Gordon Lightfoot’s Biggest Hit Is A Top 40 Smash Once More
FORBES mag.
Hugh McIntyre Feb 6, 2025,
Senior Contributor
Hugh McIntyre covers music, with a focus on the global charts.
Years after his passing, Gordon Lightfoot remains a legend in his home country of Canada. His music spread beyond just that northern nation during his career, and he found great success in a number of English-speaking territories, though nowhere was he more popular than on his home turf.
The singer-songwriter’s biggest hit is back on the charts in one country that adored him during his initial commercial heyday, one which shows how far his work reached. Lightfoot’s "If You Could Read My Mind" returns to a pair of tallies in the U.K. this week, even managing to crack the top 40 on both of them at the same time.
"If You Could Read My Mind" hits No. 29 on the Official Singles Downloads chart. The smash nearly matches that performance on the Official Single Sales list, where it’s back at No. 31.
Those positions aren’t far from the tune’s all-time peaks on both of those rankings. "If You Could Read My Mind" topped out at No. 23 on the list of the most-downloaded tracks throughout the U.K. and just one space lower than that on the ranking of the bestselling tunes of any style and via any format in the country. Lightfoot's hit has racked up just six days on both of those charts throughout its lifetime.
While the tune might be decades old, it only reached the rankings within the past few years, and its performance on the tallies is unusual. Those six weeks spent on both the sales and downloads charts have been spread across four years. "If You Could Read My Mind" debuted on both of them in 2022, spending two turns on the lists. It doubled that sum in 2023 with another pair of stays. So far, Lightfoot’s breakout hit has racked up just one frame in both 2024 and 2025. The new year has just started, though, so there's every chance that it could continue to add to its growing sum throughout the next several months.
"If You Could Read My Mind" earned Lightfoot his first hit in the U.K. in 1971 when it debuted on the main list of the most popular songs throughout the nation. Within that decade, he'd collect two more top 40 hits with both "Sundown" and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," while "Daylight Katy" almost entered that special region as well.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmci...ash-once-more/
FORBES MAG.Feb.2025
