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[guitar music]

♪ That's what you get for loving me ♪

♪ That's what you get for loving me-e ♪

♪ Everything you have is gone

♪ As you can see

♪ That's what you get for loving me ♪

♪ I ain't the kind to hang around ♪

♪ With any new love that I found ♪

♪ Since moving is my stock and trade ♪

♪ I'm moving on

♪ I'll only love you when I'm gone ♪

[Gordon]: I'll never write another song like that as long as I live.

I'm not talking about the quality of the song,

I'm talking about the content.

♪ I've got a hundred more like you ♪

♪ So don't be blue

♪ I'll have a thousand before I'm through ♪

[Gordon]: That song was a very offensive song,

for a guy to write, who's married, with a couple of kids.

At the time I was so naive

that it just came out of my brain. You know, like...

I didn't know what chauvinism was.

♪ So don't you shed a tear for me ♪

♪ 'Cause I ain't the love you thought I'd be ♪

[Gordon]: I was married when I wrote that song.

So what do you think that Brita thought about it?

♪ That's what you get for loving me ♪

[Gordon]: In the meantime, Peter, Paul and Mary

recorded it pretty soon.

So did Johnny Cash and a couple of others.

And the next thing I know, I hear it on the radio.

All of a sudden, boom, it's a hit.

- How does it sound to you when you hear

a country singer do one of your songs?

- I just wish you'd do more of 'em, man.

- Do you really? - Yeah, I really do.

- Okay, let's do this. What do you say?

♪ That's what you get for loving me ♪

[applause]

♪ That's what you get for loving me ♪

♪ Everything you had is gone as you can see ♪

♪ That's what you get for loving me ♪

[Gordon]: There's a great deal of regret, there.

I guess I don't like who I am.

[Kim]: We do, though. - I guess that's the problem...

- See, you don't see the beauty of yourself. We all do.

We're all mesmerized by this just now.

You're just a little boy from Orillia,

and your dreams came true.

These people sang your songs. You know?

♪ That's what you get for loving me ♪

♪ Everything we had is gone as you can see ♪

♪ That's what you get for lovin' me ♪

- Can I play harmony with you?

[Gordon]: I vowed never to write another song that bizarre again,

where I said some of the things that were said.

And so, I stopped doing it about 20 years ago,

because I just don't like it.

♪ Everything you had is gone as you can see ♪

♪ That's what you get for lovin' me ♪

- Okay.

I hate this fucking song so let's move on.

[If You Could Read My Mind playing]

♪ If you could read my mind love ♪

♪ What a tale my thoughts could tell ♪

♪ Just like an old-time movie

♪ About a ghost from a wishing well ♪

♪ In a castle dark or a fortress strong ♪

♪ With chains upon my feet

♪ The story always ends

♪ And if you read between the lines ♪

♪ You'll know that I'm just trying to understand ♪

♪ Feelings that you lack

♪ I never thought I could feel this way ♪

♪ 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 ♪

Yeah, I really like Toronto. I really do.

When I moved out of Toronto, I was about 20 years old.

There's a Drake sign board right up there.

I went out and bought Drake's album.

The one where he's sitting on the top of the tower.

The CN tower.

Did you ever listen to that one?

And all you gotta do is listen to his records,

and you know why he's doing so well.

He's very, very good. Very, very professional.

Well-written.

Well-orchestrated. Good everything.

[folk music]

♪ I'm not saying that I love you... ♪

- There was a lot to be gained by growing up outside of the city,

and then going into the city

and taking this feeling with you, you know?

It made the city more livable.

Now, the city to me is home.

♪ I may not be alone each time you see me ♪

♪ Along the street or in a small cafe ♪

[Gordon]: When I first went to Toronto,

there was not music gigs available for me.

So I spend the first 14 months working at the Royal Bank.

I was doing quite well.

And just as they were getting ready to kick me upstairs to teller,

I had to tell them I was leaving,

'cause I had the chance to become a choral performer

on a country music show. [violin music]

[TV host]: And now, Country Hoedown!

♪ Come on right in It's Country Hoedown time ♪

♪ We're back again It's Country Hoedown time ♪

[Gordon]: They'd call me down to head office at King and Yonge

and the head guy down there said, "Mr. Lightfoot..."

He said, "You're leaving us?" I said, "I guess so."

He said,

"Are you leaving us to go become a square-dancer?"

♪ We've got some dances we'd like to do for you ♪

[TV host]: Welcome to Talent Caravan.

And I would like you to meet the Two-Tones:

Gordon Lightfoot and Terry Whalen.

♪ Jezebel...

- Terry Whalen and I, we had a really good act,

and we had a great repertoire.

But Terry's dad was our manager.

He said, "It's time for you boys to sign a partnership agreement.

Fifty-fifty, and I don't care who writes the songs."

But Terry didn't write any songs,

so I didn't want to have to give Terry 50% of every song

that I wrote for the rest of my career.

Because this was what was looking like a career.

♪ Leaving me blues

We were just this far away from being under contract,

and having a recording career.

And I had to say, "No, I don't want that."

But it took me a whole year, and it damn near killed me.

As it did with every divorce I ever had after that,

it damn near killed me.

♪ Jezebel

[applause]

♪ From the rail head to the boat yard ♪

♪ From the factory to the farm

♪ From the mine to the mill yard ♪

♪ I've weathered the storm

- Yorkville, take 20.

♪ From the bar room to the bedpost ♪

♪ I've wasted my days

♪ All I have is my drink And the time left to think ♪

♪ While the time slips away

♪ Just look at my face

♪ When you tell me goodbye

- Yorkville was its own little community, back in those days.

All along here were townhouses.

Joni lived right here in one of these places.

Joni Mitchell.

She moved to Detroit.

She was really into art, and she lived about a block away

from the art museum in Detroit,

because she used to take us down there,

and I remember her taking Richie Havens and I

down there one day,

and having scrambled eggs at the art museum.

And she was very kind to me.

They used to let me, Joni used to let me use her apartment

when I was in Detroit, if they were on the road.

Joni, she said, "Gord, you gotta stop

this feeling of envy."

Every time I would have an album coming out,

the Beatles would eat us alive with record sales,

just as we would have an album come out in the market,

that we'd worked on for months, and months, and months.

And there it is, all of a sudden we get a Beatles album

right in our face.

But Joni said, "You gotta listen to the Beatles Revolver album."

And that was what made me appreciate The Beatles.

[crowd, chanting]: ♪ We want the Beatles

♪ We want the Beatles

- So as they talk about, was there envy

amongst the recording artists over sales?

Well sure, there was.

If you felt envious, you sit down and write another album.

Try and do better. You always try to do better.

You know, I can pick up the same vibes

here right now as I did then.

There was a lot of clubs at the beginning

of the folk revival, here in Toronto.

And The Riverboat outdid them.

It's what the plaque says.

It was right in here, and you went downstairs.

Like, you walked down a flight of stairs.

[folk rock music]

[Bernie Fielder]: The whole Yorkville scene,

that was like a Haight-Ashbury.

It was like a New York village.

You know, don't forget: people like Joni Mitchell

and Neil Young, James Taylor,

Kristofferson, Coburn, McLauchlan.

Everybody worked there.

And these were all "the people".

♪ Got up this morning

♪ You were on my mind

- One of the things that was special

about folk music is that it was so accessible.

