Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for May 23, 2023

I did like the Edmund Fitzgerald but I think the wife didn’t care for the way he sang Detroit.

When the gales of November came early

“Speaking of Canadian singer-songwriters”? Were they? That’s sort of a weird conversation they somehow started up.

“Sundown” and “Early Morning Rain” are two I particularly like. But, then he was a very prolific writer.

No place for one maritime disaster?

There’s got to be a morning after, and my heart will go on.

Saw him a few years ago. A fairly small room, we were seated right next to the stage. Sat my beer on the stage.

“If you could read my mind” and “Edmund Fitzgerald” are my favorites. I loved him and Anne Murray, both from Canada. And Celine Dion, who doesn’t love “My Heart Will Go On”? It’s one of my favorite songs of all time.

My favorite is Song for a Winter’s Night.

Canadian Railroad Trilogy. I first heard it in a folk club in England nearly fifty years ago.

“Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”

Janis seems miffed that Arlo changed the subject from romance to wreck so perhaps Arlo could follow up with:

She’s been looking like a queen in a sailor’s dream

And she don’t always say what she really means

I easily recall my own recent conversations about Listen to the Hummingbird, Hallelujah, and Leonard Cohen.

Are the Great Lakes “maritime”?

“Edmund Fitzgerald” is the only piece of music I know of with just one musical phrase—it just repeats, over and over, ending in a single high note or a single low note—even the instrumental bridge . .

Our favorite Gordon Lightfoot song by far. After we’d been dating a while it hit me that THAT was “our song”, LOL since I thought of him every time I heard it and I still do. We even have a print of the Fitz in our living room.

TWO maritine disasters Arlo. On the “Sunday Concert” live album, he sings of the Ballad Of The Yarmouth Castle"

When it’s time to break up a party, put on The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Works great.

And a wave hit the ship and they all drown like rats and their lungs filled up with lake water..

There’s also Burton C. of the Guess Who.

I’ve seen a few articles since Gordon’s death about his best songs, and “Beautiful” was notably (for me) absent from all of them. I’m with Janis in loving that song. But I like “Edmund Fitzgerald” as well.

At least no one has mentioned Rush, not my favorite rock band ….

Arlo should visit the Shipwreck Museum in Paradise, Michigan. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is on a continuous loop. I don’t know how the employees stand it.

“But my life, my love, and my lady… is the sea.”

BTO

Suddenly they have become boring!

Gordon Lightfoot will definitely be missed, along with Leonard Cohen who passed a while back. I think I’ll play “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “Hallelujah” later on today.

My intro to Lightfoot was Black Day in July .

time and songs move ever on until both fade in the mist of yesterday’s memories

“I’m afraid it’s going to be like this from now on.”

Joseph Heller wrote “Closing Time” about the passing of the World War II generation. Now, we Boomers are facing our own closing time.

Edmond Fitzgerald was always a favorite, along with Sundown…..

We saw Gordon in concert just a few months before his passing. Time had taken a toll on his voice, but it couldn’t touch his spirit. For my money, one of his greatest songs is also one of his least noticed: “Wherefores and Whys.” You can check it out on YouTube, but be careful: they get the title slightly wrong.

Canadian Railroad Trilogy! Song for a Winters Night! Softly She Comes!The list just goes on and on. The song Beautiful was the inspiration for my decades long love affair with the acoustic guitar. He was a treasure for sure!Bob Dylan said of Gordon’s music, “I can’t think of any Gordon Lightfoot song I don’t like, Every song of his, it’s like I wish it would go on forever.” RIP

The bell rang thirty times for Gordon Lightfoot…

Don’t forget the maritime disaster song from Gilligan’s Island.

I like Don Quixote. …and many others.

I saw Lightfoot in concert twice…truly enjoyed both times

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald has haunted me from the first time I heard the song.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald is a memorial song to those men lost when the ship went down. I dearly love that one. So beautiful.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=%23&ved=2ahUKEwjK2ZiL4ov_AhUHfDABHbgDDEcQ8TV6BAgWEAI&usg=AOvVaw0VTJzWxrN8ZFOD4xbU2nov

BBYMRLCCOTNYouTube·Jan 16, 2010

Carefree Highway.

I think the ship was discovered a year or two from the release date of the song.

He was such a masterful storyteller there are too many songs to choose as a favorite.  I find it hard to choose but I guess one does stand out to me among all the others… Affair on 8th Avenue.  The lyrics could be made into a movie.

The perfume that she wore was 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

And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night

Her long flowing hair came softly undone

And it lay all around

And she brushed it down as I stood by her side

In the warmth of her love…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCCsk9BXGi0

“The mother of a miner’s child/Waits for me beside the kitchen door.” For me, possibly the most perfect song ever written.

Pussywillows, cattails, soft winds and roses….

Everybody knows the hits. But Don Quixote, The Watchman’s Gone, The Patriot’s Dream, Beautiful, Carefree Highway, etc.etc.etc. Gord was terrific.

Get obscure and go Stan Rodgers with The Athens Queen.

I LOVE ‘Fitzgerald’ ….. sooo haunting.

Don’t forget Paul Anka. He had a few hits as they say.

I loved Gordon Lightfoot but I couldn’t stand Edmund Fitzgerald. They kept playing it over and over and over and over and over I got so sick of it. I don’t know how he kept playing it in concert. I don’t know how any artist keeps playing songs over and over. I guess they just think of pleasing their audience.

“That’s What You Get For Loving Me….”

Gordon Lightfoot was great. RIP.

I saw him in concert in the early 1970s at what is now called David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. My “house plan” (sort of sorority) at college would have a monthly contest and I tended to win a lot of them (so many, I stopped saying I won when I had all the questions answered) and I won tickets to his concert. Since I had not yet started dating my husband I went with my younger sister (by 5 years) – she has no memory of going to the concert.

It was our first concert without our parents -it was a wonderful concert.