"First Time You Heard A Gordon Lightfoot Song"

[johnfowles]

I just found in the internet archives a very nice old thread that I wanted to resurrect and reply to but it ain't here apparently
However it is archived at:-
http://web.archive.org/web/200303260...ML/000024.html
There is a revealing posting by some unknown character calling himself Florian Bodenseher who replied the topic subject
(that I will re-use) "First Time You Heard A Gordon Lightfoot Song"
as follows:-
posted December 10, 1999 16:01:-
quote:
--------------------------------------------------
Can any of you remember the first time you ever heard a Gordon Lightfoot song? Which one was it? Do you remember what you were doing at the time?
--------------------------------------------------
Well, I guess I can only share some second-hand experience, since Gordon Lightfoot's music has been with be all my life (I'm 25 years old).

My parents lived in Toronto from the mid 60's to the mid 70's and in 1968 or 1969 my father was shopping in Eglington Square Shopping mall at the "Bay Company". He wanted to get some towels (as far as he remebers).

What he does remember is that he heard a song played through the shopping mall's sound system that immediately appealed to him, so he went to the DJ of the shopping mall asking him what song he had played a few minutes ago.

I'm sure you can guess who's song that was - in fact he had played "Softly".

To cut a long story short, my father went straight for the next record store, picked up all Gordon Lightfoot records available.

At the time it must have been "Lightfoot!" and "The Way I Feel" (including Softly).

If he actually bought the towels, I cannot tell you.

Ever since, my father has not lost contact with Gordon Lightfoot's music and has been purchasing every new album ever since.

As far as my personal memory goes, the first song I can actually remember having heard when I was very young is "Never Too Close". (That's the reason I chose this song as 'Song-Of-The-Month' for October.)

As you can see, I hardly had any choice but to become a devoted Gordon Lightfoot fan.
----------------------------------
by Florian
Copied and pasted by John Fowles
I have no idea why the topic does not come up I tried searching for the topic title and knowing that Florian's site revamp last year had resulted in a change of format for the topic addresses I tried the obvious link that should have worked:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...1;t=00024.html

but no I was told that I was lost!!

I have previously found old topics by using that format so maybe Florian has deleted it from the database??
pity as it was a nice topic
Sorry Florian I previously had no idea that you were so young (I actually met you briefly at Massey Hall that November or was it May 2001?
My memory ain't what it used to be!!!

[johnfowles]

I just found in the internet archives a very nice old thread that I wanted to resurrect and reply to but it ain't here apparently
However it is archived at:-
http://web.archive.org/web/200303260...ML/000024.html
There is a revealing posting by some unknown character calling himself Florian Bodenseher who replied the topic subject
(that I will re-use) "First Time You Heard A Gordon Lightfoot Song"
as follows:-
posted December 10, 1999 16:01:-
quote:
--------------------------------------------------
Can any of you remember the first time you ever heard a Gordon Lightfoot song? Which one was it? Do you remember what you were doing at the time?
--------------------------------------------------
Well, I guess I can only share some second-hand experience, since Gordon Lightfoot's music has been with be all my life (I'm 25 years old).

My parents lived in Toronto from the mid 60's to the mid 70's and in 1968 or 1969 my father was shopping in Eglington Square Shopping mall at the "Bay Company". He wanted to get some towels (as far as he remebers).

What he does remember is that he heard a song played through the shopping mall's sound system that immediately appealed to him, so he went to the DJ of the shopping mall asking him what song he had played a few minutes ago.

I'm sure you can guess who's song that was - in fact he had played "Softly".

To cut a long story short, my father went straight for the next record store, picked up all Gordon Lightfoot records available.

At the time it must have been "Lightfoot!" and "The Way I Feel" (including Softly).

If he actually bought the towels, I cannot tell you.

Ever since, my father has not lost contact with Gordon Lightfoot's music and has been purchasing every new album ever since.

As far as my personal memory goes, the first song I can actually remember having heard when I was very young is "Never Too Close". (That's the reason I chose this song as 'Song-Of-The-Month' for October.)

As you can see, I hardly had any choice but to become a devoted Gordon Lightfoot fan.
----------------------------------
by Florian
Copied and pasted by John Fowles
I have no idea why the topic does not come up I tried searching for the topic title and knowing that Florian's site revamp last year had resulted in a change of format for the topic addresses I tried the obvious link that should have worked:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...1;t=00024.html

but no I was told that I was lost!!

