Music Ranking

These were all good songs, but felt disconnected (No kidding). Gordon Lightfoot has range. From slower, more atmospheric tracks to more upbeat ones, they all sound good. His voice reminds me of Bob Dylan’s but deeper. Really solid. 

8.4/10

Album Art Ranking

Uninteresting.

3/10

Music Ranking

Every song on this album is a 10/10.

This is the only ‘Greatest Hits’ compilation on our list and the only one we have decided to ever review, but that is fine because I think Gordon Lightfoot is among the greatest songwriters of all time and certainly the best Canadian songwriter/storyteller I know of. 

Every song on this album tells an incredible story.

The Canadian Railroad Trilogy tells such a beautiful story of Canada and the railroad. I love how in a song he acknowledges that Canada has a first people, “Long before the white man and long before the wheel

When the green dark forest was too silent to be real”. You can hear the driving acoustic guitar chords give the sense of the turning train wheels. He honours the navvies acknowledging the people who gave their lives, lived in shanty towns and built our nation. It is just a masterpiece.

I also love that he was not afraid to make himself the villain in his songs. Such as in “If you could read my Mind”. This is an incredibly honest song. In this song he layers the lyrics with literary references: Jacob Marley’s ghost in chains, a harlequin romance novel with heartache where he places himself as the villain acknowledging that the end is too hard to take (and at his expense). The song is one of regret and pain and accepting responsibility for events that he can’t change and wishes never happened.  Rather than blaming someone else, he accepts responsibility for a relationship that has fallen apart. It is a song filled with regret, longing, and the painful recognition that some things cannot be undone.

In the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Lightfoot  opens by referring to Lake Superior as Gitche Gumee, the lake's Indigenous name popularized through Longfellow's adaptation of Ojibwe tradition (or at least that is my understanding). I love that he frames the tragedy within a landscape that existed long before modern Canada. The song isn't simply about a shipwreck, it is about the indifference of the lake itself to the human activity upon it. 

Gordon Lightfoot is, in my opinion, the greatest songwriter of all time, and that is a hill I will die on. 

10/10 

Album Art Ranking

The album feels bare to me.  In a vulnerable and gentle way. I like it but I will admit that it lacks a wow factor that many album covers pull off. 

7.8/10