The lyrics that ruined Gordon Lightfoot’s greatest song: “I stopped singing it”
The beautiful thing about folk music is how much it can be a reflection both of the person who wrote those lyrics and the world in which they were written.
Bruce Springsteen admitted that he was a huge fan of Bob Dylan because he felt as though he was able to hold up a mirror to the America that he lived in – nobody had ever made music which was such an accurate reflection of the world that Bruce Springsteen knew, and he felt inspired by how Dylan was able to inject honesty into his words.
“I was very influenced by Dylan,” said Springsteen. “I always say he’s the father of my country. He initially provided me with a picture of a country that I recognised. One that feels real, feels like the truth.”
So, Bob Dylan might have been Bruce Springsteen’s hero, but what musicians did he look up to? – Well, the majority of them are long dead, as they were making music long before Dylan had even picked up a guitar, but one of his musical counterparts that he was a big fan of was Gordon Lightfoot, a musician who channelled similar ideals to Dylan when it came to writing lyrics. “Every time I hear a song of his,” said Dylan, “it’s like I wish it would last forever.”
Lightfoot was also someone who liked to use his music in a bid to reflect what was happening in the world around him. This meant that he looked deep inside himself and put together songs that were a reflection of how he felt. A lot of the time, the feelings he had were those of isolation. He always wanted to be a songwriter, and so the moment a record label came along and offered him work, of course, he accepted, but the result was a lot of work and not enough time to do it. Any kind of social or romantic life was cast aside in the pursuit of his art.
“One of my exes was out with her girlfriends; they were out bar hopping. I was left at home to write songs. I was on a roll,” he said when talking about writing the track ‘Sundown’. “I was under contract to a record company [Warner Reprise], and I wanted to produce, and that’s what I did. I just kept working at it. I made sacrifices. The isolation of it all managed to destroy a couple of my [marriages].”
That theme of loneliness is present throughout quite a lot of Lightfoot’s music, even when it didn’t necessarily apply. It’s interesting, even when the musician was married, he wrote songs that spoke about being heartless and not wanting to commit to anyone. This is the theme that surrounds the track ‘For Lovin’ Me’, where the folk musician sings as if women should just enjoy the time they’re with him because it won’t last long.
The lyrics are: “That’s what you get for lovin’ me. I ain’t the kind to hang around, with any new love that I found, ‘cause movin’ is my stock in trade, I’m movin’on. I won’t think of you when I’m gone.” When reminiscing on the track, Lightfoot didn’t hold back in saying how much the lyrics completely ruined it. “Oh my goodness, yeah,” he noted. “That’s a bad one.”
When elaborating on why he didn’t like the track, Lightfoot admitted that his thoughts must have been somewhat clouded. He doesn’t understand why he wrote it and absolutely hated performing it, so much so that it was removed from setlists and retired for good.
“I was married at the time, and it was a damn poor song to write when you’re married to somebody,” he said. “I learned a lesson from that, because after I sang that song for a while, I asked myself, ‘What am I saying?!’”
Concluding, “Even long after I was divorced and separated and she’d gone her way and I’d gone mine, I would sing this song and think, ‘Geez. How did you she ever put up with this?!’ I stopped singing it.”
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