I have previously found old topics by using that format so maybe Florian has deleted it from the database??
pity as it was a nice topic
Sorry Florian I previously had no idea that you were so young (I actually met you briefly at Massey Hall that November or was it May 2001?
My memory ain't what it used to be!!!

This first time was about 3 years ago on a record of Tony Rice "Tony RICE sings Gordon Lightfoot"...and the song was "Song for a winter night". At the very first measures I knew i lved this music.
I don't know much more than the lines I can read around here, but I use to sing some songs on stage : Song for a winter night, Walls, Early Morning Rain, I'm not sayin'....

[Yves SAVARIAUD]

This first time was about 3 years ago on a record of Tony Rice "Tony RICE sings Gordon Lightfoot"...and the song was "Song for a winter night". At the very first measures I knew i lved this music.
I don't know much more than the lines I can read around here, but I use to sing some songs on stage : Song for a winter night, Walls, Early Morning Rain, I'm not sayin'....

[Borderstone]

Hey John. I went back to "thread 68" which is Oct. '99 to Jan. 2000 and found that it was indeed deleted (which I know you already knew.)

Were it still there it'd be between "The Unreleased Songs" topic by Florian 12/1/'99 and "Help w/Lyrics To "Why Should I Feel Blue?" by Gord Henwood 12/11/99.

That is a good topic and it does make you wonder about it's abscence. I also wonder about most of those early "posters" and why they left.

Nice retrieve though.

Wish I could find my early messages that I deleted like a nitwit!

Forgot to answer the question,I've stated it before but I'll just do it this one last time for those who are newer. It was the late spring of 1974,I was in my Mom & Dad's room listening to their clock radio.

I know which songs I heard back then at age 5-6 and Sundown was one of them. Didn't know who he or (really) any of the artists were at that age but I know I liked it,because I never forgot it. I just wish I could've been a fan then,in the '70s.

[ January 09, 2006, 21:28: Message edited by: Borderstone ]

[Boomer]

"Sundown" back in 1974. I was 15.

[TC]

"Sundown" back in 1974. I was 15.

[Sheryl]

I was 14 and at my brother's high school graduation in 1972. As the graduating class filed into the auditorium, they played "If You Could Read My Mind" on the loudspeaker. I was transfixed and felt as if my life were changed from that moment on.

[mercedes]

IFYCRMM as well ..... way back when it was first released, I remember asking my father what a drug store was .... his response ? "That's their equivalent of our chemists".

[Cathy]

IYCRMM was my first favorite, too, but I had heard songs off his UA albums from the time I was 8 or 10 years old, because my parents were Lightfoot fans. At that time, I thought he was an old, Al Martino type character, because that seemed to be the style of music Mom and Dad were into, so I didn't pay a lot of atttention. It was after seeing him on Canadian TV (oh yes, we do get that in Northern Maine), in the early '70s, sitting on a stool with a spotlight on him, singing IFYCRMM, that I realized he was a great singer, and also kind of cute. That started my long obsession with his music.

[johnfowles]

Abject apologies to all
I have just realised that having brought this topic back from the dead/discarded/deleted I omitted to contribute anything about my own experience.
in fact I have previously fully described how I got started at least once most recently lst August 2005 in Topic: First Lightfoot You Bought
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=003365#000015"
in which I confided that my first purchase was in fact the Lightfoot! album on the basis that from what I had heard so far this dude was worth the money for an album rather than a single.Sure was!!!:-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have said before here that I was mightily impressed by hearing Spin Spin and The First Time Ever I saw Your Face on Montreal radio in 1966 and according to a note on the vinyl album sleeve I bought Lightfoot! in April 1967 in Canada almost certainly it was the then cheaper monaural version.
Yes kiddies records were not always all stereo so initially the opportunist record companies were able to cheekily charge more for an identically costed stereo version. Whatever.I made the mistake of lending it to a young lady in our apartment block whose record player was fitted with a size 50 knitting needle witch comprehensively wrecked that copy.
a few years later (in 1979) back in the UK I was eventually able to replace it with a stereo "Early Lighfoot" UK issue.
And threw out the original disk but as I very much liked the original Canadian liner notes I contrived to convert the UK sleeve into a gatefold layout by sticking the original Canadian sleeve in two pieces to the insides of the opened out UK sleeve.Hence a while ago I could use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on my scanner image to capture the text of both the
Canadian and UK sleeve backs see this topic:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...=001699#000000
John Fowles
So to directly answer this topic's question I first heard "Spin Spin" whilst listening to Montreal radio station CJFM at about the time it was a Canadian top ten hit in 1966. At least my old memory thinks that I heard that single before the superlative TFTEISYF(ace)

