GORDON LIGHTFOOT - EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

hi I'm Peter Zaki one afternoon more years ago than I care to admit my friend Sylvia fricker my new from my days as a newspaper man in Chatham Ontario and Ian Tyson who linked up with Sylvia and a folk duo that was not yet famous we're visiting me in Toronto we were going to talk about a tune that Ian had written to which he thought I might write some words during a pause in our progress Ian dug into his pocket and unfold what I remember as a sheet of lined paper here he said read this this is by a young guy from Orillia we think is really going somewhere well Ian and Sylvia were right it turns out the song was early morning rain the young guy from aurélia is with me now Gordon Lightfoot welcome to zosky in conversation thank you Peter they news we hear what they were to remember writing early morning rain yes I do it was written in a very brief period of time along with quite a few other songs you didn't know that that was the biggie I felt good about it I liked it felt good to sing it felt good to play well now would it have been a sheet of lined paper that Ian had in his pocket or if I made all that up I just remember them I can see it now they were sitting on my couch and Dyson reaches over and says here yes he most likely had had a lead sheet with which I'm used to I wrote the sheets and everything it's real it's for real they say how do you you know you want her what can you really write that stuff down yeah a line a chord and an alaric what were you doing then this was the 63 or 64 huh I I was I was back from from doing a summer television series over in Britain that I was fortunate enough to do yes you were the whole place host the glamorous host until I was limited as a as an announcer or compair as they called it there but I got to sing on the show on a regular basis so I came back from there was and was writing songs and was was hearing Bob Dylan for the first time and being part of the Ian and Sylvia era of the folk area in Toronto have written quite a few songs and an early morning rain was one of them where do you write now I I have a music music area that I use were where I live I have an office also which is elsewhere but I have a little area where I work and but as I look back through my career I've worked in all kinds of settings my own I wrote a song about snow in the middle of a thunderstorm in Cleveland went one time it just came to you and you it's just the way it works there's a thunderstorm going on so I'm gonna write something about snow yeah yeah in a place I was being being allowed to use a place to to stay while I was doing a club engagement in the employment and at a certain time wrote down I wrote this song song for a winter's night yeah the song about snow and snowflakes and everything to do with winter and snow and along came a great thunderstorm in the middle of all ice outside the building it just went crazy when you write in your office at home is there a wicker desk so I'm with you some you've got some rituals doing the the wicker desk is is upstairs I have another desk now it's a it's a high one I like to work standing up now so did Hemingway well I bet maybe there's something to it so do you sit there sort of lick your pencil and just start right what do you do uh I do not have a melody scene willows cat - what the chord progression is a good place to start a line of melody is a good place to start there you know there there are very certain starting points that you can use to to make it happen I find its easiest probably to get the melody and the chord progression and then try to find the the lyric and by applying words to the situation to try and find an idea that should emerge so somehow on its own but it's just you you're all by yourself it's a very solitary act basically yes the time of day or you write it in the early morning hours all that almost came out rain we're both lucky I tried to do that experimentally one time I I did that about about a hundred times very much the same as you have done with the early write the real early rise 3:00 a.m. I know the phone doesn't ring that's we're gonna do it right right then and do it like a couple of times a week and gradually the weeks turn into months and the months become a year and so you're up there in your study that downstairs I've downstairs at that point it's 3 a.m. and there and there's there's no sound the kids are asleep everything that was just this quiet the presence of the kids in your life cuz you know you got young children you got grandchildren you got you're a big new that king of the family now does that influence is that influence your songwriting or your life around there or do you write for them right uh not not it not particularly um you know like my writing is more generalized I have written certain songs which apply to to my children such as finest thine could be for my daughter Ingrid and there is a you know pony man which is one that you can naturally some you can naturally apply but but specifically I know that Marie McLachlan wrote a very nice one specifically about his own cold sores and I admire him a great deal for done that but but they they influenced me in other ways they actually make me make me work in a much more regular resonance there was a time in this fairyland cuz it's hard to talk to you without lines going through you there was a time when we thought we sitting waiting and hoping thought you weren't going to record or maybe even write anymore this is sometime in the Indies but you is that you certainly weren't gonna record anymore at one point well obviously that wasn't there you lied it was the case I guess I lied I don't I don't know sometimes just get like that and we had done an album east of midnight which really thought was it was a fighting album in the and I remember myself saying if if it doesn't if this one doesn't sell I'm gonna I got a packet but that was just really my I shouldn't have done that I mean you just just you're not supposed to think about but that only should really mean it and all kinds of writers of songwriters are roaring along in their 50s and later some of many of them friends of yours Dylan and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell and and u2 you're just just cranking them out now well I know that no I don't actually Frank I know I don't know but you're well you're great you're you mean a lot a lot of sort of mudra enough for an album yeah