One in a Thousand

Apparently that is true of me. I would never have guessed. Before I really get to what this is about though, I want to write about humility.

Humility is one of the great virtues of life. As a Christian, familiar with the Bible, it has multiple exhortations towards developing humility and being humble. I am currently leading a Bible study on Philippians and there is a well known and remarkable poem in chapter 2 that uses Jesus Christ as the prime example of humility in an effort by apostle Paul to point the Philippians of ancient Greece towards greater humility.

Looking back over my life, I can think of many things that, not to sound like I am bragging, have helped to keep me humble. In the first place, although my parents were a pastor and teacher, respectively, they both came from a rural farm backgrounds. Again though, my paternal grandfather was also a teacher.

Then, the first 16 years of my life were  spent in small rural, largely indigenous communities. My parents impressed upon me, and I saw for myself, the skills and abilities our neighbours had to live and thrive in what was sometimes a harsh environment in what we called Northern Manitoba. I think our teachers challenged us  as well as they could, and perhaps it was as much a reflection of the time as the environment in which I was obtaining my education, that I never really learned to be a questioner and debater. That may also have simply been part of my personality. 

One of the first things that I remember on this pathway of humility was when, in Grade 6, one of my indigenous classmates scored higher than me in mathematics. Previously, I had generally had the highest marks in my class.

When we moved to the city and I began high school there, in Grade 11, although English and Composition had not been my strengths, I never even achieved 65 in Grades 11 or 12. Physics was also a challenge. However, I worked at it and my marks improved steadily as the year went on. I got top marks in geometry and algebra in Grade 11. Then, the double whammy of losing our mother and my missing school subsequently because of mumps, had a considerable negative impact on my Grade 12 mathematics and sciences scores.

Even from early childhood, another thing that I would say helped keep me from too much pride was that I never was much of an athlete. Here, most of my classmates could do better than me. I never captured too many prizes, if any, in our annual school field days. Just the same, I did not do too badly in soccer and particularly in volleyball where, even though I may not have been so good at defence, I could rack up the points with my height and scoring from the back line when I served.

My three years at Bible College were good. However, when I returned to math and sciences after this interlude, I again struggled. I only got 50 in first year math.

By the time I had gotten my Bachelor of Science degree, I was wanting to get into medicine. I always blamed part of my inability to get marks as good as I could have because I had to work part time to support myself and pay my tuition. That cut into study time. But, honestly, maybe I was having too good of a time with life and friends too.

Then, I did not get into medicine on my first two tries. After I did get in, when it came to second year I, along with a good friend, failed my midterm. We did pass the oral makeup exam though. I managed to get through the rest of my medical education without incident and did pass the license exam, even though I knew I did very poorly on one question. In some ways, I am not one to be aggressive, and I left a pregnant lady with abdominal pain too long, and she miscarried. Then,  after a two-year residency in Family Practice, I did not make my family practice certification exam and had to appeal it.

Overall, my preceptor and mentors always let me know that academic excellence did not always equate with other aspects of being a good physician, such as one’s personality and ability to relate to people. I did well in that regard.

Then, after 12 years of family practice, I fulfilled an original aspiration of going into psychiatry. Here again, when I had been encouraged to go into child and adolescent psychiatry, halfway through my first rotation, my preceptor indicated to me that he was not sure I was cut out for this. Perhaps he was playing a mind game and trying to get me to work harder because with the same preceptor at the end of the rotation, I did very well. Again, there was one other mid-year interview exam I failed and had to redo. At the end of the four years, I passed my fellowship exam with no evidence of a problem, so that was affirming.

Just the same, in my eyes, comparing myself to classmates and then colleagues, I always had a sense that a good many, if not most, were beyond me when it came to academics and skill development. There were also incidents in my career that were challenging and raised questions. Not that these had anything really to do with the safety or well-being of my patients.

When I look back on my life and career, I have recently come to the conclusion that I was somewhat more of a manager than an innovator. It brings me back to a remark my nursing supervisor made when I was a nursing orderly working my way through my pre-med. She knew I wanted to go into medicine and challenged me to look more into how things could be improved in the fields in which I found myself. To some extent, I always did have my eye on that subsequently.

Some time ago, I heard the tale of a church member whose fellow parishioners at one point rewarded him for what they saw as his humility. They presented him with a pin that said “I am humble.” Maybe it was partly a test. When he wore it to church next Sunday, they asked for the pin back! You don’t brag about being humble.

I will say I have never been one to put forward that I am a physician. I never wanted that to interfere with people taking me for whom I am. Many who have crossed my path never knew that about me. Some years ago, a new acquaintance who has become a dear friend, told my wife, she would never have guessed I was a doctor. In her experience in a previous church where there had been physicians, she felt they ‘had their noses in the air.’ She had not seen me that way.