[ January 11, 2006, 14:06: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[johnfowles]

Abject apologies to all
I have just realised that having brought this topic back from the dead/discarded/deleted I omitted to contribute anything about my own experience.
in fact I have previously fully described how I got started at least once most recently lst August 2005 in Topic: First Lightfoot You Bought
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=003365#000015"
in which I confided that my first purchase was in fact the Lightfoot! album on the basis that from what I had heard so far this dude was worth the money for an album rather than a single.Sure was!!!:-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have said before here that I was mightily impressed by hearing Spin Spin and The First Time Ever I saw Your Face on Montreal radio in 1966 and according to a note on the vinyl album sleeve I bought Lightfoot! in April 1967 in Canada almost certainly it was the then cheaper monaural version.
Yes kiddies records were not always all stereo so initially the opportunist record companies were able to cheekily charge more for an identically costed stereo version. Whatever.I made the mistake of lending it to a young lady in our apartment block whose record player was fitted with a size 50 knitting needle witch comprehensively wrecked that copy.
a few years later (in 1979) back in the UK I was eventually able to replace it with a stereo "Early Lighfoot" UK issue.
And threw out the original disk but as I very much liked the original Canadian liner notes I contrived to convert the UK sleeve into a gatefold layout by sticking the original Canadian sleeve in two pieces to the insides of the opened out UK sleeve.Hence a while ago I could use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on my scanner image to capture the text of both the
Canadian and UK sleeve backs see this topic:-
http://www.corfid.com/ubb/ultimatebb...=001699#000000
John Fowles
So to directly answer this topic's question I first heard "Spin Spin" whilst listening to Montreal radio station CJFM at about the time it was a Canadian top ten hit in 1966. At least my old memory thinks that I heard that single before the superlative TFTEISYF(ace)

[ January 11, 2006, 14:06: Message edited by: johnfowles ]

[ELizabeth]

My brother gave me a Peter,Paul and Mary LP. This particular LP had a song on it called "Early Morning Rain". I loved that song from the first time I heard it and it is still my all-time favorite song. At the time I was living in Panama and had access to several military commissaries. In one of them I found 'The Way I Feel' and that was the beginning of my love of GL music.

[mnmouse]

The first time I really heard Gordon Lightfoot’s music I was 15 years old….and had met an “older man”. (He was all of 17!) He lived in a small town on the north shore of Lake Superior, and invited me to a snowmobile party. I drove up with my older brother and a friend of his, and after a cold wintry day outside (the temps were at or below zero) we spent an evening around the woodstove, all talking and laughing and listening to music. As the evening ran down, he put on Gord’s “Sundown” album, and from the first few lines of “Somewhere USA”, I was mesmerized. Seeing the stars in my eyes, he followed that one up with “If You Could Read My Mind”, and it clicked...oh, it’s HIM! I'm still not sure if I was more in love with Gord’s music at that point, or the young man who introduced me to the whole of his work...all I know is that he sent me home with a cassette tape of Gord’s music, and I played it until I literally wore it out. Forever after in my heart, there are some Gord tunes that will always be connected with fine memories of friends, family, and laughter; chilly winter days and warm wood fires; and the kind of love only a young and restless teenager can feel.

[Iron]

"Sundown",I was a fishin at a small family gathering....etc. It was that so familiar bass line that actually got my attention at first,the rest is history...bum bum,ba bum ba ba ba bum bum

[talbot10]

Originally posted by mnmouse:
The first time I really heard Gordon Lightfoot’s music I was 15 years old….and had met an “older man”. (He was all of 17!) He lived in a small town on the north shore of Lake Superior, and invited me to a snowmobile party. I drove up with my older brother and a friend of his, and after a cold wintry day outside (the temps were at or below zero) we spent an evening around the woodstove, all talking and laughing and listening to music. As the evening ran down, he put on Gord’s “Sundown” album, and from the
first few lines of “Somewhere USA”, I was mesmerized. Seeing the stars in my eyes, he followed that one up with “If You Could Read My Mind”, and it clicked...oh, it’s HIM! I'm still not sure if I was more in love with Gord’s music at that point, or the young man who introduced me to the whole of his work...all I know is that he sent me home with a cassette tape of Gord’s music, and I played it until I literally wore it out. Forever after in my heart, there are some Gord tunes that will always be connected with fine memories of friends, family, and laughter; chilly winter days and warm wood fires; and the kind of love only a young and restless teenager can feel.