♪ You were on my mind

The audience at the time really felt

they were involved in the music,

and they could learn those songs and they could sing them too.

Those songs said something

and they have a point of view that perhaps -

well, more than perhaps -

was missing in pop music at that time.

We'd actually heard about Gord before we saw him,

that he had written some really good songs.

So, the word was out on the street, so to speak.

♪ Everybody's movin'

♪ Moving across the town

[Ian Tyson]: Gord was at Steeles Tavern for,

I think, a couple years,

and developed a nice following because, you know,

he sang so good, and he took his music so seriously.

[Sylvia]: Ian and I thought he was a really great singer, and it was obvious

that he was a very committed and thoughtful songwriter,

even at that early stage.

♪ The skyline grows

♪ And the cut of the clothes is enough to turn you around ♪

♪ Oh oh

- I used to own The Riverboat.

So I had a lot of people come to me and say,

"You know, there's a guy playing at Steeles Tavern,

and you should hire that guy."

So I went there, and I caught his last song on the set.

♪ Everybody's movin'

♪ Nothin' stays the same

As he comes off the stage, I said to him,

"I want to hire you. I'll pay you twice as much money as this guy pays you."

And he looked at me

and he said, "Oh, yeah. Okay. When do we start?"

♪ Oh it's the time to start making your mark ♪

♪ And it's the time to get in the game ♪

♪ Everybody's movin'

♪ Nothin' stays the same

- The minute I went into one of those clubs,

which were more like real true coffee houses,

before they became rock clubs, I just was captured.

The vibe was he was the best. I mean, Toronto loved him.

Kind of like the way Toronto loves Drake right now.

- He played in little folk houses, but I liked the way he played.

I used to take people over to hear him play, and they liked him too.

It's just the way he picked and played and he moved up.

He became the top dog.

[folk music]

But we ran around, 'cause I had all the girls

until he got super big, and then he had them all.

[chuckling]

♪ The future is just an hour away ♪

♪ And the hearts of youth are aflame ♪

♪ Everybody's movin'

♪ Nothin' stays the same

[Gordon]: I was working all the time.

And I started to get a following by then.

So I started thinking about my writing at that point.

I said, "If I'm gonna earn a living doing this,

I'm going to have to write some songs."

- Well, next time you do a recording session,

I suppose you'll be recording some of your own songs,

will you not? - Definitely, yes.

- Well, I hope they turn out real well for you.

♪ It is said that all the good things must come to him ♪

♪ Who can pretend he doesn't have to wait ♪

♪ For as surely as the light of day ♪

♪ Must come to drive the night away ♪

♪ The needles and the pins

♪ That's where the line begins

♪ With your magnificent outpouring of that old familiar story ♪

[Gordon]: I was living in a basement apartment

which was very nice, and I loved it there.

I had a little room, and I had a desk, and I had a chair.

I knew tha I had to sit down and do the work.

Then all of a sudden,

one day, I popped off with "Early Morning Rain".

That turned out to be one of my biggest, most important tunes.

♪ In the early morning rain

♪ With a dollar in my hand

♪ With an aching in my heart

♪ And the pockets full of sand

♪ I'm a long way from home

♪ Lord I miss my loved ones so

♪ In the early morning rain

[overlapping with Gordon] - In the early morning rain with no place to go.

That's one of my favourites.

♪ Out on runway number nine

♪ Big 707 set to go

- He did ballads like nobody else did them.

They didn't have big lush strings

and like, Barry Manilow kind of stuff,

you know, Weekend in New England stuff.

It was just a guy with an acoustic guitar,

singing a ballad of Early Morning Rain,

and it really touched you, because it's melodic,

he has a very smooth, honey, kind of velvet kind of voice.

♪ This old airport's got me down ♪

♪ It's no earthly good to me

♪ And I'm stuck here on the ground ♪

♪ As cold and drunk as I can be ♪

[Gordon]: We would go to the airport,

and watch the planes coming and going.

One time, it was a misty day.

I was standing watching at the approach,

and all of a sudden, out from the clouds,

brand spanking new,

Boeing 707 just getting ready to land.

♪ Far above the clouds she'll fly ♪

[Gordon]: One night, Ian and Sylvia heard me do Early Morning Rain

and the next day Ian called me and said,

"We're just in the middle of doing a recording,

and we really like Early Morning Rain."

♪ In the early morning rain

- Early Morning Rain, that was a very powerful song.

It wasn't completely regretful.

There was an edge of optimism within that lyric,

so that song, it blew me away.

It really did.

♪ She's away and westward bound ♪

♪ High above the clouds she'll fly ♪

[Gordon]: In the meantime,

Ian played the material for Peter, Paul and Mary.

They made a damn good recording of the song.

♪ Hear the mighty engine roar

♪ Hear the might engine roar ♪

♪ See the silver wing on high

♪ See the silver wing on high ♪

[Gordon]: I said, these guys are pretty good.

♪ Oh there she goes my friend

♪ There she's rolling now at last ♪

[interviewer]: How do you dig a lot of people doing your songs?

Like, everybody has a Lightfoot song. Do you like that?

- Well, yeah! [laughter]

♪ This old airport's got me down ♪

♪ It's no earthly good to me

♪ 'Cause I'm stuck here on the ground ♪

♪ Cold and drunk as I can be

♪ You can't jump a jet plane

♪ Like you can a freight train

♪ So I best be on my way

♪ In the early morning rain

- I forgot to water my guitars last night.

They gotta be kept watered like flowers.

When I get on the stage, I like to hear that,

the sound of the wood...

[machine hissing]

...and not the wires.

Alright.

I'll get to you guys later.

- Burton Cummings had joined The Guess Who, we went on the road.

- The guy from Quality Records took us to see Gordon Lightfoot.

- So, we went to see a whole evening with Gordon Lightfoot,

and nobody knew he was, really, yet in Montreal.

He wasn't Leonard Cohen.

- Randy and I, we were still a cover band. And here,

Lightfoot comes out and sings

a whole set of his own songs that he had written.

- And every song was like... painted this picture.

- He changed our lives forever.

We came away from that little club that night

wanting immediately to start being songwriters.

- They find the young man,

he's locked himself in his chalet.

He's hopelessly lost.

And... It's a song about winter, and things like that.

Sitting up all night drinking, and terrible things like that.

[crowd laughing]

[guitar]

- The song, For a Winter's Night.

And I think to this day,

that's my favourite Gordon Lightfoot tune.

♪ 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 ♪

[Gordon]: I quite often write

with some kind of locality in mind

that keeps coming back to me.

When I wrote that, I was thinking about being

right out in the middle of the mountains somewhere.

Right out in the middle of nowhere.

♪ On this winter night with you ♪

- The song, For a Winter's Night,

you picture a cabin in the woods,

snow falling, a lamp in the window.

But he said he was in a motel room in Cleveland

when he wrote the song.

So, you can take yourself with that pen and paper,

and you put yourself anywhere, and Gord is the master of that.

♪ I would be happy just to hold the hands I love

♪ And to be once again with you ♪

♪ To be once again with you

- It's literally, you know, light a couple candles,

have a glass of wine, and sit by the fire.

It's kind of a quintessential feeling of a Canadian winter,

that song in particular, when you hear it.

And for me, it certainly conjures up those images.

♪ The snow is softly falling

♪ The air is still in the silence of my room ♪

♪ I hear your voice softly calling ♪

[Gordon]: Truly, it comes from the unconscious mind.