After retirement, which is now nine years ago, it seemed that I was experiencing more of new or the same symptoms that to me had long indicated a certain degree of possible problems with attention and certainly memory. Some of that I know is normal with aging. There were things in these areas though that made me wonder if I was beginning the long slow slide into dementia. Therefore, I spoke to an erstwhile colleague and managed to obtain a full cognitive assessment.

The results I finally got today, three months later for reasons I did not explore, were really quite reassuring. My examiner did not feel I had ADHD, nor did she feel I had any signs of cognitive impairment.

What she told me first off in giving me the results though, was that I had done very well. When I think over what I heard next, and then read in her report, I am glad I never knew this until after my retirement, when it is really no longer that relevant anyway. She told me almost right at the beginning that I am one of those one in 1000 when it comes to my IQ. I'll leave you to figure out what that might mean numerically, but let’s just say that I could have applied to Mensa if I ever thought I was anywhere near that realm or wanted to be part of it. I still have no desire to do so. I will still be me, the boy from the prairies and the north.

2024 12 2

GORDON LIGHTFOOT: LYRIC AS POETRY

Essay by E. Lorne Brandt 

for University of Saskatchewan Arts Department English Canadian Literature class/English 253;

I n s t r u c t o r : Paul Denham

December 1969

 

Poetry had at one time become recognizably distinct from the ballads of minstrels or folksingers as we call them now. With the invention of the printing-press and the resulting increase in literacy, poets all but eclipsed the bards from whose ranks they had sprung. However, with the advent of radio and sound-recording, singers are again more popular than poets. An awareness of this dual heritage, coupled with commercial competition has brought about an improvement in lyrics to such an extent that some critics are beginning to ask whether the song-writer ind poet are becoming one. It has been suggested that Gordon Lightfoot is one of these new songwriter poets.

All of this only makes it imperative that we establish some basic definitions of the terms to be used. As understood in current usage, lyric denotes simply the words of a song. Poetry, in the broadest sense, is anything written in verse. I believe we would readily agree though that a great deal of the lyric in the popular songs of today is not worthy of recognition as poetry, even though It may be in verse form. We must then restrict our definition of poetry.

What more limiting criteria can be set down? Rhyme is not all it once was but there is still a certain cadence which must be present in the verse, even when stripped of its tonality. If the rhythm vanishes with the melody, we have a lyric but not a poem. Imagery is not an absolute prerequisite but if that is absent we do look to diction for the difference. Furthermore, the union of rhythm and diction must be able to evoke a sensuous response without the aid of music. Good poetry has intellectual integrity too but without this element of mood it is little more than versified prose.

There is one other factor which merits consideration. Structure and feeling are not without content. Content is the expression of purpose and that implies a creator. Hence, the writer:

what is Lightfoot's estimation of himself and h\is work?

We would be too subjective if we based our examination of whether his lyrics are poetry or not on his views. It is for that reason that we have already laid down what I hope are objective guidelines for determining what constitutes real poetry. A knowledge of his opinions would prove of some value though, for if we know what he expects of poetry, what his idea of a poet is, we will be better enabled to determine if he meets those expectations within those we have already outlined.

When interviewed and asked if he considered himself a folk-singer Lightfoot replied in the negative. He considers himself an entertainer. Yet, he also stated that when he was finished

writing a "song," what he had was "a poem set to music." Lightfoot's confessed philosophy of poetry, of what the poet does, is that he is "just a sounding board for the emotions of emotions pf people. . Poets tell them what they already know about themselves and then

they say, 'Wow - you just told me what I know must have been true, or false. You are letting me know that I'm - you're giving me hope so I understand myself better because you've told me something I already knew and I was wondering about it. In other words, to be human is not a sin and that's why poets write about humanity I suppose."

"Please," on the liner of his fourth record album is a further delineation of his understanding of a poet:

    "I see the poet as a word prophet

    A dealer in songs and phrases

    Of whistful melodies and subtle warnings

    Passing his nights in loneliness

    Tormented by blank pages

    Which cry out with dying breath

    To be filled with the

    Secrets of his heart

    

    I see him . . . a sign about his neck

    Upon which he has pasted

    In bold type for all to see

    His life's work and epic poem

    Conceived by his longing and

    Filled with the perception of humanity

    Which the busy crowds ignore

    As the wind ignores the trees

    The one word PLEASE."

I believe we can accept this as a description of himself, for when a reporter once asked him what kind of person he was, Lightfoot replied carefully, "Please .....It's the bounty of

a man's mind who spends his nights staring at a blank sheet of paper, saying 'Please. Please fill me. Please fulfill me. ' (1) We cannot help but think if Keats, "when I have fears that I

may cease to be, before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain."