you know I'm nothing that could take three or four years oh you know whereas it was one a year when we first started out we got our first recording contract is one per year now it's a it stretches out to maybe four or five years it takes you that long to to do it it's just as long as you do it that's the important part just still no I got it this is something I wanted to ask you for maybe 25 years cuz you're still doing it and it still pleases me but I'm still curious about when you're singing what are you looking at you're a hates her up you know I'm thinking I'm thinking real hard I am a real I'm really thinking really really you don't know I know that the that the the people are there I can feel the people being in there and I'm really looking at them when I your eyes are of way up you've always you do that on stage and everything they magics you maybe it's from looking at the looking out at that crowd which is what I like to do best really yeah you don't see heaven or anything there II uh no but but it it it feels it feels great when it when everything's working well you know I wouldn't when things are in tune and the tempos are not too fast you're not too slow and everything is just falling into place things are in tune God your ever you want things in tune yeah it helps a lot but why do you play that stupid 12 string guitar for cuz it's a career to do you not play it now but it's you do sometimes play a 12 string I tried to play a 12 string you spend eight hours tuning it and 15 minutes playing it right well it does it take some time but after a while you get used to it and and you can do it faster because I I can get the twelve strings in pretty good shape and I've got two to twelve strings yes what's this even works so you tune them because lighter them both and you're tuned in periodically at home in the you know in the music room and then on the road there's an intensive tuning session that goes on me myself and I on the guitars during the afternoon of the performance where did strip trees where did that song come from you know it's a it's one of those autobiographical kind of songs and identifying with the the Footloose life that that some of us have and guess who don't really appreciate just just like some people don't appreciate being being connected with somebody sort of caught in in between somewhere but your foot looseness geographically has largely been the road the musicians Road meaning you haven't well no that's you roam the landscape too don't you have done yeah it as meaning in the some of the canoe trapping endeavors that's a totally different situation again there's as far as there as the road goes though it is that that's a kind of control thing it was Footloose for a lot of years but for the last many years it has not really been as Footloose and a much more studious approach in just a much more sound approach to it than being just totally involved and totally immersed so to speak man when you're a kid in Orillia did you want to see the world or what did you think I'm too big for this yeah you never thought about it no I never thought about it real really until I got into high school and as soon as I got in high school the music was was there it was already starting today I never thought about much else I figured the traveling would sort of take care of itself you were quite a boy singer I was trained and actually I got some some good training as as a choir guy in singing solo and really got interested in a really really young like it was 10 or 11 we have a recorded this is one of the earliest legend around do you want to hear it a little bit of it just a little bit this is sure Gordon like that's a little scratchy for it for a CD isn't it yeah gee what else is on Patrick that's right that you know it's a sampling there were certain songs what I sang at weddings I you know I did all kinds of stuff like that as he canceled we did stay with him as a choirboy for a long time well up until my voice winter when went down about three keys and you know but there was lots of musical stuff in the in high school to get involved yes when did you first sing at Massey Hall cuz people who do their annual pilgrimage to worship you it that's the whole winter wish we worship them no but it's such a great evening and I'm in and you I mean you do more that's more than an evening and always they think you started like twenty years thirty years when did you start you sang at Massey Hall when he worked what twelve yeah I did I sang sang a solo there too actually twelve pushing thirteen alone in Massey Hall and that really was the first time I ever appeared there I guess you could you say so the next time I appeared there was perhaps 18 20 years later did you think about like the first time when you went back is it is that part of the attraction of Massey Humphrey it was thrilling the first time I played it was a matter of the parent you know the parents bringing me down here and doing all that stuff the second time we had a couple of records there were happening and it seemed a worthwhile thing to do and it was but it's stuck because I I like to play Massey Hall because it has a sound it has there it's wonderful you know you wanted to be a jazz drummer when you were kid how'd that work out I get that as a means of begging some extra extra money yeah that's about as far as it as a weed singing your wedding he can wake you up I played drums and saying just like Ringo at one point you know good rheumatism it's fine and I was working with it was some some good jazz guys here in town ja worked with JAXA won quite a while singing the playing drums for a couple years there Gordon Lightfoot with his band and Gordon song Restless and Gordon now joins me as we continue our our conversation how did you get the young and the restless' into that song I mean here we have this wonderful building something for Lorin ballad and in the middle of it pops the name of a daytime TV show if I just figure its lucky every time anything like that happens yeah that may that works you know the the marriage of the the words to the melodious seems to be very important and and if you can get something like that the young and the restless and and get it in there and have it work that that's just a lucky thing restlessness as in drifting as well has really been a part of the Lightfoot we all sort of got to know over the years old oh no we're not really well you've always been a hard guy to get to get close to but one