I swear, it's an imaginary process.

Everything that I've done

has really, basically, been a figment of the imagination.

You just want to make sure it rhymes.

♪ And to be once again with you ♪

♪ Just to be once again with you ♪

- Gord had the talent and the voice,

but there was a lot of work ethic there.

- He's not somebody who just whips off a song.

I think he spends endless hours

writing and refining his material.

[Gordon]: All I did was write songs.

I was always isolated.

Somewhere in an apartment, somewhere...

in a space I would find.

- I think that's kind of a natural place, as a songwriter,

to often need to go, and sequester oneself away.

Most of the time with a true songwriter,

it comes from your gut, and from your soul.

And who knows what stars have to align to make that happen?

[Gordon]: It wasn't even getting away from people.

You knew that you had to be isolated to do it.

Sit down at the table and actually do it.

- I think Gord's, like, the rarest category,

in terms of being really, just beautifully written songs.

♪ Sometimes I just don't know

♪ How you could be anything But beautiful ♪

♪ I think that I was made for you ♪

♪ And you were made for me

- And the thing about him, is he sings it so clean.

There's obviously some arrangement to Beautiful,

it's probably one of my favourite ballads of all time.

♪ We've been friends through rain or shine ♪

♪ For such a long, long time

[Gordon]: When you're working on the tune,

and you're sort of describing

the feel that you're getting from that.

And sort of looking inside yourself for something to say,

and having a melody,

and having a chord structure already prepared,

it sometimes, the imagination just does the work for you.

That's the F12.

It's tuned in the key of F.

[playing guitar]

- He's interested in guitar tunings,

and he knows a lot of them.

And he knows that that's a trick to get yourself to write songs.

It's like, change the instrument, change the notes

that come out of the instrument when you lay your hands on it.

- I go through a bunch of changes like that,

and the melodies sort of...

That's what I always say to kids

who ask me how to go at it,

first the chord progression, and then the melody,

and then the words. If you can do it.

- I'd love to write a song with him,

but I don't think he writes with anybody.

He creates all that stuff himself, isn't that amazing?

♪ Well I got my mail late last night ♪

♪ A letter from a girl who found the time to write ♪

♪ To a lonesome boy somewheres in the night ♪

♪ She sent me a railroad ticket too ♪

♪ To take me to her lovin' arms ♪

♪ And the big steel rail gonna carry me home ♪

♪ To the one I love

- I know for a fact that the way he writes is meticulous.

And he will go over, and over, and over, and over a lyric.

He will mess with the melody.

I mean, he's one of the few people I know

that writes his own lead sheets.

And he's musically educated, and he's a craftsman.

♪ The big steel rail gonna carry me home ♪

♪ To the one I love

- He was so smart with the words.

He was just so bright as a writer.

♪ My good old car she done broke down ♪

♪ 'Cause I drove it into the ground ♪

♪ And the big steel rail gonna carry me home ♪

♪ To the one I love

- He, to me, is one of the greatest examples

of timeless singer-songwriter.

You know, a man dedicated to the word and to the tune.

♪ I went in town for one last round ♪

♪ And I gambled my ticket away ♪

♪ And the big steel rail won't carry me home ♪

♪ To the one I love

[Gordon]: I sometimes wonder, really,

how I was able to do that.

I'm grateful.

I've been gifted to be able to create songs.

♪ Yee-hoo-hoo

[applause]

- His new recording contract with Warner Brothers

was something that Lightfoot had been wanting for a long time.

And it was kind of like a breakthrough deal

for a Canadian artist at that time.

Like, a million-dollar deal.

- I was a real fan before I even knew him,

and was incredibly excited when we were going to sign him.

[Gordon]: My first Warner Brothers record came out.

Sit Down Young Stranger.

They shipped 80,000 records, and everything stopped.

The record was dead,

it had no legs, as they said in the trade.

And this is a whole album we're talking about, now.

80,000 copies. Boom. That's the end of it.

So, we were thinking,

is there another single that we might try to do?

The one that they picked next as a single was

If You Could Read My Mind.

And they got an ad in the Top 40 station in Seattle,

in the same week.

- Some guy loved music, loved Gordon,

and fell in love with If You Could Read My Mind.

Started playing it, and it was an AM station.

And it was a fairly important one,

and the thing blew up.

And so, when that became a hit,

the company wanted to take advantage of it as best they could.

So, changing the title of the album

was sort of the obvious ploy.

- Next week, I get a call,

"Can we change the title of the album?"

They said, "We want to change the title of the album

to If You Could Read My Mind." And I'm so irate

that I actually get on a plane,

and I fly out to LA to sit down

and have an argument with these boys.

So I was kind of bit of a prima donna at the time.

I said, "They're not gonna change the title of my album

to If You Could Read My Mind from Sit Down Young Stranger!"

I would do awkward things, I would say awkward things,

and they didn't really take me seriously sometimes,

but they took my art seriously, though.

I had asked the question,

"What difference would it make

if you changed the title of my album?"

And he said,

"Algebraically speaking, Lightfoot," he said,

"It's the difference between x and 7x."

And I got on that airplane and flew back to Toronto.

Five or six weeks later, we'd sold 650,000 records.

So, it had sold the 7x,

and I kept my mouth shut from then on.

- If You Can Read My Mind is a classic.

Wasn't that recorded by someone else too?

[dance music] ♪ If you could

♪ If you could

♪ If you could read my mind

♪ If you could read my mind, love ♪

♪ What a tale my thoughts would tell ♪

♪ Just like an old time movie

♪ About 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

♪ I don't know where we went wrong ♪

♪ But the feeling's gone And I just can't get it back ♪

- Sometimes, my wife and I,

we'll pick out certain Lightfoot lines from songs,

just that one line moves me so much.

And I said, I always choke up...

and it's a simple line,

but for some reason, and I don't know why,

I always choke up at the line of,

"Is the home team still on fire,

do they still win all the games?"

- He's gonna cry. There he goes.

- I can't even say it. - Yeah...

- "And by the way, did she mention my name?"

That just moves me.

♪ It's so nice to meet an old friend ♪

♪ And pass the time of day

♪ And talk about the home town a million miles away ♪

♪ Is the ice still in the river ♪

♪ Are the old folks still the same ♪

♪ And by the way, did she mention... ♪

[Gordon]: You know, Orillia was a great little town to grow up in.

All the necessities of life were here.

We had all those things that kids enjoy doing.

Hockey, baseball, fishing, swimming.

It was very idyllic.

♪ Did she mention my name just in passing ♪

♪ And when the talk ran high

♪ Did the look in her eye seem far away ♪

♪ Is the old roof still leaking ♪

- Well, this is the street that I grew up on.

We played up behind these houses.

There was a couple of fields up in there.

There it is. The red brick place.

That door at the top there on the left,

used to open up onto a balcony.

Quite different now.

My parents, Gordon and Jessica,

they were great.

They offered nothing less than encouragement

at all times, really.

- Well, I used to try to go with him as much as I could.

You can't always go every time they want you to go fishing,

and so on.

Young Gordy can remember these places.

He can remember just like as if he was there yesterday.

But he got all his music act from his mother.

- Well, Mom is my greatest fan.

She always, you know,

she's very, very much interested in what I do.

Naturally, you know.

- Gordy was always encouraged, and they used to play the piano,

and they just about put Gord and I right out of the house

with the noise.

