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When I was growing up, Gordon Lightfoot’s songs were played on the living room stereo, on the radio in the kitchen and in the family car and on my father’s guitar over and over until the Canadian singer-songwriter, who died in a Toronto hospital. is at 84, lives with us.
[Read: Gordon Lightfoot, Hitmaking Singer-Songwriter, Is Dead at 84]
I spoke this week with my mother and father, who are 82, about the musicians who create the soundtrack to our lives. My father remembers the first time he saw Lightfoot, who had made a name for himself in 1965 on the folk music scene in Toronto. He was almost always at the union hall in Hamilton, a few years before I was born. Lightfoot was part of the family before me.
At the start of his 1966 debut record – “Lightfoot!” – live on the turntable of our mahogany stereo console that takes up almost as much space as the chair, but is a far more important piece of furniture.
As his popularity grew in the 1960s and ’70s, Lightfoot became prolific, releasing albums every year, and they piled up at our place, leaning against the stereo and within easy reach. All covers feature Lightfoot, sensitive and brooding. The good looks of the 1970s were lost on the younger me. But Lightfoot was an artist my parents could agree to play anytime at any volume. Saturday night. Sunday morning. Home alone. With a house full of company. It’s always Lightfoot.
My dad learned to play the entire catalog by ear on an acoustic six string.
Nature and the wilderness are Lightfoot’s main themes, as they were for my mother and father and for me and my brother. The sense of place made me curious about Canada beyond my own backyard. Some political songs – notably “Black Day in July,” about the Detroit race riots of 1967 – sparked a fascination with the United States.
“Canadian Railroad Trilogy,” a panoramic suite that tells the story of Canada’s founding in 1867, is a history class set to music. Lightfoot wrote a perfect three-minute ballad and a seven-minute narrative, which American musician Steve Earle, in the wonderful 2019 documentary “If You Could Read My Mind” called “a story song.”
[Read: Gordon Lightfoot’s 10 Essential Songs]
Gordon Lightfoot’s album is packed with intrigue: songs about trains, shipwrecks, forests, lakes and rivers, with an undercurrent of mysterious and irresistible melancholy for an introverted boy who spends his time reading and writing.
I love the melodic guitar and the gentle baritone. But his simple, concise songs are a master class in narrative storytelling and wordcraft. Lightfoot’s songs, precise and profound, read like poetry and unfold like a three-act play.
Everyone rightfully respects “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” but as a child I loved “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle,” which tells the story of a steamship that caught fire and sank in Nassau, Bahamas, in 1965. On the 1969 live album. “Sunday Concert,” a moody and haunting song that inspires and frightens, and still does.
Innocently spoken imagery mixed with unknown emotions, Lightfoot’s introspection made me myself.
Canada lost something of its own this week. I read almost 1,400 comments (at the time of this writing) that readers left on the Times obituary, and related to all of them.
“It’s so emotional, so deep in a young, searching person,” Tim Snapp of Chico, California, wrote about Lightfoot’s music.
“All my life, Gordon Lightfoot’s songs have been a constant anchor to my sadness,” wrote Rick Vitale, a retired mathematician from Wallingford, Conn.
My father is forever analog, but for Christmas in 2005, I gave him and my mother iPod Minis, loaded with hundreds of favorite songs and artists, and songs I thought they would like. The lineup on each iPod is different, except for Lightfoot’s complete discography, which is on both sides.
My mom has moved on to streaming and satellite radio. My dad still listens to his old iPod when he sleeps. The battery has not been charged for years. It stays plugged into the wall outlet.
On Tuesday, my dad said he was going to play some Lightfoot songs that evening on his guitar, the vintage El Degas red sunburst model he’s playing now.
Play one for me, I said.
Lightfoot’s hits – celebrated in a playlist published this week – are brilliant and timeless, but the deeper pieces become more frequent. Here are 26 songs I appreciated this week.
This week’s Trans Canada piece was written by Vjosa Isai, a journalist-researcher in Toronto.
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Often called the “Godfather of AI,” Geoffrey Hinton, a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto, said he quit his job at Google to join a growing body of critics who warn of the dangers of the technology. (Use this gift link to read the article without a subscription.)
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The Times will have live coverage of the coronation of King Charles III in London. The king is Canada’s head of state, but like some other British Commonwealth countries, support for the crown is waning in the country.
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The union representing federal public service workers reached a deal on Thursday to end the strike.
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Sophie Nélisse, the Canadian actress who played the teenage version of Shauna in “Yellow Jacket,” spoke to The Times about the challenging performance. Warning: The article contains spoilers.
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Chasers of northern lights sightings may be busier than usual over the next two years.
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“Queens of the Qing Dynasty,” a new film by Ashley McKenzie, a director from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, is a NYT Critics’ Choice.
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Bruce McCall, the Simcoe, Ontario-born satirist whose illustrations appeared on the cover of the New Yorker, has died. He is 87 years old.
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Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky published a new book called “African Studies,” focusing on the sub-Saharan region of the continent.
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Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron ended his 19-year career with a tearful farewell to fans, writes David Waldstein. But will he retire from the NHL?
Originally from Ancaster, Ontario, Shawna Richer lives in Toronto and is an assistant sports editor for The New York Times. He has spent more than 25 years as a sports reporter in Canada and is the author of “The Kid: A Season With Sidney Crosby and the New NHL”
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