Ladies and gentlemen, Gordon Lightfoot.
Let's make him welcome, Mr. Gordon Lightfoot.
[Ian Hanomansing] He is one of the most iconic Canadian musicians of all time.
His songs some 200 of them weaved into the fabric of the country
Gordon Lightfoot has been performing for more than half a century.
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[Ian] His sound helped define the folk scene explosion of the 1960s.
A very Canadian star with international appeal.
His songs have been recorded by a long list of music giants.
From Johnny Cash to Neil Young, Sinatra to Elvis.
Lightfoot even inspired an anthem of the disco era.
♪♪
Every song tells a story from railways to romance.
You can feel his words.
The great Bob Dylan calls Lightfoot his favourite singer-songwriter
and even helped induct him into the Canadian music hall of fame.
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.
[Ian] Lightfoot's storied career is now the focus of a new documentary on Gem.
And he's not nearly finished.
The 81-year-old has just released a new album and plans to tour once COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.
I had a rare chance to talk to gordon Lightfoot in his home just before the pandemic hit.
So my first question is not a profound question at all.
I'm just curious about this room.
Do we call it the music room?
Yes I do.
Yeah it just looks fantastic.
Tell me a little bit about this room, for example there are three guitars that I guess four here.
That one's a little battered but that's that's your beloved one right?
Well sometimes your loved one can be a problem.
It's an old guitar and I found it years ago i was staying at the King of the Road hotel
down in Nashville working on a record and I found it in a record store or an instrument store
and bought it for a couple hundred bucks
and now it's my main martin guitar for on stage.
And there's a little thing cut out that says, anger can kill you.
Is that just a little reminder for you?
Yeah it is.
Yes. I've got a short fuse too you know sometimes.
[Ian] Still?
[Gordon] Yeah, it reminds me.
[Ian] Yeah.
Because you seem like such a calm, gentle person.
Well I try to stay that way you know.
I really try to be to be friendly and get along with people.
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[Ian] Let's talk about your new album.
[Gordon] Yeah, yeah.
[Ian] One song kind of stands out because it's very playful on the album.
I think it's called Just a Little Bit.
And then there's some songs that are more wistful
and maybe maybe even a little melancholy on that album.
Yeah there are songs of anguish in there.
There are songs about -- nightmarish songs about a guy whose having a nightmare.
He's dreaming and he's saying at night i'm drifting in a sea of despair.
I see a bimbo and there is no body there.
You know that's where are the girls in my life?
So that does seem to be a theme, right?
Yeah, yeah, it's always been that kind of a theme.
But you know I think of the documentary
and you very explicitly talk about some regrets in that documentary
in terms of relationships with women over the years.
I regret it very much.
A lot of it.
I created emotional trauma in a whole lot of people.
Didn't really know that I was doing it at the time
but I was hurting people's feelings.
I learned to be very careful about that after many years in the business.
But the trauma that i have brought on to other people I regret very highly.
Let's talk about your music
and not just the new music but the old music.
And I was thinking to myself that somebody who's my age grew up with your music.
I know your music so well and I love it.
But there are people who are watching this who maybe are new to Canada
or are younger you know and and they don't know your music.
If we were to make a playlist.
Kind of the essential playlist of Gordon Lightfoot for some of those people to understand
what should be on it?
I mean at the top of my list I'd put If You Could Read My Mind.
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So let me throw out a few other names if I would put on the list
and you either tell me don't put it on that list or or why you think it should be on it.
Obviously Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
[Gordon] I can tell you a couple.
[Ian] OK.
And OK, the Wreck, Sundown, Early Morning Rain.
Canadian Railroad Trilogy.
[Ian] absolutely
Song For Winter's Night, Carefree Highway.
[Ian] Yeah the only one on that list I hadn't thought of is Song For Winter's Night
which you didn't actually write in Canada right?
That was written when I was out on the road, yeah.
[Ian] In the summer time.
Yeah.
[Ian] But it sounds like such a quintessentially Canadian winter song.
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[Ian] One of the really cool things about you is i mean you've stayed in Toronto all this time
but also you really have explored rural Canada.
Not a lot of people who have been number one on Billboard's chart
have also canoed through all these Canadian rivers
and enjoyed the the wildlife there.
Has it had an impact on you as a person?
Has it changed you at all as a person being in those places
I never actually forget it, forget about meeting animals face to face in the in those situations.
But when you're standing looking at a musk oxen
and he's like standing like 15 feet away from you looking at you.
You know.
I've actually written one right my best tunes on that.
I wrote a song called Shadows up there one time.
Wrote around the whole tour on the trail.
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There's an interesting story about that song Shadows.
Apparently your friend Bob Dylan was playing a show in Edmonton a few years back
and a fan shouted it out as a request.
He knows it.
[Gordon] He knows that one.
[Ian] And he's sang it.
I mean I know you've had this long relationship with Bob Dylan.
[Gordon] Well I mean we had more more fun just hanging out.
[Ian] Yeah.
[Gordon] It was like more of a like of a laugh than anything else.
You know.
[Ian] But that he would know your song so well
and that a fan would know to shout that out in a concert and in an instant he just adds it to his set.
What does that say to you?
I know about that.
I was quite surprised by that actually.
The song that you wrote on a canoe trip.
[Gordon] Yes.
So that's just the way it goes.
I mean tell me about the connection between the two of you especially in the 60s and 70s.
Well OK, I remember years before the Woodstock festival just hanging out with all those guys
and the wives and my first wife and Sara and our children all playing together.
Our kids played together.
Our children played together at one point my my house in Rosedale here.
It was like party central for a whole lot of these people
because it was only like like eight minutes from downtown.
[Ian] So over the years who's been in your your house to party or to play music?
So Bob Dylan.
Joan Baez.
Paul Simon I think one time?
Yeah he's been there.
Yeah we practiced there .
He came up to my house after a party one night and was there for two or three hours.
He had some people up there.
But I took him up to the third floor and I played him the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
because i had just written it about two weeks before.
And I said well check this one out.
And he sat and listened to it right through.
I love their work.
I've always loved Simon and Garfunkel's work.
[Ian] Hang on a second.
So you played for him Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
before basically anyone in the public had heard it, right?
Yeah, yeah he was the first.
[Ian] He's the Bridge Over Troubled Water guy right?
So I mean he wrote one of those -- so many great songs by then.
Epic song as well.
What did he say when he heard Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?
What did Paul Simon say?
He said I like it.
You know, I like it gee that sounds good.
So you're, I'll finish with this.
You seem like a contented guy.
New album out, documentary celebrating your incredible career.
You're still touring.
What's left?
Is there anything left on your to-do list?
No I'm going to stay i'm going to stay --
I want to stay happy, I want to stay happy.
No matter what happens, I'm going to stay happy.
Well I don't know that you fully appreciate how many people have been touched by your music
and still are.
And I've told you there are songs of yours I can listen to in any circumstance at any time
and they just are moving.
And it really is a remarkable thing.
So it's really nice to have a chance to talk to you.
Thank you.