Lightfoot believes passionately and absolutely in what he is doing and is insulted when people wonder that this is what he does for a living - write and sing. It is his life. In this

respect he stands above many of his fellow songwriters, for this type of life is only a temporary youthful thing for a large number of them. Lightfoot, on the other hand, states

that he has been writing for ten years already. He is thirty now and it is only in the last three or four years that he has come into his own, so this is understandably no passing

fancy for him. "By standing up and singing to a group of people I'm fulfilling my purpose on earth. It's my way of communicating with people. I try to make them more aware of their

weaknesses because I have all the weaknesses . . . . I guess that's where my songs are at . . . they're all about folks. A lot of them are 'I' songs but it's ' I ' meaning you, "(2) Little wonder he says in "Please" that he passes his nights in loneliness trying to write something, and that his life's work is "conceived by his longing and filled with the perception of humanity."

Lightfoot writes profusely. The forty - five recorded songs surveyed in preparation for this writing represent no more than a fifth of the number he says he has written in the period from which they come. The limited scope of this essay necessitates even further selectivity though. Before, actual textual examination, however, it would be well to review songs from Lightfoot's earlier and later recordings, in general terms of topic and development.

Lightfoot's earlier songs include some that draw heavily from the geography ind history of America. That he was a Canadian and wrote "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" established him as

something of an unofficial representative of modern patriots of this land. Some of these songs Ilke "long River", "Sixteen Miles", and "Pussywillows, Cattails" are largely descriptive end create a mood in harmony with the setting. Thereis a human element in

them all though and especially in another song we could include here: "Song for a Winter's Night".

Another group of songs has its common element in a certain kind of character typical of the north. That is the man on the move or in the wilderness, the veteran, the man plagued by alcohol. We see him in the songs above to an extent but more centrally in songs 1ike "Home From the Forest", "Early Morning Rain", "Steel Rail Blues", "Long Way Back Home" and even in "Walls".

Not surprisingly we find many love songs in Lightfoot's works too. Some are not likely to be considered good poetry because they don't look like much on paper but others might

be deserving of that recognition. Whatever one might say about them we can see in them the same honesty and realism Lightfoot instills into his other songs. The lost love and the dream girl are here but so are the tragic cases of the prostitute and the go-go girl in "Affair on Eighth Avenue" and "Go-go Round", respectively. There is just a bit of social criticism in the lyrics of these songs too. The problem of communication is prominent in them all but especially in "Linda", "Walls", "Magnificent Outpouring" and "The Circle Is Small" or "I Want to Hear It From You".

Songs such as "Black Day In July" and "Bossman" are explicit about what happens in society. "So is "Cold Hands From New York". "Wherefore and Why", "The Gypsy" and "Does Your Mother Know", on the other hand, are a bit more subtle. Questions are raised

in these songs, feelings are expressed, but we don't find Lightfoot presuming to know the answers and supplying us with empty platitudes like the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love", Lightfoot says he does not intend to write protest songs. He just says "Why should it be and what can we do about it?"

This catalogue of Lightfoot's songs simply illustrates in a general way his subject matter and some of the approaches he takes to it. If we review them in order of appearance we find

the more descriptive lyrics of the earlier period with their pleasing treatment of nature and the earlier love songs with their almost careless "frontier" attitude giving way to songs

dealing more with problems of communication, personal relationships and those created by the rigours and routines we find ourselves subjected to. The feelings become stronger, the images more complex; there is more attention paid to diction and detail. The structure is still mainly rhyming stanzas but there is more variation in their arrangement. However, he does write free verse, as his first album illustrates with "Peaceful Waters".

To illustrate some of these things in greater detail and make the attempt to determine whether there is poetry in Lightfoot's lyrics let us examine some of them closely. Perhaps this can best be done by selecting some of his earliest and some of his most recent works.

Lightfoot, we said, gained his ponulatity through songs about the land he loves. One of the earliest of these is "Long River". If these are the songs that were first appreciated it would be well to look closely at some of them.

The one we have mentioned consists of four stanzas like this one in structure :

"Where the long river flows

It flows by my window

Where the tall timber grows

It grows from my door

Where the mountains meet the sky

Where the white clouds fly

Where the long river flows

By my window "

We have six lines followed by two lines which form a refrain at the end of every stanza. There is an abacdd rhyme scheme in the first six lines but this pattern is not followed in succeeding stanzas. Scanning reveals that the meter is not that consistent either but it comes closest to anapestic dimeter. Though one would like to see rhyme schemes initiated adhered to, the lack of strict metrical structure is not as serious, for the lines have a cadence of their own.

So far, the lyrics have stood the test of being robbed of the tune. What about mood, though? Has that remained? We look for symbols, at the choice of words. There is beauty in phrases like "the white clouds fly" or "the white cascade". Yet, the long river flows right by the window of the woodsman's cabin, the timber grows from his door and "the mountains meet the sky".  In effect, the natural setting spreads away from him in its vastness ind forms a wall sealing the woodsman in . This isolation is felt even more by the writer's beseeching us to feel with him "the closing of the day" and "how the dawn breaks away". The day begins by fleeing beyond his grasp but ends by closing in on him. In such a world the only other living thing mentioned is "a tiny bird ". Notice that it does not sing, it "calls". This is in line with the feeling in the heart of the speaker. It reflects his loneliness and need for love. Thus we can see that though the words are simple and perhaps a bit repetitive (the several "where"s) they do create a mood. If we accept this I think we can call this a poem as well as the very similar "The Solitary Woodsman" of Sir Charles G.D. Roberts. At the seme time we must qualify that by noting that Lightfoot's poem isn't nearly as detailed as Roberts. Then again, this is one of Lightfoot's earliest songs and perhaps later ones are fuller.

