Disc 294 is...Summertime Dream
Artist: Gordon Lightfoot
Year of Release: 1976
What’s Up With The Cover?: It is a Gordon Lightfoot staple: the big head cover. This time we are additionally graced with Gord's hand, which for him is quite a bit of detail. I like this particular 'big head' cover. Gord looks thoughtful and just a little tortured, which is what we want our folk artists to look like.
How I Came To Know It: My Mom owns this on record, so I've known it since I was a kid. When I left for university I taped it so I could bring it with me (no doubt Interpol is still tracking me down for this crime against copyright). And then many years ago, I bought it on CD.
How It Stacks Up: I have 12 Gordon Lightfoot albums, but two of those are compilations, so really only ten studio albums in the strictest sense. "Summertime Dream" is one of his stronger records, but competition is fierce. I'd say somewhere between 3rd and 5th, depending on my mood, which today has me putting it into 4th.
Rating: 4 stars.
It has been over a year since I reviewed a Gordon Lightfoot album (the last being "Don Quixote" at Disc 110), and that is just too long to wait for Gord. As I've mentioned in previous reviews, he is one of the great Canadian songwriters, up there with Leonard Cohen and Neil Young. Of the three, Gord may not be the best, but he's been in my life the longest, which counts for something.
So has this album, as I noted above. I know most of the songs on "Summertime Dream" by heart, and as I drove around listening to this album for the last couple of days I was unashamed to sing along - even with the top down. As Robert Frost once wrote, "There must be something wrong/to want to silence any song." Of course, Frost had never heard me sing. But anyway, back to the review.
This album's main claim to fame is the iconic and tragic "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", one of the greatest folk songs ever written, Canadian or otherwise. I talked about it a bit when I reviewed "Gord's Gold Vol. 2", back at Disc 107, noting that it is only in its true glory in the original recording off of "Summertime Dream". Hearing it again just reinforces this opinion.
Some might wonder why the crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald decided to cross Lake Superior so late in the season with the threat of bad weather. It would be easy to say it was for the money, but I think this song reminds us of the blue collar sensibility that the job must get done. It is a song about real men, facing the elements every day with stoicism and courage. That they came up short on the Edmund Fitzgerald's last voyage is no slight. The best line I quoted in the previous review, but it is so good it bears repeating:
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd've made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'em."
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is so famous, it often eclipses the rest of this record, which is a shame, because there are many good songs. In particular, the opening track, "Race Among The Ruins" a song about a failed relationship - a common theme on this album. The song is a bit accusatory in places, but it hits the mark early and often. The song is fast-paced for folk music and features Gord's whimsical guitar picking that is so easily identifiable. He sings high and nasal, but never loses power or gravitas. Even though the song is about bad decisions, it leaves you the impression he is being just as judgmental of himself as anyone else.
The song's title once inspired a writing exercise with my friend Tony and I one summer when we were unemployed in Powell River waiting for university to start again. I wrote a sonnet by the same title, and although hardly a prizewinner, I still think it was one of my better poems (the competition not being terribly fierce on this front). But, anyway.
Later songs explore old relationships from different points of emotional contact, with the nostalgic "Never Too Close" and the heartbreaking and deeply personal "I'm Not Supposed To Care", which paints the picture as a lost lover leaves the house for the last time. Gord opens with:
"I think you had somebody waiting outside in the rain
To take you away.
You got places to go - you got people to see
Still I'm gonna miss you
But anyway."
The damaged and defeated way he sings "But anyway" always gets me right in the gut.
Later in the record, "The House That You Live In" sees Gord more upbeat, doing the Canadian folk song version of Rudyard Kipling's "If". It is a list of advice to follow as you go through life, from the perspective of the struggling artist. There is a lot of good advice in the song, but here's some of my favourite:
"When you're out on the road and feeling quite lost
Consider the burden of fame
And he who is wise will not criticize
When other men fail at the game
Beware of strange faces in dark dingy places
Be careful while bending the law
And the house you live in will never fall down
If you pity the stranger who stands at your door."
The last two lights are repeated at the end of each stanza, and it always tickles my English Literature roots that the sanctity of the guest-host relationship is still alive and kicking 3000+ years into the history of western culture.
"Summertime Dream" might've been a five star album, but for a few songs that are overwrought - either musically or lyrically. In particular his political songs "Protocol" and "Too Many Clues In This Room" come off a bit preachy, with melodies not strong enough to sustain the average lyrical content. Otherwise, this is a solid record that continues to get considerable airplay on my stereo, many years after I first heard it.
Best tracks: Race Among The Ruins, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald, I'm Not Supposed To Care, Never Too Close, The House You Live In
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