Did we miss this, or do I just not see it here on Corfid? (Sorry if it's a duplicate)
More birthday wishes & responses to the question can be found at the CBC link below.
What Should Gordon Lightfoot Be Writing About Today?
Posted by Radio 2 Morning on November 14, 2008 at 08:20 AM
http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/r2morning/2...ot_b.html#more
Gordon Lightfoot is Canada's Troubadour. He's used song form to document the events that have shaped our lives, and others that might have been long forgotten, were it not for him. There's Canadian Railroad Trilogy, documenting the rails, the economy and the (ok, sometimes fragile) political agreement that links us together. Black Day in July stands tall as one of the only songs to mark the Detroit race riots of 1967. While the rest of Canada was frolicking at Expo in Montreal, Gord showed us there were other things to think about. There's Ballad of Yarmouth Castle, about the disastrous cruise ship fire in 1965 that took 90 lives, and, always, the song that sails on and on,- The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Gordon Lightfoot turns 70 today (born November 17, 1938). His last album came 4 years ago, 2004's Harmony. It was an album that sprang from events much closer to home: In 2002, Lightfoot suffered an abdominal hemmorhage, fell into a coma, and very nearly died. The experience had a clarifying effect, as I'm told it usually does. When he came through, his priorities were very clear: he wanted to make more music.
So, on his 70th birthday, we're asking you to ask him to get back to what he does best...
The past few years have given us, for better or for worse, so, so, so many things a writer like him could put into song. Which should he choose? The financial crisis, 9/11, Enron? What about an oil song - oil patch, oil princes, oil prices...
Or he could just go to the heart of the matter and record a whole album of songs about political leaders. One set for America - Bush, Gore, Palin, Obama... and the other back home: Stephen Harper, Mike Harris or Gordon Campbell, and a trilogy for Chretien: one for his fight with Paul Martin, one for the time Aline clobbered a burglar with a statue, and the wrap up about the time he strangled a protester in the floppy hemp hat.
And that's just the beginning.
What do you think? Tell us here. We'll bundle up the suggestions at the end of the week and send them on to the man in question as a slightly late birthday gift, with our love, our encouragement and our wildest hopes to see our names on the album credits a few years from now.
What should Gordon LIghtfoot be writing about today?