The isolation that deprives the woodsman o  relationships with others in "Long River" is something that is sought in "Sixteen Miles". Thus, nature is more beautiful in the latter lyric.

The mood is thus not so heavy; it is in fact not very important here. For that reason and because there is little else but perhaps a few more carefully chosen adjectives here besides

an apt verbalization in "the trailing river twines" I shall pass on to "Song for a Winter's Night'.

I think there is a significant development in this song. The sibilance of phrases like "t h e snow is softly falling", "your voice softly calling" and"still in the silence", together

with the gentleness of words like "low", "breathe" and "sigh", creates an atmosphere of warmth and drowsiness. This is appropriate for although the figure in this song is as isolated as the speaker of "Long River", he has communication with his loved one . The role of nature thus has receded and things like a failing lamp, a dying fire and an almost empty glass become symbols of the dying day and just possibly a dying relationship.

This decrease in the prominence of nature as we follow through the songs succeeding this one results in its being something conquered in "Canadian Railroad Trilogy", and that

with no apparent regrets. Thus, in the beautiful "Pussywillows, Cattails", we have only one mention of a negative element in nature and that is in the these "harsh nights". In a still

later work, "Bitter-Green", It provides little more than a color symbolism - the green of life turns to rust with the death of the lady of the song.

I believe I have indicated thit "Song for a Winter's Night" is an improvement over "Long River" in creating mood, painting a better picture with a little better diction. If we just look at the structure of this song before we leave it I think we would find that it too is an advancement:

"The fire is dying now my lamp is growing dim

The shades of night are lifting".

The verse alternates between trochaic trimeter and hexameter. In the stanzas as above the rhyming is feminine while in the refrain it is masculine; the rhyme scheme abcb is followed consistently throughout the song. Thus, these lyrics are a bit fuller end more coherent in structure than "Long River". We might think "shades of night" and "steals" are cliches - they are - but I think the technical and emotional character of this song is enough to warrant accepting it as poetry.

Oddly enough, it is in some of Lightfoot's love songs that he is least poetic. I would almost be prepared to say without qualification that some of them are not poetry. When robbed of their music they lose what appeal they had, the repetitiveness and the outright slangy character of the lyrics sticks out more too. Some of his earlier "love-songs" like the most popular "For Lovin' Me" Illustrate this point well. What kind if poetry is this?

"So don't you shed a tear for me

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

I've got a hundred more like you

So don't be blue

I'll have a thousand 'fore I'm through"

The casual earthiness of these lines passes in a folk-song but hardly as serious poetry. The same can be said of a song that appeared about four years later. There is some improvement in the attitude of the speaker but this time it's the woman who's fickle - "The Circle Is Small":

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

When the one that I'm loving slips around

You think it's fine to do things I cannot see

And you're doing it to me

Baby can't you see that I know how it is "

Like too many other such lyrics of our day there is little content in these lines. Lightfoot can write better songs about love though. These are the ones where he becomes descriptive. They are either by implication or quite directly about illicit love. Glorifying this always seems to have more appeal and it is in keeping with Lightfoot's testimony that he has "all the weaknesses" and writ s to tell his audience that "to be human is not a sin".

"Softly" Is one of Lightfoot's better efforts at writing about man-women relationships:

"Softly she comes

Whispers the night with her passing

In secret love she is laughing

Softly she comes in the night"

The irregular line length seen here is not irregular if we were to see all the stanzas for it is followed through, "Softly she sighs" and "softly she goes" being the opening lines of two

other stanzas. The meter resembles dactylic trimeter in most lines. However, in this and in a rhyme scheme Lightfoot is again inconsistent. The abbc rhyme scheme seen here is not followed in a1l the stanzas.

Lightfoot does not go into a great deal of detail in this song but then this is after all a phantom lover. That is emphasized well: all that is seen of her are "shining lips" as

she whispers goodbye but even they are in the shadows. Hearing and the sense of smell are almost all we have to rely on. We can almost hear he sensual chuckle as the passing breeze

indicates her anproach. Then footsteps are heard and she is in her lover's arms. She does not stay long enough to sleep and all he holds is a fragrance. As in most of his songs the

description is limited to adjectives. Good poetry is more imaginative than that but in this case as in others, I think the mood, the atmosphere created even under these limitations is

effective enough for lyrics such as these to stand as poetry.

