History Music / GordonLightfoot

** Go-Go Round is a peppy, energetic pop song about a lonely go-go dancer pining for the musician she fell in love with who either has moved on or is touring with a band and isn't thinking about her.

* BreakupSong: "If You Could Read My Mind"

* BadassBeard: He sported one for much of the '70s.

* ''Lightfoot!'' (1966)

* ''Sit Down Young Stranger'' aka ''If You Could Read My Mind'' (1970)

* DistinctDoubleAlbum: ''Gord's Gold'', with the first LP containing re-recorded versions of songs he first recorded for United Artists and the second featuring original Reprise recordings including the hits "If You Could Read My Mind," "Sundown," "Carefree Highway," and "Rainy Day People" among others.

* LocationSong: Played with in "Carefree Highway". He saw a freeway exit sign for Carefree Highway, which goes to the town of Carefree, Arizona, and realized it would be a great title for a WanderlustSong. Played straight with Couchiching, about Lake Couchiching in central Ontario.

* EmbarrassingMiddleName: [[GenderBlenderName Meredith.]] [[SubvertedTrope However, he doesn't seem to mind.]]
* EpicRocking: "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" and "The Wreck of the ''Edmund Fitzgerald''" both extend past the six-minute mark.

* WallBanger: InUniverse in "If You Could Read my Mind." When the subject of the song reads a fantasy novel, TheHeroDies. They decide not to read it again because the ending is "just too hard to take."

* YourCheatingHeart: "Sundown".

* MoneyDearBoy: Lightfoot, in his own words, was "irate" about the label's plan to change the title of his album "Sit Down Young Stranger" (which was not selling) to "If You Could Read My Mind" after the latter single charted - even going so far as to fly out to LA to have the label explain themselves. They told him the name change was "the difference between x and 7x". Needless to say, the name was changed and he got his 7x.

* RippedFromTheHeadlines: "Black Day in July" (about the 1967 Detroit riots) and "The Wreck of the ''Edmund Fitzgerald''" (about a 1975 shipwreck on Lake Superior), both written and recorded shortly after the actual events happened. In the latter case, he literally drew most of song's details from a ''Newsweek'' article about the shipwreck.

* IWillWaitForYou: "Bitter Green" is about a woman who pines away waiting for her lover. He gets there after she dies.

The Ontario native first emerged in [[TheSixties the early 1960s]] as a writer of hit songs for other artists, including Music/PeterPaulAndMary ("Early Mornin' Rain", "For Lovin' Me") and Music/MartyRobbins ("Ribbon of Darkness"). His own debut single was released in 1962, and he began releasing albums in 1966, but his best-known hits came in TheSeventies, including "If You Could Read My Mind" (1970), "Sundown" (1974), "Carefree Highway" (1974), "Rainy Day People" (1975), and "The Wreck of the ''Edmund Fitzgerald''" (1976).

* TrainSong: "Canadian Railroad Triolgy", which was commissioned by the CBC for Canada's centennial in 1967. "Steel Rail Blues" also counts.

* LocationSong: Played with in "Carefree Highway". He saw a freeway exit sign for Carefree Highway, which goes to the town of Carefree, Arizona, and realized it would be a great title for a WanderlustSong.

* TrainSong: "Canadian Railroad Triolgy", which was commissioned by the Canadian Pacific Railroad for Canada's centennial in 1967. "Steel Rail Blues" also counts.

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot, Jr. (born November 17, 1938), [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever CC, OOnt]], is one of the best, and best-known, folk-rock {{Singer Songwriter}}s to come out of UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: His first singles for Chateau Records were standard early 60s pop, with Lightfoot later confessing that they sounded like they could've been done by Pat Boone.

Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938), CC, [=OOnt=], is one of the best, and best-known, folk-rock {{Singer Songwriter}}s to come out of UsefulNotes/{{Canada}}.