Fans eager to hear again from Gordon Lightfoot
Edmund Fitzgerald: Anniversary tomorrow
Twenty-seven years ago tomorrow, sometime after 7:10 p.m. and some miles short of Whitefish Bay, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior. Twenty-nine men died.
It was a tragedy, but not one, frankly, that penetrated the Canadian consciousness to any great extent. In this maritime nation, working people die on the seas and lakes, and we have become perhaps a little hardened to that.
That changed the next year when a new song suddenly hit the airwaves. The opening chords eerily mimicked the sound of wind howling through rigging. The lyrics had such memorable phrases as "Does anyone know where the love of God goes/ when the waves turn the minutes to hours?" The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald became an instant Canadian classic.
Gordon Lightfoot had been releasing albums for 14 years by then, and even though his concerts still sold out in hours, there were some critics who said his best work was behind him. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald brought new fans, new attention and new praise to the singer-songwriter. It reminded a lot of people just how good he was at both crafting and performing a song, and how he had earned status as a national icon.
Even today, those first bars are among the most instantly recognizable in Canadian music; many are the car radios that are turned up at the sound of them. It joins such other Lightfoot classics (add your own) as Early Morning Rain, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Bitter Green, If You Could Read My Mind, Cotton Jenny, Sundown, Carefree Highway, Rainy Day People and a dozen or so more.
The song also brought new consciousness to the very real perils of the Great Lakes. His song became a tribute to not just those 29 men, but all who work on the big ships.
Tomorrow's anniversary is a reminder of how much Gordon Lightfoot, in stable condition after two months in McMaster University Medical Centre, is missed, and wished well, by Canadians.
They, and this newspaper, join his family and friends in hoping that the day is not too far away when Lightfoot will play those chords in public again.
Lightfoot doesn't just write and play Canadian classics. He is one.
-- Robert Howard
[posted 11.9.02 Hamilton Spectator]
|