[Gordon]: Here's where my singing began,

when I was eight years old.

I shined my shoes every Sunday morning,

and put on my white shirt, and went to church.

And as a matter of fact,

I was at full cry as boy's soprano.

And I would step down and do my song,

present my song from right here.

♪ Forgive us our trespasses

♪ As we forgive those Who trespass against us ♪

The day I walked into grade nine,

I was asked if I wanted to sing in a barbershop quartet.

[quartet singing]

It was a wonderful kind of music and we had lots of fun doing it.

[jazz music]

[young Gord]: A little bit later on,

I started drumming with the local dance band, here.

And we played at various places. We played up in Muskoka,

and we played down in Beaverton.

I was drumming and singing.

And we were playing those old charts like Star Dust,

and things like that.

[Gordon]: And that's when I started writing songs.

But I couldn't write to my satisfaction.

I wanted to learn notation,

I wanted to learn how to write music,

and I'm sure glad that I did.

When I was 18 years old,

I told my parents I wanted to go to music school

in Hollywood, California.

That really... That was a bit of a shocker.

It was a little bit of a shocker for all the people that we knew in Orillia.

They'd say, "What is this guy doing?

Is he trying to get in the movies

or something like that?"

[jazz music]

I applied, got accepted, and away I went.

All of a sudden, I was starting to write all my own lead sheets

on onion-skin paper, and getting them all copyrighted.

And I'd also gotten the job being the vocalist

with the Wellesley College Orchestra,

which was an orchestra of 17 pretty hot musical players.

And, you know, it was a dandy little outfit.

In the early days, everything that needed to be done was being done.

It was like, I didn't know why I was doing it,

and yet, it was just happening.

It was like it was kinetic energy.

I just knew that at the end of the line,

somewhere down the line,

we're going to make it, pay the bills, somehow.

♪ Boss Man, Boss Man What do ya say ♪

♪ I gotta get you alone In the mine some day ♪

♪ Boss Man, Boss Man Turn it around ♪

♪ If you don't look away How can I sit down ♪

♪ Look at this load upon my back ♪

♪ Gotta get this wheel Back on the track ♪

The first thing I do after I've left the house,

is I offer a little prayer.

"Please don't get me in a fender-bender. Amen."

♪ The company plan Takes all my pay ♪

♪ Got a child in July And another last May ♪

- Gordon screamed Canada.

Gordon's stuff screamed Canada.

Everybody knew about this guy that sang about Canada,

that sounded like nobody else, that wrote all his own stuff,

that had that feeling in his heart

You could hear it in the songs.

You know, Gordon was, he was Canadiana.

- Lightfoot, you know, he defined who we were as Canadians.

It wasn't just pop music, it was deeper than that.

And if there was a Mount Rushmore in Canada,

Gordon would be on it. - My opinion is, he was always the biggest thing in Canada.

Like I said, there's been big names that maybe made more money,

but they weren't the legend, as much as Gordon was.

- He is our poet laureate,

he is our iconic singer-songwriter.

- He is Canadian. There's a little bit of a Canadian...

spice in the stew, there.

And to cross over from Canadian airplay

into American airplay wasn't easy back then.

- He sent the message to the world

that we're not just a bunch of lumberjacks

and hockey players up here.

You know, we are capable of sensitivity, and poetry.

And that was a message that was delivered

by the success of Gordon Lightfoot internationally.

People were more willing to listen to someone from Canada,

because someone of such enormous talent had paved the way.

- He was at the top of the totem pole,

and we were proud of it.

- There was a nascent but evolving

cultural nationalism that began to happen in Canada.

And after 1967, after the big centennial in Canada,

when everybody was looking around,

going, "Well, who the hell are we?

Why don't we have Canadian movies?

Why don't we have Canadian music? Where is it?"

And suddenly, it was there.

♪ There was a time In this fair land ♪

♪ When the rail road 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 ♪

- Canada was turning 100 years old,

and needed something to seize on,

for this significant point in its history.

So, he wrote this song, The Canadian Railroad Trilogy

about the opening of Canada

and the history of the building of the railway.

♪ For they looked in the future And what did they see ♪

♪ They saw an iron road runnin' From sea to the sea ♪

♪ Bringin' the goods To a young growin' land ♪

♪ All up through the seaports And into their hands ♪

- Pretty amazing, that somebody would write a historical piece.

A sweet, a really ambitious, long-form piece of music.

- Not many people knew the story.

And he told the story properly with melody,

and with his nice, smooth voice.

And the theatre of the mind that he created with his lyrics

was absolutely incredible.

I mean, even though there's no real hook in it,

that's like real, stamped in your mind poetry.

♪ Across the wide prairie Our loved ones lie sleeping ♪

♪ Beyond the dark oceans In a place far away ♪

♪ We are the navvies Who work upon the railway ♪

♪ Swinging our hammers In the bright blazing sun ♪

- He's made people aware of their history

through his music.

And it's not just what he says, it's what it sounds like.

♪ Oh the song Of the future has been sung ♪

♪ All the battles have been won ♪

♪ O'er the mountain tops we stand ♪

♪ All the world at our command

♪ We have opened up the soil

♪ With our teardrops and our toil ♪

♪ For 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 ♪

♪ When the green dark forest Was too silent to be real ♪

♪ And many are the dead men

♪ Too silent to be real

[applause]

- Well I think, in those early days,

those lines between country and folk, and even rock'n'roll,

were kind of blurred.

♪ I ain't got a penny For Cotton Jenny to spend ♪

♪ But then the wheels go 'round ♪

I never had that traditional country sounding voice.

Nor did Gordon, really.

- Back in the folk era, you could write ballads,

people would listen to ballads.

Those early years, it was really slow, slow.

♪ Pussywillows, cat-tails, Soft winds and roses ♪

♪ Rainbows in the woodland Water to my knees ♪

- I started realizing, you gotta do stuff

that people are gonna tap their toes with.

- One, two, three, four.

[Gordon]: Like, I like having the beat going on.

♪ So fine, so fine the web you spin ♪

♪ I come too close and I'm caught again ♪

[Randy]: 12 string is a very, very finicky instrument to play,

having the extra strings that are an octave higher.

And Gordon's were always in tune.

He had the most perfect acoustic guitar sound,

whether it was 6 string, or 12 string.

♪ All the day sit and spin

♪ Spin your web And you draw me in ♪

♪ Spin, spin, spin, spin

- In the early days, I personally feel

that Red Shea contributed a lot to the Gordon Lightfoot sound.

But if you listen to some of those iconic songs,

and you specifically listen to Gord strumming,

he was like a freight train.

He just drove the whole thing.

It's no wonder he didn't have to have a drummer in the beginning,

because he was just so accurate, and so strong a guitar player.

♪ In the web of wild desire

♪ And I cannot control the fire ♪

[Randy]: I mean, if you blindfold the people,

and put Gordon on stage with 20 other acts,

the minute they play four bars, you know it's Gordon Lightfoot.

There's a sound that he created that's unique to him, in a way,

and it's there on all his records.

Even though the songs change and the lyrics change

and the tempos change,

he kept that same aura of sound around himself.

♪ Shivering, quivering

- I didn't feel right about that intro.

- It's too long, man.

- Too long. - Yeah.

[Gordon]: Red Shea and I met on Hoedown, on Country Hoedown.

I asked him to come out and work with me on some shows

that I was playing around town,

at bars and lounges, and back me up.

He was a great player.

Really, a funny, and an interesting guy,

and a really good musician.

- The combination of Red and Gord was really something,

I was very impressed when I first came in.

I was the new boy. I was 23 years old.

They always explained it that,

we want to sound like one guy with four hands

playing the guitar.

And Red said, "I'm not the lead guitar player.

We play together."

And it was kind of unique.

[announcer]: Ladies and gentlemen, Gordon Lightfoot!

- I put him in that group of men and women

who wrote their own music, who played their own music,

who sang it beautifully,

who sang it in a very signature way.

You hear Gordon sing, and you're like...

you're there. You know it's him.

♪ You think you had The last laugh ♪

♪ Now you know This can't be true ♪

♪ Even though the sun Shines down upon you now ♪

♪ Sometimes you must feel blue

[Gordon]: The vocal was always there, for me.

It was always there.

All I thought about was my guitar play.

That's all I ever think about when I perform.

Just how good can I play this thing?

I don't play nearly as well now as I did then.

When I watch myself, the way I played it then, it makes me nervous.

♪ So take the best Of all that's left ♪

- I was in the studio at around the same time

Gordon was re-recording all of his hits,

and I heard some rumblings from some of the musicians,

because I was using some of the same musicians,

about how particular he was about everything,

and how many takes he would insist upon.

You know, he was a perfectionist.

He was very particular, and I relate to that.

♪ ...promise of your dream world coming true ♪

♪ With one less friend to call on ♪

♪ Was it someone that I knew

- He was very strong in the studio.

We would really do basic tracks with his band,

and those were...

I mean, they were intense days.

He was so hands-on during the recording

of the basic tracks, with his musicians.

Really, really strong.

But, we got it done fairly quickly,

because he was so well-organized.

And once it was done,

if we wanted to add something to it,

and it made some sort of sense, he'd try.

I said, "What about adding strings?" He said, "Fine!'

♪ When you wake up To the promise ♪

♪ Of your dream world Comin' true ♪

♪ With one less friend to call on ♪

♪ Was it someone that I knew ♪

- He always goes to the right place, musically.

And it ends up being very identifiable.

So, the combination of the voice, the songwriting,

and the musicality,

you're dealing with a big-time musician.

[applause] - Thank you!

- When asked, "Who was your favourite songwriter?"

Gordon said, "Of all the multitudes around,

I'd have to go with Bob Dylan."

Ladies and gentlemen, Bob Dylan.

[applause]

- Pleases me to be here to give this award to Gordon.

I've known Gordon for a long time,

and I know he's been offered this award before,

but he has never accepted it,

because he wanted me to come and give it to him.

So, here he is, now. Gordon Lightfoot.

[applause]

♪ It ain't no use To sit and wonder why again ♪

♪ It don't matter anyhow

♪ It ain't no use To sit and wonder why again ♪

♪ If you don't know by now

- Lightfoot made it his business

to found out all he could about Dylan,

and he made a point of learning exactly what it was

this guy was doing with poetry and music.

♪ So don't think twice It's alright ♪

- Albert Grossman had signed Ian and I

to an American agency,

and we'd said to Albert, "You have to sign this guy."

[Gordon]: Albert Grossman sent a person to Toronto

to see if I could sing.

And the next thing I knew, I had an offer...

to do a management contract

with the best impresario in the folk realm.

Everybody wanted me to sign.

But I still couldn't make up my mind.

And so, Ian and I were sitting at a restaurant. I said,

"What am I going to do, Ian? I can't make up my friggin' mind."

And he got his pen out,

and he took a serviette, he wrote, "Sign".

So I signed.

And I went down to New York.

Once I got with Albert, I started doing the American coffee houses.

We hit The Bitter End in New York.

That was an experience, it was one of the real number one folk clubs in New York.

We get down there, and walk around the streets,

and feel like you're a part of the people.

[Bob Dylan]: ♪ Come gather round people wherever you roam ♪

♪ And admit that the waters around you have grown ♪

- We were hanging out on the club scene in New York,

mainly Gerde's Folk City.

So, we got to hear just about everybody.

♪ And you better start swimming Or you'll sink like a stone ♪

♪ For the times, they are a-changing ♪

[Nicholas]: For Lightfoot, at that time,

Albert Grossman had the connections

to get Lightfoot to appear in a festival setting

like Newport, with other artists.

- We were developing a songwriting style,

and we were articulating and formulating a style

which was going to stay with us for the rest of our lives, basically.

[Gordon]: I had recognized the brilliance of Bob Dylan.

I went to a workshop that he did at Newport one afternoon,

and he got up, he stood, and he sang about...

5 or 6 tunes right in a row,

and he just blew the place away.

♪ I ain't lookin' to compete with you

♪ Beat or cheat or mistreat you ♪

- I met Bob at Albert's house,

but I felt really, really shy,

because I was actually awe-struck.

- Initially, Gordon was kind of in awe of Dylan,

but Dylan was already expressing admiration for Lightfoot's songwriting.

- He's one of Bob Dylan's favourite songwriters, you know?

He's always known about Gordon Lightfoot,

always been interested in what he was doing.

- Dylan, whenever he came to Toronto,

he would always make a point of calling Gord,

and wanting to get together.

Dylan had invited Lightfoot to come and perform

at the Rolling Thunder Revue performance at Maple Leaf Gardens,

along with this, kind of, travelling circus collection of artists that he had with him.

And the party that Lightfoot threw at his Rosedale mansion

after the performance was one of the legendary blow-out parties.

- Hawkins was there, and Ramblin' Jack was there,

and Roger McGuinn was there,

and all the ladies were all there, and Dylan was there.

Had about 50 people in the house at Beaumont Road.

- They were admirers, but they were also competitors.

And typically, what would happen

is they would have some awkward conversation,

then the guitars would break out.

- I've seen Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot in the same place twice.

Once at a party at his old house in Rosedale,

and I've seen them together at the Mariposa Festival,

where Dylan almost created a riot,

and they were kind of hanging out.

If totally enigmatic people could be in the perfect marriage,

it would be Bob Dylan and Gordon Lightfoot.

- And he was a friend,

and he was probably the most amazing entertainer I ever met.

- We're passing Alexander Street, Gord.

Remember Alexander?

- Yes, I do.

I lived there for almost three years.

I went there when I left my home,

left my wife and children,

and moved out of the house.

♪ It's alright for some but not alright for me ♪

♪ When the one that I'm lovin' slips around ♪

- There's an apartment building in Toronto,

on Alexander Street.

And the apartment building was round,

like the old deck of records building in LA.

So, I had an apartment.

Bernie Finkelstein had an apartment,

Bernie Fiedler had an apartment,

and then Gordon had an apartment.

It was kind of a little community.

And he was living with a lady named Cathy Smith.

♪ I can see it in your eyes

♪ And feel it in the way you kiss my lips ♪

♪ I can hear it in your voice

♪ Whenever we are talking like this ♪

- I know for a fact that,

you know, Gord always dealt with his feelings

by carefully crafting them into songs.

♪ It's alright to live And not alright to lie ♪

♪ When you come home

♪ And you can't say Where you've been ♪

[interviewer]: You know the song The Circle is Small?

Who's that referring to?

- About apartment dwellers.

People who dwell in apartments.