The common folksongs are not as subjective, as personal as many of Lightfoot's songs are. They may ask questions but it is in a more objective voice as are the descriptions and stories they tell. Lightfoot writes these too. Songs like "Home from the Forest," might be touching but they are more stories than poems. The same is true of the ballad of the truck driver, "Long Thin Dawn". Some of Lightfoot's familiar love songs can also be left as good ballads, using the term somewhat loosely. "Ribbon of Darknes" and "The Mountains and Maryann" are two of these.

"Softly" was written some time ago. A song in a similar vein that appeared more recently is 'The Affair on Eighth Avenue". It is on the same album as the previously discussed "The Circle Is Small" but is quite superior to that. 

It is uniquely introduced by a stanza devoted almost entirely to one small detail：

"The perfume that she wore

Came from some little store

On the down side of town

But it lingered on

Long after she'd gone

I remember it well

And our fingers entwined

Like ribbons of light

As we came through the doorway

Somewhere in the night".

Six lines are concerned with the perfume this woman wore and details about its origin and permanence. It is a reminder of an experience. However, this song is not only a description of an experience. Like many more recent songs, the questions about humanity, Lightfoot's

perceptiveness of the human situation enter in. In the middle of their lovemaking, we can imagine, the woman asks:

"How long...

Can a moment like this

Belong to someone

What's wrong - what is right

When to live or to die

We must almost be born?"

Some might think a riddle like this is a little heavy, somewhat philosophic for poetry, but that is the way it is with much poetry that is written today. In the stanza quoted previously

we have a true poetic image too: "fingers entwined like ribbons of light". One can almost visualize the whiteness of their fingers under the pale glow of fluorescent streetlamps. The juxtaposition of time and place in the line "somewhere in the night" is also an ingenious feature. Evidently Lightfoot is capable of more then his earlier songs, it least the ones we examined, might indicate. The diction may not be much advanced but we are getting into the imagery.

Let us take a look at one more work of Lightfoot's. some would contend that the distinction between real poetry and common verse is the amount of work put into it. Well, "Cold Hands From New York" is a poem then because it took six years to put into words.(3) But let us not make preliminary judgements.

There is almost too much in this song but perhaps that only reflects the writer's feelings - the city was too much for him. Then again, the simplicity of most of Lightfoot's other songs may have been our undoing when we come up with a set of lyrics like this. A portion of the song is herewith reproduced so you can see for yourself how it runs:

"I came down through Albany to New Vork

To find what I'd been missing

I looked across the river to a city where

The windows all stood glistening

I stood listening . . .

I came down through Albany to New York

To find what l'd been missing

There were prophets in the squares

And people there who smiled and said

Forget it "

This is the pattern of structure. By now I think we scarcely need spend time determining whether Lightfoot's lyrics retain cadence without music. They do, and what is more we can see here again functional variation in line length. The short last line of the stanza is usually used to emphasize a response on the part of the writer to what he has described in the preceding line,  although it is used otherwise as our second-quoted stanza shows.

We have here then a whole catalogue of observations of city life in New York as seen for the first time. The detail is complete and so realistic. The appeal of the city to the rural youth begins it all . His first sight of the skyscrapers of Manhattan - "the windows all stood" - fills him with awe. His interest in things like the prophets in the squares betrays him too, as is so well revealed in the phrase "people there who smiled and said forget it".

However, awe and innocent self-confidence - "Into a tunnel I did ride/ like a grave inside / but I was young and able" quickly turns to fear when he sees different coloured faces

and "a look of danger / for a stranger". Indeed, the fear can be more than seen. The speaker sees "lovers in the park [but] / there was a danger in the dark / I felt it".

The things he sees in the poorer sections of town such as old men sleeping in parks and "dingy rooms where babies crept / unwanted" also give occasion to some of the questioning that is becoming more frequent in Lightfoot's songs: "I began to ask myself if there was hope/ or if it mattered what they did / or if they lived".

Above all, there is a climax of utter terror. The city becomes so unreal and frightening that the speaker loses all power of speech and only within him does a voice cry for help. Lightfoot here demonstrates his ability for he has captured the isolation of the city as effectively as that of the wilderness in "Long River". He has reflected the situation of humanity in the urban setting with the perception he said he sought to achieve. The

choppier rhythm and variation in line length also help to underscore what the words attempt and show how the isolation that can be experienced when among people is more serious than the calm, as illustrated by the smooth flowing lines in "Long River", sympathetic atmosphere of the wilderness. The resolution of all that is in New York is complete.

I must say in conclusion that 1 cannot in all fairness pass judgement on Gordon Lightfoot . Defects in structural consistency and vocabulary have been pointed out. However, we also saw improvements and the inclusion of imagers. Indeed, the song "Marie-Christine", which is about a girl described in the imagery of the sea and ships shows that Lightfoot does use

symbolism as a basis for a whole poem. He said of it that it was "definitely ahead if its time" (4) Does this mean he thought it was a little beyond his capabilities at this stage in his development?

