I heard he died and was singing I for like 2 hours.
The cliché is that the music you grew up listening to... roughly 12.5 to 25 years of age... is always going to be the "best ever!" That effect is still present, but the decline of AM/FM culture (where you could only listen to what was "popular" in the moment) and its replacement with the early music Internet (mostly filesharing programs, not that I ever used one of those...) and now streaming services means time and place isn't nearly as influential as it used to be in determining one's developing musical taste as you grew up into young adulthood.
A lot of the pop music of that era for me (late 1990s and early 2000s decade) didn't appeal to me... lots of boy bands and pop princesses like Britney Spears, and yes yes I know some people love it and some of it has undergone significant critical reappraisal since then... so I ended up being raised by a combination of classic rock radio, those filesharing services that I swear I never used not even once, and my father's old LP collection. It is even easier to stumble into things like that now when you can stream anything anytime you want.
I'd question the state of your soul if you hear the opening few bars of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and don't think you're hearing something timeless and profound. "The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down 'bout the big lake they call gitche gumee" isn't something you hear in a pop song. It's something you hear from a Homeric troubadour. And something like that appeals no matter the time and the place.
I, too, grew up in the 70's. This is hitting me harder than I thought it would. Been listening to my Lightfoot playlist since I heard the news this morning. One of the greats...
If he's biopic worthy he sure looks a lot like Brian Cranston.
I’ve always loved Lightfoot’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”. You don’t hear many songs about building a railroad across a country that sound like poetry.