1976 Top Ten Songs: Race Among the Ruins (#7)

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It’s time to get rockin’ and rollin’! Well…not today here. We’re in 1976, and, as yesterday’s song proved, there were some good rocking tunes. So let’s flip the script and go with a folkie. Here’s today’s song from 50 years ago. Race Among the Ruins - Gordon Lightfoot Also known as as “the song you never got to hear because they were still too busy playing ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’.” Yes, this was the follow-up to that massive hit, and it was a massive bomb. It didn’t even make the top 60 on the singles charts. What, too short compared to the other song? As opposed to the story in the big hit, this is more typical Gordon Lightfoot philosophy (“if you plan to face tomorrow, do it soon”) and brilliant lyrics (“the road to loved is littered by the bones of other ones”). Of course I’m a big Lightfoot fan, as you well know, so I’m going to say it should have been a bigger hit. But it really should have been. Race Among the Ruins Written by Gordon Lightfoot Recorded by Gordon Lightfoot From Summertime Dream, 1976 Was it someone that I knew: