Gordons song "If You Could Read My Mind" if anybody can give me detail to what this song means, and what it has to deal with i would appreciate it. I am doing a presentation on this song for a music class and any insight to its history would be helpful. Also why or who he wrote it for, but mostly what it has to do deal with soo if you could email me with your response. KineticSly@aol.com entitle the email Gordon Lightfoot. Thanks alot

I don't know if there is anyone in particular that Gord wrote the song for. A lot of women have come into and out of his life over the years. I think it has to do with love on two levels. One, the more subtle, those feelings that finding the "right one" brings that are difficult to express verbally. Most of us have entered into a relationship where feelings become very deep, and putting those feelings into words is a very difficult, if not impossible task. On a more raw level, those same emotions and feelings can have a more primitive aspect. Perhaps Gord was writing about physical or sexual thoughts that are as much a part of such a relationship. The line: "...what a tale my thoughts could tell"
say quite a bit in a very Lightfootesque understated way. If you pick apart some of the lyrics you can glean quite a few double meanings. For instance, "...when you reach the part where the heartaches come, the hero would be me" and "for now, love, let's be real..." he seems to be equating an emotional relationship to a play, where people are expected to fill pre-determined roles but to go above that and "be real". There is also a reference to "...enter, number two"...sounds like a stage direction in a play, dosen't it?
If you really look at it, this is a far more
complex song that what usually winds up in the Top 10 on the Billboard charts, huh?

I believe it's about the breakup of his first marriage. GL says of it in the little book that comes with the Songbook boxed set: "A song about the failure of marriage. No matter how much it stung, you had to keep on writing tunes.......It's about peace through acceptance."

Hi Kin,

This song was done around the same time he broke up with his first wife. I think we can assume from the lyrics that this is what it pertains to. Sometimes I think we listeners apply deeper meanings than the artist intended. It's an incredible song regardless.
But I think it's simply a song about a marriage breaking up done in such a way as to reveal the complexities of human relationships.

Yes, that's what's go great about being a fan..you can take an artistic work at "face value" or you can delve deeper. When people read George Orwell's "Animal Farm", some may see a fanciful story about animals running a farm, and others see a sweeping political
commentary, for example.