2023’s Music Losses “Top” Ten: Gordon Lightfoot (#1)

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As I said yesterday, we’re talking 1A and 1B here. The poetry was amazing, even if the subjects were vastly different. For the final tribute to someone who passed away in 2023 I salute the man who was, in so many ways, the voice of Canada. #1: Gordon Lightfoot He is an artist, he is an artist He is an artist, painting Sistine masterpieces (The Guess Who, “Lightfoot,” 1969) From the rails (“Canadian Railroad Trilogy”) to “the lee of Christian Island” Gordon Lightfoot covered his native land beautifully. He also covered the pains of tormented love (IMO one of the greatest songs ever written, period, “If You Could Read My Mind”) and history lessons (“Black Day in July” and, of course, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”). Beyond a “songwriter’s songwriter,” he was the songwriter that the “songwriter’s songwriter” wanted to be. I first became aware of Gordon Lightfoot as a child, listening to country music. There, you had Waylon Jennings singing “For Loving Me,” George Hamilton IV singing “Steel Rail Blues,” and Bill Anderson singing “Did She Mention My Name”…all Gordon Lightfoot songs. One of the things that you might not know about Gordon is that his only US #1 song, “Sundown,” was about a woman he was dating at the time, Cathy Smith. As in, “the woman who gave John Belushi the fatal speedball” Cathy Smith. The fact that Lightfoot lived to the age of 84 is a miracle. In 2002 he had a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm, which nearly killed him. (He always looked frail and thin after that, not the vibrant, handsome man he had been.) He said he was “living on borrowed time” after that, but was “fully prepared to go whenever I’m taken.” (You might not known that Lightfoot was a devoted Christian who sang in his church’s choir with no fanfare.) However, the combination of ailments finally ended his life on May 1, 2023. I got to see him in 2016. All I could do was weep, listening to him sing those classic songs. I’m so thankful that I did get to see him live. And I’m so thankful that he shared his remarkable songs with the world. To everyone whom I highlighted this month, as well as all the others who left us in 2023, thank you for the music. And thank you all for reading. Gordon Lightfoot, OC Born Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr. November 17, 1938 - May 1, 2023 (age 84) HALL OF FAME: Songwriters (2012); Canadian Music (1986); Canadian Country Music (2001) Companion of the Order of Canada, 2003 Why Jimmy Buffett never covered this sailing song, I’ll never know. One of my favorite Lightfoot songs, “Christian Island (Georgian Bay)”: