Sundown

Farewell to one of the great voices of folk music

I learned Tuesday morning that Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot had passed away. He is one of those rare musicians I never get tired of listening to, even for a short time. His voice takes me back to a world I never knew, of trains, ships, smoky bars, and a bygone era. The best folks singers were also storytellers, a trait Lightfoot shares with another of my favorites, Tom T. Hall.

Perhaps his most recognizable song is “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, a retelling of the largest ship to ever sink in Lake Superior. I had a chance to visit the memorial for the crew of the Fitzgerald in Michigan on a road trip a few years ago, and the words of the song have taken on a deeper meaning ever since. Lightfoot viscerally conveys the courage of the sailors in a hopeless situation when he sings, “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?”

Lightfoot memorably shares the pain and regret of broken relationships in both “Sundown” and “If You Could Read My Mind” while celebrating simple love and loyalty in “Cotton Jenny”. He sang about the tragedy of war in “Summer Side of Life”, which would have evoked imagery of the Vietnam War when it was released in 1971, but usually makes me think of World War I.

“Daylight Katy” is a whimsical song about his cat, and some people (myself included) interpret “Bitter Green” to be about a loyal dog waiting patiently for her master who is never coming home.

I enjoy all his music, but I think my enduring favorite is “Canadian Railroad Trilogy”. This is an incredible song which describes the taming of the North American continent by the navvies, the men who built the railroads that eventually spanned the width of Canada, tying the nation together.

The story is told in three parts (hence the trilogy), beginning “long before the white man and long before the wheel, when the green dark forest was too silent to be real.”

Then “the railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring.” Lightfoot describes the vision of these brave men: “They looked in the future and what did they see? They saw an iron road runnin’ from the sea to the sea.” Yet life for these workers was not easy. “We are the navvies who who work upon the railway, swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun. Livin’ on stew and drinkin’ bad whiskey, bendin’ our backs ‘til the long days are done.” “Layin’ ‘em in and tyin’ ‘em down, away to the bunkhouse and into the town. A dollar a day and a place for my head, a drink to the livin’, a toast to the dead.”

Finally, the job is done, and the singer looks back at what was accomplished: “Oh, the song of the future has been sung, all the battles have been won. On the mountaintops we stand, all the world at our command. We have opened up this soil, with our teardrops and our toil.” It is a wonderful exultation of the accomplishments of our grandfathers, yet there is a sense of loss as well, as industrialization has erased an epoch of time that we will never experience again.

Thankfully, we are blessed with great folk singers like Gordon Lightfoot to help us remember.