[interviewer]: People who dwell in apartments?

What does that even mean? - Apartment hopping.

I'm not talking about going to another person's house to have the affair,

I'm talking about going from your apartment,

to another person's apartment to have the affair.

- And were you doing that?

- Was I doing that? - Yeah.

- Have I ever done that? Of course I've done that.

When I think back, a lot of the stuff, I try to forget about.

That's an apartment unrequited love song.

♪ The city where we live

♪ Might be quite large

♪ But the circle is small

♪ Why not tell us all

♪ And then all of us will know

- Cathy Smith. She was a very, very lovely girl.

He really liked her,

more than anyone I've ever seen him with.

And she could write, and sing, she was everything,

but she had a weakness for musicians.

- Her relationship at the time with Gordon

was extremely mercurial.

She was a good singer. She was a very good harmony singer.

And I asked her

to come and do harmony vocals on a song I recorded called

Do You Dream of Being Somebody.

Gordon was conspicuously upset,

and they had a bit of a donnybrook about it.

And I don't think I really want to go farther into it than that.

The irony is Do You Dream of Being Somebody was the song,

and later on, she became somebody for all the wrong reasons.

[reporter]: Cathy Smith was questioned by Los Angeles Police,

right after Belushi's death last March,

because she was with him the night he died.

The investigation was reopened last week,

after an interview Smith gave to The National Inquirer.

According to the article, she admitted injecting Belushi with a speed ball;

a powerful mixture of cocaine and heroin.

- There's always been lots of questions about...

About Cathy Evelyn Smith.

All my life, people have always asked me, "What about this?"

Cathy Evelyn Smith was a wonderful lady.

I really loved her.

I would liked to have married her,

but I was just newly divorced,

and I told myself, "I'm never getting married again."

I knew that it was not a good idea to carry out.

It was one of those relationships

you get a feeling of danger,

comes into the picture.

♪ I can see her lying back In a satin dress ♪

♪ In her room what you do What you don't confess ♪

♪ Sundown you better take care

♪ If I find you been creepin' down my back stairs ♪

♪ Sundown you better take care

- What was quoted, was that these people said about you,

one person said that you were a scary lady,

and someone else described you as hard, chiseled, you know...

- Probably, I was.

Everybody I've ever been with

that's been up there and successful. Gord...

You know, he says, "I could have been a banker.

I don't understand, I get on the stage,

and I make thousands of dollars.

They don't believe that they deserve that stuff.

But he had it. And I wanted it.

So I just got off the edges what I could use,

and I left behind the rest.

And you couldn't hurt me. He couldn't hurt me.

♪ Sundown you better take care

♪ If I find you been creepin' down my back stairs ♪

♪ She's been lookin' like a queen in a sailor's dream ♪

♪ And she don't always say what she really means ♪

- Gord was pretty tough, when it came to relationships.

But she managed to hurt him.

He wrote that song,

referring to more than one person

that might've been involved with her,

and some of them were Gordon's friends.

And I think that she was part of a breaking point.

♪ I can see her lyin' back In her faded jeans ♪

♪ She's a hard lovin' woman, got me feelin' mean ♪

- Some of the best things that he's written,

are from when such a disturbing thing happened

in his personal life.

He was just writing it out.

And as a songwriter,

you try to amalgamate your experiences,

however destructive or wonderful they may be.

Putting them in some form

that they become universally understood by other people.

- Sundown has this whole, sort of, spaghetti western kind of feel to it,

but the details are left out,

to the point where you can kind of make up your own movie.

So, that's cool, you know.

[applause]

[folk music]

[Gordon]: Los Angeles was great fun.

Most of it is just unbelievable to me now, some of the things.

I always had a suite at the Continental High House,

right on Sunset Boulevard.

And I would stay up all night time.

There would be women, there would be booze,

there would be whatever you want.

A disc jockey in Los Angeles

started playing my stuff all the time.

And so, first time I went to the Troubadour,

it was just sold right out

for three days. Because of this guy.

The Troubadour was the place in Hollywood.

And that's how I met Joanna.

She was the head waitress there.

We dated, and we had a child.

His name is Galen,

and he took his mother's name, McGee.

We played all around all kinds of gigs, all around California.

- We played in the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles,

it was like 4000 seats,

when it was open air, there was no roof on it,

and we were selling it out for 5 and 6 nights.

That was really something.

[Gordon]: I was offered a deal by Jerry Weintraub.

They wanted me to go and live in San Francisco.

"We'll manage you, and you'll come to the States."

They thought it would be good for my writing.

I was tempted.

Maybe I stopped feeling Canadian for a couple of minutes,

but I said no.

By this time, I'd appeared in a movie.

I was at the height of my drinking,

and I look terrible in that movie.

"Gord, you'll never win the Academy Award,

but it was fun working with you."

That's what Bruce Dern said.

And so, I was warned by the record company

that I should give up alcohol.

At that time, the record company was owned by Frank Sinatra.

And so, I was invited to one of his recording sessions.

And Frank, he tried to do If You Could Read My Mind,

but about halfway through the first verse,

he threw it on the floor, he said, "I can't do this!"

- Sinatra could be plenty cantankerous.

And so, I don't think he was in a good mood that night.

- If You Can Read My Mind, he said, "I can't,

I can't sing this." '

Those were his words, "I can't sing this."

- Sinatra looked at it and said,

"Too long." And threw it on the table. Next!

- It was that same night that Mo Ostin,

who is the president of Reprise Records

pulled me aside...

and said, "Gord, you better stop your drinking."

- How do you remain so prolific?

How does it keep coming?

Year after year, with no change.

- I find that the odd drink helps.

[laughter]

- When he was performing in Massey Hall,

he had some of his famous parties

at his house after the show.

Full of celebrities and other people.

- The house would be filled with people, and, you know,

every account I've heard from people tell me that he was actually

a pretty gregarious host,

but he was also well into his cups.

♪ Pass it on over It's a sin to be sober Too long ♪

[Gordon]: A wild time. It was party time.

♪ I'm bent but not broken All I need is some rest ♪

♪ And a bottle of your very best ♪

♪ Blackberry wine

- I don't know how I ever made it through.

- I don't know if you could say he loved to party,

but he loved to drink.

He did, he loved to drink.

And in some ways, it made him happier,

and was more fun to be around in some ways.

And then, at other times,

he would go into a drunken rage.

- You could tell he was drinking too much...

and it was starting to tell.

Maybe over a bottle a day, it starts telling on you.

♪ Blackberry wine You know that I'm ♪

♪ No good without you

♪ Blackberry wine

- The first time I almost met him,

was at a concert that he put on in St. John, New Brunswick.

He was in the dressing room, and somebody went in

and announced that I was there,

and he said,

"I don't give a sweet...

who's there. I'm not seeing anybody."

So, that was my introduction to Gordon Lightfoot.

- Both on stage and off,

he could handle the pressures of the spotlight better

with a little lubrication.

- A lot of the songwriters do dry up eventually.

There are a lot of songwriters that we used to listen to,

and hear a lot, and watch their career,

and all of a sudden, it's stopped up.

- I keep telling 'em, they don't drink enough.

- But you have an interesting theory.

- I'm only kidding, you know. I never touch the stuff.

- We did a show in the Dominion Theatre,

in London, England one time,

that might've been the low point.

He had only sung 5 or 6 songs,

and was cursing at the audience.