Lightfoot is a contemporary. This is another reason why one cannot, certainly, say anything with any finality. His future works will, one should hope, indicate whether shortcomings noted now are weaknesses, carelessness or simply areas in which he will improve.

There are qualities here, too, however, that indicate Lightfoot has the markings of a poet. He writes what comes from inside. As TIME quoted him: "The public gets around to you . . . you don't get around them. "(5) Lightfoot was once also reported to have said, "I won't call myself a poet ...Someday I might but I'l1 let somebody else say it for now" (6). Will somebody say it or do we wait a while?

FOOTNOTES

(1) "Patricia Welbourn; "Gordon Lightfoot", WEEKEND MAGAZINE, July 20, 1968, pg.4

(2) ibid

(3) Marjorie Harris, "Gordon Lightfoot: Folk Singer With a Message.", MACLEANS, September 1968, pg. 55

(4) ibid, p. 35

(5) "Cosmopolitan Hick", TIME, November 8, 1968, pg. 53

(6) Welbourn, WEEKEND, pg.4

NOTE: All quoted lyrics of Lightfoot's are from the writer's transcriptions of Lightfoot's songs rom his various albums, specifically GORDON LIGHTFOOT! THE WAY I FEEL, and BACK HERE ON EARTH with references to songs from DID SHE MENTION MY NAME, an album which precedes the last-mentioned in date of release.

Also, any other specific facts and quotations which are not included in these acknowledgments can be assumed to come from an interview the writer ha with Mr. Lightfoot on November 2, 1969 which has been preserved on tape [no longer true, 2024].

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Cosmopolitan Hick" (under Folk Singers), TIME, November 8, 1968, pp.52-53

Eisen, Jonathan, ed. THE AGE OF ROCK, Clinton, Massachusetts: The Colonial Press, 1969

Goldstein, Richard, ed., THE POETRY OF ROCK, Toronto: Bantam Books of Canada Limited, 1969

Harris, Marjorie, "Gordon Lightfoot: Folk Singer With a Message, MACLEANS, September 1968, pg. 34f1.

Welbourn, Patricia, "Gordon Lightfoot", WEEKEND MAGAZINE, July 29, 1968, pp. 1-4

Denham: A very interesting and well presented paper. You deal quite carefully with the difficult question of defining your terms.

84

Lightfoot and I

 It was a winter Saskatchewan day when our 1969 Can Lit Eng 253 class settled into our seats to wait for instructor Paul Denham to begin. I don't remember if this was known in advance; likely it was; we were all anticipating the return of papers we had written for the course. To say I was surprised would probably be an understatement when he selected my paper to read from as a good example of an English essay in the class. this from a student who could not even achieve a mark of 65 in Grades 11 and 12! He cited particularly my careful explanation of the terms used within the paper and gave me a top mark for an English class of 84. My subject was "Gordon Lightfoot: lyric as poetry,” and I still have the paper in it's original typed format of 17 pages including footnotes and the bibliography.

I am not sure if Denham mentioned it at the time or read anything to give that away, but I do quote Lightfoot a number of times in the paper, and these quotes were taken from a recording I had done of an interview with him at the Saskatoon Sheraton hotel a month earlier. I knew he was coming to the city again and I had tickets for the concert. I also realized that I was basically a nobody and how would I get to have an interview with him, knowing that I wanted to write this paper. Therefore, I approached The Quill, the University of Saskatchewan campus newspaper, and volunteered to do this as a write-up for the paper. They accepted my request and lent me the tape recorder that I really wanted. Imagine my chagrin then, when I made it to his hotel room, to find out that they had also sent someone else to do the interview. I don't think Lightfoot thought much of my competition and his simplistic questions versus the discussion we got into. The other fellow was more interested in logistics and what Lightfoot thought of his popularity, perhaps how much money he was making etc. I was more interested in discussing his writing, his thoughts about his writing and singing and particularly his thoughts about being regarded as a poet. As you can see from the previous paragraph, I was not disappointed. I borrowed a reel to reel tape recorder from a friend (this was before the days of the popularity of cassettes) to copy the tape from the machine that I had to return to the university before I did that. Unfortunately, that tape has disappeared along the way.

My relationship with Lightfoot began, interestingly, when I was working in the Manitoba Rehabilitation Hospital in Winnipeg in the winter of 1967–19 68 as a nursing orderly. One of our patients brought in Lightfoot's first album. I had heard some of it on the radio by that time but he was not that popular yet for AM radio compared to other pop and rock artists of the time. However, I liked the music well enough to buy that album myself. It was his debut album, “Lightfoot!”

