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charlene · 10-13-2009, 07:40 AM

http://mog.com/billforeman/blog/1525223

billforeman
Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway"
Posted 4 days ago

Artist:Gordon LightfootAlbum:SundownTrack:Carefree Highway

I'm very aware that this is far from a creative choice when it comes to Gordon Lightfoot's music, but as much as I'd love to be hipper to things than I am, I'm not. My exposure to Lightfoot came as a kid, with my father's copy of Sundown. I know the big, popular tunes of his, and that's it.

So I'm as guilty as anyone else when I say that Gordon Lightfoot deserves a lot more attention than he gets. I've occasionally posted to my Facebook status something mentioning that I've just listened to one of his tunes, and everytime I have a bunch of people commenting or liking my status than if I'd made a brilliant observation of some sort. Clearly, people have very positive associations with his music, and positive associations are really the most important thing there is in music.

I have something of a feeling why he's mentioned less often than his work merits--it sounds on the surface very mid-'70's, and those of us who were kids at the time have mixed feelings, or ought to, about the period. The music industry really started its downhill slide in the era, as recording technology became increasingly sophisticated, refining the process away from the playing of music to the producing of it. Lightfoot's stuff sounds "produced," for sure. Note the guitar solo, which repeats more than once, basically note for note. I don't go for this kind of thing, generally, as someone ought to be able to improvise a guitar solo properly: it's just correct in my book.

Yet, I'm amazed. Something in me actually likes hearing the same guitar solo twice. Dylan flirted with a more "produced" sound here and there, and even with the best of those efforts, Infidels, even based solely on the best tunes, it really doesn't work. There's an unnaturalness to those Dylan records that's like a stain, wrecking a good shirt. This, on the other hand, is totally natural, in a way that's almost bizarre for someone like Lightfoot with such serious folkie/singer-songwriter credentials.

The thing that Gordon Lightfoot had and I'm very sure still has though I'm ashamed to say I didn't pick up his most recent record, Harmony, is an approach to song that conforms simultaneously to folkie and pop conventions. Of course he's capable of a more typically folk structure, as "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" amply demonstrates, but here his song is song-y in a pop way without being a pop song and nothing more. Significantly, "Carefree Highway" is light on actual narrative. One can glean some sort of story from it, but to do so requires itself a creative imagination. Take this:

Picking up the pieces of my sweet, shattered dreamI wonder where the old folks are tonightIt's a great start to a tune, but there's absolutely no causal link between the two lines. I wouldn't suggest that you can't find a couplet in the piece that's linked by more than just rhyme, but I would assert that the ideas of the tune are only loosely and thematically linked, rather than held together in a tight, narrative structure. At the same time, the entire piece is incredibly evocative of a sort of melancholic regret at roads not taken combined with a genuine sense of ease borne of a lack of attachments. Free and easy wandering, as Chuang Tzu wrote. Lightfoot keeps both emotions in balance, perfectly, I'd say, throughout, and this requires an absolute focus and grasp of the craft.

There are certainly much more writerly songwriters than Gordon Lightfoot, but I'd caution that it does violence to a form to apply another form's criteria. It's wrong to say that a sculptor lacks a painterly touch, wrong not as in incorrect, but wrong as there ought to be a law against it. Indeed, one should watch out for songwriting that boasts literary merit, because generally talk of the literary merit of a songwriter is inversely proportional to the quality of the writer's melody. While the best song lyrics stand with any written verse as art--please witness my piece on Skip James--there needs to be a reason that the writer chooses song as her or his medium rather than the printed page. That reason must be because the writer has an ear for a tune. It would be wrong to say that Lightfoot is all about melody, but everything with Lightfoot supports the melody, and it's his melodies that really put him among the top writers of song. His words give his melody a place to be, and in turn the melody ties the words together more tightly, as I noted above, than any narrative would, in this form.