You know, it was pretty low.

[Gordon]: It finally got to the point

where it no longer became fuel, any longer.

But, I still didn't quit drinking.

♪ The happy times are gone

♪ And I can still put on

♪ My Saturday clothes

♪ Every warm body knows

[Gordon]: I had some opportunities presented to me

that I wouldn't take because I drank, and I knew it.

I drank, and I knew it.

They didn't know it. They didn't know it.

- There were lots of warning signs

for Gordon to pay attention to,

and it wasn't until, ultimately, his partner, Cathy Coonley walked out on him,

and took their son Eric with her, that he realized,

it had gone too far. That the drinking was costing him,

both on a professional, and a personal level.

- So then, that was when it was time to pack it in.

I had help in doing that.

My sister Beverly ran my office for ten years, at one point.

And my sister's urging is one of the reasons why I quit drinking.

- But all of a sudden, he quit.

I mean, I don't know how he did it, cold turkey.

- When he quit, he quit.

- He was challenged by people who said he was not in a good place with it.

But he's the one who really made the big move.

He rose to the challenge

and said, "Well, I can show them that I don't have to do this."

- He's been a changed man since then, you know.

- Through the height of his fame in the '70s, he was sailing,

constantly on Georgian Bay,

and the Great Lakes. He had sailboats,

but he also took up canoeing.

And people were kind of shocked when they saw

the Gordon Lightfoot of the early '80s.

- He was now, like, thin and fit,

and looked like a whizzing bush rat.

You know, he was totally into the whole wilderness, canoeing thing.

- After I'd done my first canoe trip, I said,

"By God, I'll never do another one of these as long as I live."

I did ten trips over the next 20 years.

You never took alcohol in the bush.

It was a worthwhile enterprise to try out.

You fly up 150 miles to Muskox Lake,

to the beginning of the back river.

From there, you just head north.

Start seeing the wildlife immediately.

We camped near a wolf birthing place one time,

and we stayed there all night

and watched the activity of the wolves

as they howled off in the distance.

The next day, when leaving the lake in Chicoutimi,

we saw a caribou with a broken leg, and a calf...

being followed by two wolves.

It broke my heart.

♪ It's a wicked wind And it chills me to the bone ♪

♪ And if you do not believe me

♪ Come and gaze upon the shadow At your door ♪

I wrote the song Shadows while I was up there.

- He loved the inspiration of being in the Canadian wild,

and it became the source of a number of songs.

- I've had other inspirations of songs while paddling in the canoe

that have manifested themselves later.

♪ Let it go

♪ Let it happen like it happened Once before ♪

Some of the places, we were in the Boreal Forest,

like, when we did the Churchill River, we were mostly in forest area.

Most of it was in rock.

And some of the spills, and some of the rapids,

and some of the waterfalls,

I mean, there's a waterfall on the Angikuni River

that they say is three feet higher than Niagara Falls.

♪ From the mountains in the spring time ♪

♪ On a blue...

After about four or five days,

paddling in the stern of a canoe,

you don't even have to think about it anymore.

You just keep doing it.

That's what one of the trainers down at the club says:

"Motion is the potion."

You know, I'm just about 80 years old,

and I'm starting to live off that little idea.

Just don't stop.

[loon calling]

After I got divorced the first time,

I swore I would never get married again.

But I did, I did...

19 years later.

Liz was my second wife, and we had two kids.

Miles and Meredith.

I have six children, I have an extended family.

I'm responsible for a lot of people,

and part of the reason why I do what I do,

is so I can look after everybody.

Alright!

Hi, I'm Gordon Lightfoot,

and the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

[cheering]

- There are a lot of people now that realize how great he was.

And it actually has picked up over the past ten years.

I remember running into a very successful record producer, Rick Rubin.

And he said, "I've just been listening to Gordon Lightfoot for five straight days."

And Rick isn't from that world.

- There's a whole bunch of stuff got recorded.

Dozens and dozens of cover recordings.

A hundred. 150, I don't know, I never counted.

I lost track.

Some of them, you get into, and they're just fabulous.

♪ Black day in July

♪ Black day in July

♪ Motor city madness Has touched the countryside ♪

♪ And the people rise in anger

♪ And the streets began to fill ♪

♪ And there's gunfire From the rooftops ♪

♪ And the blood begins to spill ♪

♪ Black day in July

♪ Black day in July

♪ Black day in July

- Sitting around the Bad Religion rehearsal studios

over the years,

we would always break out into versions

of Edmund Fitzgerald.

♪ The legend lives on From the Chippewa on down ♪

♪ Of the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee' ♪

Now, some of you probably already know this,

but "Gitche Gumee" was Lake Superior,

to the north of Wisconsin.

The fact that it was mentioned in a song on the radio

was pretty spectacular.

I always considered The Great Lakes kind of my roots.

Nothing was more inspiring

than seeing the big iron boats come into the port.

That was probably the most magnificent spectacle on The Great Lakes.

First time I heard Gordon Lightfoot was on the radio

in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

As I got older, I started to appreciate

Gordon Lightfoot's ability to arrange songs,

and his arrangement style

is something that I learned a lot from.

How you build a song

from those simple chords and simple melodies,

into a much larger evocative piece of work.

♪ The ship was the pride Of the American side ♪

♪ Coming back from some mill In Wisconsin ♪

That's when the crowd goes wild.

The Milwaukee crowd. I mean, I can see how he's a Canadian national hero,

but he also speaks with a voice

for anyone growing up in The Great Lakes region.

[humming]

[boat horn]

[reporter]: The Edmund Fitzgerald sank in November 1975,

with the loss of all 29 people on board.

[reporter]: The ship was just 15 miles

from the relative safety of Whitefish Bay,

but the powerful forces of nature had different plans.

[reporter]: The ship was tossed by 35-foot waves

in a tremendous storm.

[reporter]: In a hurricane, it simply disappeared.

[male reporter #3]: The heavily laden boats slipped beneath the waves,

and broke into pieces.

[reporter]: The sinking of the Fitzgerald became the subject of a ballad

by Gordon Lightfoot.

[reporter]: His song helped create the legend surrounding

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 ♪

- The wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, I remember that one the most,

out of any of his songs, and I think because,

as a high schooler,

I busked that song.

Out in front of the library in Halifax.

The melodies are so powerful,

and he's such a good story-teller,

and such a beautiful lyricist.

And the combination of those things just really makes for a great song.

♪ The wind in the wires Made a tattle-tale sound ♪

♪ And a wave broke over The railing ♪

- You know, back then, there was very gummy music, and gooey music,

and then a guy comes along with The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

You know, you go, wait a minute.

- And the winner is Gordon Lightfoot,

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

- It was a richer type of music.

It was like a Simon and Garfunkel, almost.

That kind of a Cat Stevens,

people who wrote very pretty music,

but there were very smart lyrics woven into them.

There was some poetry here.

This is a guy that sang poems.

♪ The captain wired in He had water comin' in ♪

♪ And the big ship and crew Was in peril ♪

♪ And later that night when his lights went outta sight ♪

♪ Came the wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald ♪

- The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Well, it was kind of the tail end of an album session,

putting an album together.

And Gord came in one day,

and he said, "I'm working on a song about something

that just happened."

He said, "I've been getting newspaper articles

and looking at this stuff."

And he said, "It's not finished yet,

but it's gonna go something like this..."