I began to attend the annual Lightfoot concerts on a regular basis for a few years, often with my brothers or other friends. I had actually met Lightfoot on one previous occasion after one of his concerts in Saskatoon. Friends of mine had opened a coffeehouse, a popular venue in those days. At the intermission, we sent a note backstage, requesting that Lightfoot visit this coffee house and gave him the address. Sure enough, Lightfoot favoured us with his presence, although briefly. He and his band members said they were on the way to Prince Albert for a party. This was probably a 90 minute drive after his concert. It was evidently known that Lightfoot liked to drink in those years and that this sometimes interfered with his performances. However, I was always pleased that I do not think this ever occurred during concerts I attended. I don't think I mentioned this occasion when we met in his hotel room a year later, and I would not have expected him to remember that visit, let alone my presence there.

I also continued to buy his albums, although I only ever purchased some half dozen or more out of something like 30+ that he recorded. His third album, "did she mention my name" was perhaps my favourite, but that one has disappeared. That was the only one for which I did by the official songbook. What I have now are the original album  mentioned above, "sit down young stranger," “old Dan's records" and dubbed to cassette, "Don Quixote" and “Sundown". Much later I got his CD, "A painter passing through" and one collection CD, "60 Minutes with Gordon Lightfoot.”.

In 2014 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) listed 2 Lightfoot songs among their top 100 Canadian songs at the time: “Sundown” and “The Edmund Fitzgerald” at 17 & 29 respectively. I suspect the former related to its international acclaim and the latter to the compelling Canadian/American Great Lakes disaster tale. “Sundown” was also the title of the 1974 album that appeared at No. 11 in a 2013 CBC list of top Canadian albums. I think Lightfoot also deserves considerable credit for the fact that his very first album, titled simply “Lightfoot”, also appears on this list, albeit at No. 93.

On another occasion later on when CBC asked listeners which popular songs reminded them of Canada, still another well-known Lightfoot song, “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” came up at No. 3. Lightfoot also came out at No. 6 in a CBC collection of 25 Greatest Canadian Songwriters ever.

Ronnie Hawkins, himself a Canadian rock icon who would have crossed paths with Lightfoot in the Yorkville scene in Toronto in the 1960s and 70s, once said of him:

“I've been a fan of Gordon's since forever. Since I can remember. He was the first cat I thought was the greatest songwriter in the world.... For me, he's written the best.... A lot of people think that Gordon Lightfoot is just a superstar in Canada. He's a superstar all over the world.... If you listen very carefully to the words he puts in his songs they're unbelievable. Unbelievable how he puts them together.... Have you listened a lot to Gordon Lightfoot? Well I tell you what? You hear those stories, you can relate to them! Do you understand all of Bob Dylan's songs? Nobody does!”

Then, in September 2017, and Ann and I were vacationing in Southern Ontario and made a stop in Orillia. I tried to see if Lightfoot was at home and whether there was a possibility of making some contact with him on the occasion but to no avail. However, by that time there was a small park along the waterfront with a section dedicated to lightfoot, including a sculpture of himself and some special features highlighting some of his more memorable songs. The local museum, named after another famous son of the town, Canadian humorist Steven Leacock, had a small section on Lightfoot and I settled with purchasing a book of 50 poems by other artists published as a tribute. 

It was certainly a loss then in 2023 when Canada lost this well-loved son. What had often appealed to me besides the poetry of the lyrics and the good melodies were the stories and emotions that resonated with my own sentiments about our land and its  people, settings and stories. I list some of these aspects in the paper I wrote. The  reader will find a copy of that paper on this blog if they are interested in pursuing that further.

Strange Encounters in Samaria

I want to tell you about the strangest encounter I had a couple of days ago. If I tell you it was life changing, you might laugh at that cliché, but it's true.

First of all, I should tell you something of myself. I live in a small village in Samaria, not that far north of Jerusalem. I am not married, which is something of a drawback in our society. It's even worse because, partly to get some support, I have moved in with a man who also has no partner. That’s really frowned on, but I was desperate. I had gone through five husbands who had all died, either from illness or injury, or simply disappeared. You could say I was considered bad luck, to put it mildly. However, this man had been a good friend to one of my husbands and took pity on me.

One of my daily duties is to take my water jug and go to the town well every day for our supply. Because I am looked down upon by my fellow citizens, especially the women whose job it usually is to go and get water, I am not welcome to go when they go. They get to fetch their water first thing in the morning when they are fresh and it's not so hot. I have to go later.

On my way out to the well this morning, I had met a group of men entering our village. I could tell by their rough beards and their plain clothing, the way they gave me a wide berth as we passed each other and the accent of their speech that they were Jews.

Now, it's not very common for us to see Jews in our village. Most of the time, if they're going from Southern Israel to the north or vice versa, they take a road around by the Jordan River. This is because of the negative feelings between us Palestinians and the Jews. We are all equally, as far as the government is concerned, oppressed by our masters, but we Samaritans have even less advantages when it comes to how we are treated in this empire.

I don't know why these men had entered our village, but from the little conversation I heard as I met them and passed on, it sounded as if they were looking for food. Good luck with that, I thought. The way you treat us as a rule, you're not likely to satisfy your hunger here. 

