Paul Quarrington, my late mentor, once asked if I’d ever consider writing a book about a single subject. I told him I didn’t think so until, a few years later, Key Porter Books asked what I thought about Gordon Lightfoot. I told them what anyone would have told them — “legendary songwriter,” “notorious boozehound,” “redeemed in old age as a relentless touring figure” — before reminding myself of what happened after we recorded a version of his nautical epic, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” Our manager called Gord’s manager, Barry Harvey (now also gone), and asked if we could get a copy of the track to the writer for his approval. He told us not to bother, because it would only piss him off. “And you don’t want to piss off Gord,” said Barry. Feeling jilted, that summer I found myself in a bar in Cork where, over a hundred pints, a local suggested to me that Gord hadn’t, in fact, written that song: he’d stolen the song from an old Irish melody. While doing press for our album, Melville, I repeated the claim I’d heard in the bar: that Gord had stolen his most famous song. Understandably pissed at me, Harvey later pleaded with me to recant the statement, and I did, but traces of it remained on the internet. I told the publisher there was no way I could write about Gord because there’s no way he would talk to me. My editor, Jane Warren, suggested that I write Gord an apologetic letter, and I did, but he never wrote back. Then she suggested I write another one. Finally, I told her I was giving up, but she said, “These letters. They’re really good. Why can’t that be the book?”
It ended up becoming Writing Gordon Lightfoot. After its release, we invited Gord to the launch (he didn’t come to that, either), but he sent his manager and confidante, Bernie Fiedler, who bought a bunch of copies. I knew people who knew Gord and I asked if my book had ever come up with him. In almost every instance, it had. One person told me that he carried the book around with him (someone said there was a copy in his car), and showed it to people, pointing out all of the mistakes (the book is largely a fiction in which, because Gord didn’t talk to me, I try imagining his life). I also learned that it was his girlfriend, after a lot of swearing and protesting, who convinced him to read it. Someone else also told me that, whenever they visited the Lightfoots, it was out on the coffee table, an object d’art that he was strangely, if grudgingly, proud of. With Gord’s passing, I’ll never know what he truly thought, but I’ve convinced myself think it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better to preserve the mystery of a figure I’ve only know through art. Maybe it’s better to maintain a certain sanctity (and distance) between listener and singer, despite what Instagram or social media tells us.
Before the book, I’d only met Gord once, in an elevator in Quebec City. We’d gone there to gate crash the 1987 Rendez Vous hockey summit and had faked our way into press accreditation and a room at the Hilton. Gord was as tall and lean as an Ontario pine and the bone structure of his face — sharp cheekbones and a boxer’s chin — was striking. He may have been wearing a brown corduroy jacket and cowboy boots, but I could be pulling that from an album cover memory. I asked him if the gig had gone well the night before, and, scratching his hand, he said: “Well, ‘Early Morning Rain’ was a little fast.” This attention to detail was confirmed years later by drummer Barry Elmes, who said that, even in recent years, after thousands of gigs, Lightfoot would pull the band aside after the show and make them listen to the performance in its entirety. He was obsessive about his art. It’s how you get to be great; it’s how you get to be Gord.
Beyond this, many of my personal memories are mollusked to the Lighfoot oeuvre. I remember driving with the band from St. Margaret’s Bay, Nova Scotia, with Chip Sutherland, Sloan’s manager and our lawyer, into Halifax to play the Flamingo, and listening to “Carefree Highway” on the AM, suddenly hearing the potential-- and the potential weight-- of folk rock with its pedal to the floor, which is something our band launched into after coming home from that trip. I remember standing on stage with that other Gord — Downie, and the rest of the Hip — singing “Summer Side of Life” into the July skies over Markham Field Grounds, shoulder-to-shoulder with John Mann (also now gone) feeling the sudden melodic thunder of that chorus, which releases itself so perfectly and exultantly from the body of the song. I remember UIC doing “Black Day in July” at Lump of Squid and hearing the roots of Punk — Lightfoot wrote it from his Detroit apartment — and I remember weeping to “Early Morning Rain” when it came on the radio after dropping my wife at the airport. We could all add to the list, and we should. It’s what music is for and it’s what makes a country; our country.
In 1967, every radio in every diner, gas station, hockey rink, kitchen, and church basement played “The Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” the year’s biggest song, clocking in just under eight minutes. Hold on to that concept for a moment: an 8 minute song was the country’s biggest song of the year, with three movements and a torrent of words, about a time in history, the kind I would have groaned at were it taught to me in middle school. But the work is majestic, and if Gord had done nothing else, it would have been enough. And yet, he did. He played and played and played and very few musicians in Canada have ever done as much, cheating death at times-- for decades his life was a cocktail of abuse, both inward and outward-- and yet still managing to find the stage door.
While writing my book, I was worried about all of the legal implications that come with telling another person’s story. But Dan Hill, who knew Gord well, took me aside and told me not to worry; the old guy wasn’t built like that. He talked about another artist who’d copped a melody from one of Gord’ songs. The artist got a note that Lightfoot wanted to meet him, and he grew nervous, fearing a lawsuit. But when they gathered across a table, Lightfoot passed a note that he asked the artist to sign, admitting that he’d used Gord’s melody. There were no payments; no lawsuit. All he wanted was the artist to be straight with him. I wrote my book without worrying-- well, without worrying too much-- about how Gord would take it and I’m glad it came out. It sold a bit and people liked it. In the end, I tried to be straight with you, Gord. I hope it was enough.
oh the places we'll go .... thanks for taking us along on your adventures
I've got the book here somewhere...gonna dig it out and reread it.