sense is that that's all over for you you're really a settled down guy now that you're comfortable with yourself in a way perhaps you weren't before is that fair yes I think so the the times of the Total Immersion are passed and the only way you can be total and totally immersed is is just to ignore everything else that goes on in life so I like it a lot better now since I've I was married again in 1989 it was my second marriage and it seems to have worked out just fine yeah got new little kids than ever to new little kids and they keep you know in many ways they inspire me like I say it a roundabout way they actually make you work they make you work more because you're better organized you have to be better organized to combine the family life and the professional life issue there the artistic life as you can probably live 1989 you got remarried how long since you'd had a drink when that happened that was was it 82 you quit 1980 to go see her she just quit uh I had some help like that I had to seek out some help and I was able to get some help and get that one wrapped up because I don't really think I'd be sitting here today if I kept up at the rate I was going in you look terrific I just looking at the camera close-up of you singing you look I mean you're not 19 anymore but you look you're working out you're fit you want to arm wrestle or anything I you know I I want to do I want to do the work well in order to do the wealth do the work well I have to be fit like you reckon I can't be doing everything I don't make a big deal out of it I go a certain number of times see by the year probably from for the last few years it's been from say a hundred times 110 times a year and to belong to a gym and go there when you're not on the road and I'm not on the road that much because really we don't we don't want to be on the road that that much anymore than we are so we're playing 40 to 50 times a year it's quite adequate and allows us to fulfill our family responsibilities and look after the ones who love us and be conscious as the fact that we're leaving them alone and we're going I'm going ahead knowing the road but you'd behave yourself on the road absolutely so you claim well I believe you garden it couldn't be any any other way because it can't be hidden the Bell's palsy that hit you that was also the rent right near the end of you bad drinking days when that was wasn't it it was earlier on yeah it was quite quite a bit earlier was it about 1970 that must have been real out here oh why didn't all gone back there my doctor was in the house that night when I did when it would hit he spotted it from from the audience so I was a pretty lucky guy there he was able to give me on some medication very quickly but then he kind of lost all of the vitality of the left's I came to the left side of your face it's like a stroke of sorts and put me out for for three months but I I came back a lot sooner than anyone thought that I would so that'd be very scary like you know I I wasn't scared at all I was just thinking about getting better that that's all yeah but now this is what some from something I read well you couldn't smile very well when you hit I still can't cancel and and so when you major when you had your incredible movie career they properly cast you as the guy who didn't smile we were a bad guy in the Western I I was I had I did that because the opportunity was was given to me to do that and for no other reason I was curious to see what it was how it would be working on a movie set with a bunch of movie people yeah were you great I was it was a great experience were you great no I wasn't great and it doesn't matter if I was it would have made more movies I didn't like what I saw no I did another one too after I'd lost weight and stopped drinking I I did an episode of hotel and I didn't like what I saw there either so she won't forget it but they say oh that's I could do what the Lord meant me to do in that and that's play the guitar and sing then write songs and let me come back in couple of minutes and I'll do more what the Lord Hey you do have more song and conversation with Gordon Lightfoot what the painter passing through that's a very autobiographical one as well yeah what you hear the lyrics there are so many lyrics in there that it takes a little while we put the thought of the song itself the painter passing through because in some ways that's who you are in a way of I mean that's we've you've given us scenes and landscape from ourselves if that's not too pretentious of me you know there is so there is so much there is so much Canadian imagery and all all of my songs and images that I can envision that I've seen of this country that it would be astounding would be absolutely astounding hundreds hundreds of them of natural settings that can come to mind different woods from this country just from seeing it as the wilderness that it is would you sort of rediscovered and then all the canoe trips I know how much you like talking about them just say that's the most boring thing there is a dog when somebody else's canoe trip but you had to be there you know but they do they supply imagery like you and there's the wildlife to and the animals to the Jews you see along the way to but you really gotta be they be there see this is I remember lamenting one June the 24th I was watching the French television and was watching this hundred thousand québécois down on Ile Santa land and all singing their song songs written by them about themselves and I thought we never do that and then I thought do we have the songs I yeah I mean I don't know a lot of people who could sing Canadian railroad trilogy from beginning to end or the wreck of the in Fitzgerald but but I've seen several thousand people doing early morning rain in the in the Prairie I mean I don't know what you think about that song maybe it's one of it I think it's still fabulous it's a fine but I've seen them singing it at the finale of a Folk Festival it's part of us I know and and and so much of what you've done when I was talking earlier quoting your own lines to yourself I live with someone who can recite you it's bloody awful so you doesn't matter I mean I tell her about the ghosts in the wishing well she gives me the rest of the song the whole thing and they're all there are thousands of people like that you know I don't how I affect people I I don't know I I'm not really like jumping all over myself to talk about experiences like that light leaks like things like like where my music has helped someone who's a desperate medical situation and they're only a child does that happen yes it has happened what's the only thing just just to send me more of the music it's helping this child a child in a gal you it is very sick it's inherited a disease gala with them sing and hobble a gala calculate yeah that's then they need more Lightfoot CDs to make this kid either go to sleeper top stop crying one or the other hmm so we get we get right on one like that you know and other so those are ways that I always can help I hope that that people can other songwriters can learn to to play the music on an open guitar for instance without the use of a capo and everything that I've ever done right going all the way back to about 1963 it's all capable because the best songs in my act or with the tuning bar on the guitar yeah and I still play that way after all these years and it bothers me a lot that I that I don't play open like Neil and like Dylan and some of the other people that's Neil wolf as in Neil Young Justice that's helping us the rest of us here at last count I think a hundred and thirty different people had recorded yourself is that possible not at the same time I died in to meeting everyone Olivia newton-john and Johnny Cash and I don't know who else well a lot of the recordings are fabulous too and I mean I could they're there again why don't talk about it a lot is because I have to leave people out Oh when it when I do it but I can tell you that that Elvis Elvis Presley is recording the early morning rain is it's a sweet recording it is just I don't even I didn't know we did that yes he did that one that would sell a copier do what that's a you know and you never do anybody else's songs he said you did me and Bobby McGee which Kris Kristofferson wrote and then they didn't release it until somebody else had a hitter's you're you're in the in the proximity of other songwriters as you go along and quite often you you'll say here here's a yeah here's a to know you know like the Kristofferson to me and Bobby McGee from a a guitar pulse a guitar ponying session in Nashville read Shaima my farmer guitar player came at me and said Chris is having a guitar falling down the hall at the room such-and-such and he plays me and Bobby McGee and I have my record producer with me and he says guard let's get that song let's do it nicely well I don't know I mean like oh I want to do my own and every once in a while it happens that you do you just do somebody else's tune it just happens it changes or on susan's floor no there's another couple changes to Lopes is Phil Ochs he wrote that in my host on Ward's Island you know well you and I must have been around with the same weekend because I was during a where Phil wrote but he did write it I think in your kitchen table didn't yeah I died learned I learned it from him while he was playing that they all gated cleave on the around you come and sit by outer circle bites I'll come and sit by my sit by my side coming as close as the sharing of every of gray and Wonder in my words and dream about the pictures that I play ending of changes and mercifully I will continue on I'll come back we'll get the rest of the hooks aside i'll be back with Gordon Lightfoot I am back for a final bit of conversation with Gordon Lightfoot in an hour that has whizzed by do you know we've contributed to the world of opera no I I was not aware of that Richard Marge's and member Richard it's a wonderful dinner but he made his early living singing Lightfoot songs and coffee houses yeah yes yes you met him have you sung with him well I'd if he's the same guy I think I'm thinking of but I'm but I'm not sure yeah I'm not sure how come you don't think black day in July anymore uh it served its it served its outlived its its usefulness as a song it just I didn't want to sing you know they're they're certain songs you don't want to sing because you just don't feel that you have any business singing them anymore I vote for lovin me sometimes that one's got some validity it's it's good it's a good one we don't to always do that one but we do it occasionally now in your impetuous youth did you one time take a sledgehammer to some recordings or destroy some tapes or something did we destroyed some some albums one time yeah Oh dumpster fall on them what was the album well they I think it was it was a best-of certainly not about on the heels of one of my big albums so we did indeed do that we didn't want send them out in the so they could be played but by everybody down at the dump I guess now you keep saying we as if you're like royalty or a bed to the paper there's something hot I know but you can't blame the band no I got destroying your records guys no is what my business manager that at the time and either dude that did that job so much business my dad didn't have anything to do well then don't say we destroyed say I destroyed it no Massey Hall yeah you my toad last it it's only going to be it's a perfect building so like all the great buildings of Toronto someone's gonna take a bulldozer to it and put something else up but they're not taking a bulldozer to you but they've been saying that for years about Massey hold it's it still stands and I haven't heard anything about it to being torn down lately baby's gonna stay there for a while I'll keep playing there that that is the best it's the best place for for me to play yeah and people bring their children and their grandchildren and we're willing to accommodate and we and try and try and show them something that they can they can learn from her or gain from no I've refrained from this through all this delightful to me anyway chat with you but when we're talking about other you covering other doing other people's work when I started this I remember this to boat Ian Tyson handing me early morning right and I said we were writing a song together Ian and I and I only read as I read about you that you'd recorded it song for Canada did you record that no but I know the song of what you speak do you yeah forgive you daughter with your record did you did you a song for Canada yeah well I meant into the dead adds to the that did I'll be a star thanks clerk this is a real pleasure I've been chatting of course with Gordon Lightfoot in the new album is called

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Length: 31min 56sec (1916 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 29 2016