When I reached the village well, it looked like it was one of the men of this party sitting there all by himself. I hesitated, but I did need to get water. As I approached the well, the man spoke to me, a Samaritan and a woman at that. He asked me for a drink. Initially, I wasn't sure whether this was some kind of trap and whether I should even answer him. I busied myself with setting my jug down and proceeding to let the bucket down into the well to fetch my water. The man didn't say anything more, but as I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye, I saw that he indeed looked tired and  likely thirsty too. Then his eyes met mine, and what I saw there, what I felt, was a strange sense that this was not someone I needed to be afraid of or be upset with for basically breaking a social taboo in our area.

I steadied myself, looked at him and asked "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria? "I was expecting some kind of simple answer, such as that he was just thirsty. However, what he said came out of the blue. At first it didn't seem to make sense and I wondered where this was going to go.

The man had said that if I knew the gift of God and who it was that was talking to me, asking for a drink, I would've asked him and he would've given me living water. That didn't make any sense to me so I decided to stick with what I knew, the practical, and said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep." Then I decided to tackle his actual words and continued, "Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?" I thought by invoking the name of our common ancestor, Jacob, I might draw out of him something about how he as a Jew could engage in this conversation with me as a Samaritan woman.

The man's response was still strange. He said, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give them will be a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

I didn't really understand anything he was saying, but I continued to play along with him and responded, "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

What the man then said was even more strange. Now I really did not know what he was getting at or how to respond. Perhaps he realized he was getting in too deep with talking to a woman. He asked me to go and call my husband and come back. Typical man; he probably felt safer talking to another man. But why was he so interested in continuing this conversation in the first place?

That kind of put me on the spot, but I decided to tell him the truth and see where that would lead. I said, "I have no husband."

What this stranger said in response to that really caught me off guard. He said "You are right in saying, I have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true! "At first I thought, has this man been to our village before? Is this why he knows this about me? But that seemed preposterous. But he knew the truth from somewhere. Now some of the things he said about him having water, giving me living water etc. began to make me feel that he might be saying something that I had not yet caught on to. Going on a hunch that came from - I’m not sure where! - I said to him, "Sir, I see that you are a prophet." Then, for some reason, maybe I was beginning not to make sense – I'm often curious and looking for answers about things though – I asked him a question that I thought a prophet would give a good answer to. I said "Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."

He replied, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and in truth, for the father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

I could have got a little upset with his negative comment about our worship. I wasn't sure what he meant by that because I believe we worship the same God that the Jews do. And all this talk about the father was strange. I had no clue whom he was referring to until he mentioned God, and I kind of put it together that he was referring to God as the father. That was something I had never heard before. I really began to wonder who he was and how someone who seemed to be so knowledgeable, a prophet as I had wondered, had ended up in our village. I decided to go deeper. I said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming. When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us." I expected him to agree to that. We do share some same understandings of who the Messiah is and what his purpose is when he comes, according to all of our prophecies.

What this man said next left me absolutely speechless though. He simply said "I am he, the one who is speaking to you." I felt my head spinning. I didn't know what to say. Me, a Samaritan woman, talking to the Messiah. Either this guy was a crazy impostor, or he was the real deal. If he was the last, where did that leave me? Fortunately, that group of ragtag men whom I had encountered on my way to the well returned at that moment. They had caught the tail end of our conversation and seemed to be unsure of where to step in. I could see that they had managed to get some food. Good for them I thought. I just figured I had to get somebody from the village to come with me and talk to this man and see if they understood what he was saying or if he sounded just as crazy to them as to me. In my confused state, I hadn't realized until I was well on the road running into town that I had left my jug there. Never mind, I thought, I am going back. He had told me to come back with my husband.

I went home first and persuaded my partner to come out with me. When I explained the situation to him, telling him that this man had told me things about my life that he could not have possibly humanly known, his ears perked up and he said he would also get a couple of friends of his to come along to see what they thought.

When we reached this man and his companions at the well, the men were sharing some of the food that the group had purchased. It seemed that this man was waiting for us though. When he saw us coming, he gestured to his companions to stay back while he leaned forward to face us. Between what he said and our questions to him, we were indeed convinced, unbelievable as it may seem, that we were talking with the real Messiah. In the end, we asked if he could stay longer and tell us more of the good news he seemed to bring. The group agreed and we actually hosted these Jews for a couple of days. Word spread quickly in the village and many came to meet him and listen to what we had to say. To begin with, they could hardly doubt our word. However, by the time they had met and talked to him personally, they said to us that they also believed that this man was the Messiah because they had heard for themselves what he said. His ultimate message to us, something that he said was for us as well as for the Jews, indeed the whole world, was that he had come to be the saviour of the world. This was a message we all were interested in and wanted to hear more of. Our world certainly needed saving, there was no doubt about that. We were all becoming convinced that we were being saved, regardless of where our world was at. We could start with that. As I said, it was a life-changing conversation I had gotten into at the well that day. Life has not been the same since.