And he started playing.

I don't know if it was the next day,

or a couple days later, we came back in the studio,

and Gordon started singing it again.

- Kenny, the engineer, said,

"Well, you've got the studio booked.

Why don't we put it down on tape?"

- So, tape was rolling,

and Barry...

said to Gord, "When do you want me to come in?"

He said, "I'll give you a nod."

- We get to whatever it is, the third verse,

and Gord gives me the big nod.

I do a drum fill to come in.

- We went right through the song, top to bottom.

It was very elemental and raw,

but it had magic to it.

♪ Does any one know Where the love of God goes ♪

♪ When the waves Turn the minutes to hours? ♪

♪ The searchers all say They'd have made Whitefish Bay ♪

♪ If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her ♪

- It was not only a first take,

it was the first time we'd ever played the song.

That's the record.

- After that, we tried a number of times

to record it and get it better.

You always try to get it better in a studio.

And we never could.

So, it was basically a first take that came out

and became a hit record. Which is very unusual.

♪ In a musty old hall In Detroit they prayed ♪

♪ In the maritime sailors' cathedral ♪

♪ The church bell chimed Till it rang twenty-nine times ♪

♪ For each man on The Edmund Fitzgerald ♪

- Nobody ever expected that to be a single.

It was too long for airplay.

- When I got to Nashville when I was 19 years old,

Guy Clark and I were drunk for a week

when the record, the Edmund Fitzgerald went to number one, because

you know, we were writing these long story songs,

and everybody was telling, "No, you need three minutes, and you need choruses."

And then this big long story song becomes a huge hit.

So, we got hammered for about a week,

'cause we thought maybe there was some hope for us after all.

♪ The legend lives on From the Chippewa on down ♪

♪ Of the big lake they call 'Gitche gumee' ♪

♪ Superior, they said never gives up her dead ♪

♪ When the gales of November Come early ♪

[applause]

- Thank you.

- Gordon Lightfoot's arguably

the most important artist that Canadian music's

ever produced, in the mainstream or otherwise.

- They should have him in the history books,

the grade five history books.

They should be teaching about him in school.

- Whether it's a young singer-songwriter, or an older singer-songwriter,

or a musician, for that matter, who's grown up in Canada,

they will have been impacted in some way by Gordon Lightfoot and by his music.

- You know, he had the voice, he had the great songwriting,

he had the look.

And he had the attitude, too.

♪ Through the woodland Through the valley ♪

♪ Comes a horseman wild and free ♪

♪ Tilting at the windmills passing ♪

♪ Who can the brave young horseman be ♪

♪ Reaching for his saddle bag

♪ He takes a battered book Into his hand ♪

♪ Standing like a prophet bold

♪ He shouts across the ocean To the shore ♪

- Good day.

♪ Till he can shout no more

- Good day to all. We are back.

♪ I have come o'er Moor and mountain ♪

♪ Like the hawk upon the wing

♪ I was once a shining knight

- Today we're here at Massey Hall

for this wonderful weekend of Canada Day,

to help close the place down

while it gets a whole bunch of work done.

♪ See the man who tips the needle ♪

♪ See the man who buys and sells ♪

♪ See the man who puts the collar ♪

♪ On the ones who dare not tell ♪

- We figured we were damn lucky to still be doing this all the time,

like a team, it's like team work

and we're always trying to do it better all the time.

That's my bite.

♪ See the children of the earth ♪

♪ Who wake to find the table bare ♪

♪ See the gentry in the country Riding off to take the air ♪

♪ Reaching for his saddlebag

♪ He takes a rusty sword Into his hand ♪

♪ Then striking up a knightly pose ♪

♪ He shouts across the ocean To the shore ♪

- The type of material that I'm doing in this set

requires the white shoes.

♪ He is wild but he is mellow

♪ He is strong but he is weak

♪ He is cruel but he is gentle

♪ He is wise but he is meek

[crowd cheering]

- People who are performers, especially on Gordon's level, are two people.

They're the person that they are when they walk onto the stage

or when the have to do something public.

They're in harness, you might say.

And then, they're who they are.

And who they are, and what they're supposed to be

often don't really overlap.

- I'll tell you what,

I'm probably Gordon' Lightfoot's biggest fan.

But Gordon is always kind of Gordon.

You can't really read his mind much, 'cause you don't know where he's at.

- What a run it was.

I'm happy for every moment of the almost 80 years

that I've been here.

I appreciate having been alive. I really do.

- There's a beauty in the character,

beauty in what he was writing about.

But there was a lot of internal pain

that none of us will know about

and it makes you love him 'cause you know

there's this other sensitive side.

You just have to dig.

Or listen to his lyrics, and then you get it.

♪ 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 drawn 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 see ♪

- Your personal experience and your emotional stress

finds its way in by way of your unconscious mind.

Over into your real, the mind of reality.

And it translates itself into your lyrics,

and you don't even know that that's happened.

♪ If I could read your mind love ♪

♪ What a tale Your thoughts could tell ♪

♪ Just like a paper-back novel

♪ The kind any drug store Would sell ♪

♪ When you reach the part Where the heartaches come ♪

♪ The hero would be me

♪ But heroes often fail

♪ And you won't read That book again ♪

♪ Because the ending's Just too hard to take ♪

- It's absolutely the most amazing thing of all,

is the dynamic between men and women.

♪ I walk away Just like a movie star ♪

♪ Who gets burned In a three-way script ♪

♪ Enter number two

♪ A movie queen To play the scene ♪

♪ Of bringing all the good things out in me ♪

♪ But for now love let's be real ♪

- I regret a lot of things, because it's not a free ride.

I mean, you don't just sail through it, and laugh about it.

I mean, it's serious.

I caused emotional trauma in people,

particularly some women.

The women I was closest to, you know,

caused emotional trauma in them,

and I feel very, very badly about it.

As a matter of fact,

it feeds part of what I was telling you about before,

it feeds that guilt complex

that eats us up in our unconscious mind.

♪ If you could read my mind love ♪

♪ What a tale My thoughts could tell ♪

♪ Just like an old time movie

♪ About a ghost From a wishing well ♪

♪ In a castle dark Or a fortress strong ♪

♪ With chains upon my feet

♪ But stories always end

♪ And if you read Between the lines ♪

♪ You'd know that I'm just tryin' to understand ♪

♪ The feelin's that we lack

♪ I never knew 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 feelin's gone And I just can't get it back ♪

[applause]

Thank you!

♪ You've got time enough For two of us ♪

♪ What is mine, I will share

♪ We've got things That we can do without ♪

♪ Most anytime, anywhere

♪ Every little daydream That appears in all we do ♪

♪ Gives us some problems Of our own ♪

♪ If you turn back to that Page again ♪

♪ And you can't win

♪ If you ask me, I'll tag along ♪

♪ Paper matches in the afternoon ♪

♪ Cups of tea and all of that Zen ♪

♪ I think, it's time we took A walk outside ♪

♪ It seems there is no oxygen

♪ Each and every bad dream Will be hammered into dust ♪

♪ When we get back Where we belong ♪

♪ If you ever turn that page again ♪

♪ And you need a friend If you ask me I'll tag along ♪

♪ This time tomorrow we might all be packed and gone ♪

♪ I believe it's best we carry on ♪

♪ Smoke rings rising Till they disappear ♪

♪ In the sky above If you ask me I'll tag along ♪