10-13-2009, 07:40 AM	#1
charlene Moderator Join Date: May 2000 Posts: 16,001	Blog thoughts about Lightfoot and songwriting http://mog.com/billforeman/blog/1525223 billforeman Gordon Lightfoot, "Carefree Highway" Posted 4 days ago Artist:Gordon LightfootAlbum:SundownTrack:Carefree Highway I'm very aware that this is far from a creative choice when it comes to Gordon Lightfoot's music, but as much as I'd love to be hipper to things than I am, I'm not. My exposure to Lightfoot came as a kid, with my father's copy of Sundown. I know the big, popular tunes of his, and that's it. So I'm as guilty as anyone else when I say that Gordon Lightfoot deserves a lot more attention than he gets. I've occasionally posted to my Facebook status something mentioning that I've just listened to one of his tunes, and everytime I have a bunch of people commenting or liking my status than if I'd made a brilliant observation of some sort. Clearly, people have very positive associations with his music, and positive associations are really the most important thing there is in music. I have something of a feeling why he's mentioned less often than his work merits--it sounds on the surface very mid-'70's, and those of us who were kids at the time have mixed feelings, or ought to, about the period. The music industry really started its downhill slide in the era, as recording technology became increasingly sophisticated, refining the process away from the playing of music to the producing of it. Lightfoot's stuff sounds "produced," for sure. Note the guitar solo, which repeats more than once, basically note for note. I don't go for this kind of thing, generally, as someone ought to be able to improvise a guitar solo properly: it's just correct in my book. Yet, I'm amazed. Something in me actually likes hearing the same guitar solo twice. Dylan flirted with a more "produced" sound here and there, and even with the best of those efforts, Infidels, even based solely on the best tunes, it really doesn't work. There's an unnaturalness to those Dylan records that's like a stain, wrecking a good shirt. This, on the other hand, is totally natural, in a way that's almost bizarre for someone like Lightfoot with such serious folkie/singer-songwriter credentials. The thing that Gordon Lightfoot had and I'm very sure still has though I'm ashamed to say I didn't pick up his most recent record, Harmony, is an approach to song that conforms simultaneously to folkie and pop conventions. Of course he's capable of a more typically folk structure, as "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" amply demonstrates, but here his song is song-y in a pop way without being a pop song and nothing more. Significantly, "Carefree Highway" is light on actual narrative. One can glean some sort of story from it, but to do so requires itself a creative imagination. Take this: Picking up the pieces of my sweet, shattered dreamI wonder where the old folks are tonightIt's a great start to a tune, but there's absolutely no causal link between the two lines. I wouldn't suggest that you can't find a couplet in the piece that's linked by more than just rhyme, but I would assert that the ideas of the tune are only loosely and thematically linked, rather than held together in a tight, narrative structure. At the same time, the entire piece is incredibly evocative of a sort of melancholic regret at roads not taken combined with a genuine sense of ease borne of a lack of attachments. Free and easy wandering, as Chuang Tzu wrote. Lightfoot keeps both emotions in balance, perfectly, I'd say, throughout, and this requires an absolute focus and grasp of the craft. There are certainly much more writerly songwriters than Gordon Lightfoot, but I'd caution that it does violence to a form to apply another form's criteria. It's wrong to say that a sculptor lacks a painterly touch, wrong not as in incorrect, but wrong as there ought to be a law against it. Indeed, one should watch out for songwriting that boasts literary merit, because generally talk of the literary merit of a songwriter is inversely proportional to the quality of the writer's melody. While the best song lyrics stand with any written verse as art--please witness my piece on Skip James--there needs to be a reason that the writer chooses song as her or his medium rather than the printed page. That reason must be because the writer has an ear for a tune. It would be wrong to say that Lightfoot is all about melody, but everything with Lightfoot supports the melody, and it's his melodies that really put him among the top writers of song. His words give his melody a place to be, and in turn the melody ties the words together more tightly, as I noted above, than any narrative would, in this form.