On this night last year I had just learned that the Minstrel of the Dawn, Gordon Lightfoot, had moved down that Carefree Highway.
To say he was a musical influence on me is to say far too little. From Cotton Jenny to Rainy Day People, his music was the first I learned to play and mimic on the guitar, and I spun his tunes religiously throughout college as if he, Jim Croce, and Kenny Loggins were the only artists I knew.
I am the proud owner of almost every one of his albums, most on vinyl, and can sing most by heart front to back, anticipating the next song.
His voice was backwater silk. His lyrics were the best kind: complete stories in each song.
But what I was most impressed with was his humanity. He was not a perfect person. Who is? But even some of his songs, like Sundown and That’s What You Get for Lovin’ Me, he didn’t like to sing anymore in these last years because they brought up shameful memories for him. Even though they made him millions and were covered by everyone and their mother, for him they were past markers of mistakes, and he didn’t want to live there forever.
Who would?
I loved that about him.
Like that old ship he iconically sang into our memories when he gave homage to the Edmund Fitzgerald, teaching so many of us about a maritime sailing disaster that would have been lost to history books without him, his music and soul sings on as the vinyls keep spinning his masterful melodies.
We’ll continue to sound Old Dan’s Records.
Or as we call them, Gordo’s Gold.
I guess I’ll end by singing along with what I imagined him saying in those last breaths,
“From my head down to my shoes, carefree highway, let me slip away…slip away on you.”
Reluctant Xtian 