A wonderful story Sharron. Beautifully described! I wish my first Gord encounter was as nice but in reality I was carting furniture around in a summer job and the warehouse radio played "Wherefore and Why". I was really hooked. I never heard anything like it at the time.

bill

[mnmouse]

Ah, but the point is, Bill...you still remember it! Really good music can grab you anywhere, anytime, and become a part of you. That's just part of the magic, right?

[SilverHeels]

He was in London, for some tv. and I was working the summer hols at the agency which managed his London appearances. I'd never heard of Gordon Lightfoot. Then one afternoon, I opened the door and fell over the carpet, right into his arms. That was my introduction to Gordon Lightfoot! Didnt much matter what he sang, I guess but I think it was 'Circle is Small' Been hooked ever since. :D

[jeffyjo]

Actually, I'm a HUGE Elvis fan, and I really like his version of For Lovin' Me. I also like to listen to the people who influenced Elvis, the original versions of cover songs he did, etc. And then, when we were in the car together, my father started telling me "this really long song... The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald"... that's by the same guy who wrote that Elvis song you like..."

I figured that, based on those two songs, it merited a further investigation. So I checked a copy of Gord's Gold II out from my library, and made a CD-R for myself at home. I listened and listened, and I liked it enough to buy more items, even though I thought the voice sounded weaker than what I heard on the radio.

So then, I bought Sundown. After digesting that, especially two of the best songs ever written (The Watchman's Gone and Seven Island Suite), I became hooked. And now, a couple of years later, I have all the officially released studio albums. And Songbook. And Gord has become one of my favorites.

Jeff

[Sydney Steve]

I am sure I heard songs of Gord's earlier, but the song that really made me sit up,take notice and say to myself "this is startling - I need to hear more of this person's work " was " The Wreck....". It was not a hit in Australia but I heard it in passing on the radio and it floored me.
That song efectively led me 20 odd years later to this site , and to make friends with people from the other side of the world. The music is spectacular. The old stagers here knew and told me I would be impressed with his work that I hadn't yet heard. They were of course spot on.
The friends I have made are pretty cool too.
Crikey I am nearly making myself vomit with all this lovey touchy feely crap :D

[SilverHeels]

Originally posted by Sydney Steve:
I am sure I heard songs of Gord's earlier, but the song that really made me sit up,take notice and say to myself "this is startling - I need to hear more of this person's work " was " The Wreck....". It was not a hit in Australia but I heard it in passing on the radio and it floored me.
That song efectively led me 20 odd years later to this site , and to make friends with people from the other side of the world. The music is spectacular. The old stagers here knew and told me I would be impressed with his work that I hadn't yet heard. They were of course spot on.
The friends I have made are pretty cool too.
Crikey I am nearly making myself vomit with all this lovey touchy feely crap :D

Hey, what have you done with the REAL Sydney Steve?!! :D

[mercedes]

Steve

It might not have been a hit in Sydney, but it was down here ....

[charlene]

Hey Steve - it's Bill's kiss-ass influence rubbing off on you! He's THAT good!
lol
oh oh!
talk to ya later!
Char

[charlene]

Hey Steve - it's Bill's kiss-ass influence rubbing off on you! He's THAT good!
lol
oh oh!
talk to ya later!
Char

[Sydney Steve]

Char,
Bill's sucking up is cyberwaves transferable? Yikes! I've caught the bug...

For the benefit of you people in yesterdayland (US/Canda) ,lol, Mike is from Melbourne and like many from his home state of Victoria is slightly loopy (symptoms similar to early onset of Alzheimers). Joveski & Catmanron being prime examples.

Now Mike at the risk of sounding like schoolmaster Fowles (,aka the principal from "Another Brick In The Wall" ), I have ARIA Top 40 information since 1956 up to now and the only 3 that made the top 40 in Aus. were :
"IYCRMM" (No. 7 in 1971),
"You Are What I Am" made 22 in 1973
and "Sundown" made no 5 in 1974.