Popdose: Spooky Songs: Gordon Lightfoot, “If You Could Read My Mind”
WHarrisBullzEye
· 1 year ago
Nowadays, I always think of Johnny Cash's version of the song, on his posthumously-released "American V: A Hundred Highways." It gave the "ghost" line a whole new meaning...
Turd Ferguson
· 1 year ago
i sympathize completely... an eerie song. i thought its use at the end of the movie 'wonderland' was oddly appropriate.
MichaelFortes
· 1 year ago
What really traumatizes me about this song is how the chorus' chord progression is so similar to "The Greatest Love of All" by Whitney Houston.
Matt
· 1 year ago
Don't you mean by Randy Watson & Sexual Chocolate? ; ) (Yes, I know George Benson wrote it...)
MichaelFortes
· 1 year ago
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't be bothered to reference the writing credits. Sue me :)
The Border Patrol
· 1 year ago
This song came out when I was three, and got played on Canadian radio approximately once an hour for the next fifteen years. It's a rare song that can stand up to that level of saturation airplay, but "If You Could Read My Mind" does it.
Don't mean to imply anything here, Matt, but even when I was three or four, I got that the song's narrator wasn't really a ghost. Maybe Canadian kids are just naturally better at grasping metaphors?
MatthewBolin
· 1 year ago
It's the IDEA that he's a ghost that's spooky. It's not that I thought dead people could sing, but the fact it seemed that he was pretending to be a dead person was eerie to a young me.
In addition, to understand that he's not really a ghost wouldn't actually mean you've grasped the metaphor. To do that, you would have to also understand the more complex symbolism of the ghost representing someone who's "dead" in the eyes of the singer's former partner. I don't know many 3 or 4 year olds who would be able to grasp that concept.
DwDunphy
· 1 year ago
Hey, that's a metaphorical statement, but "The Wreck Of The Edmond Fitzgerald" is totally about a shipful of poor souls taking the ultimate gargle. And "Sundown" is about a vengeful man threatening his wayward lover. Day-um, Lightfoot is scary all around, isn't he?
MatthewBolin
· 1 year ago
And "Carefree Highway"? Actually about the bliss felt after plowing your car through a crowded farmer's market.
breadalbane
· 1 year ago
In all fairness to T.B. Patrol, you did say, that as a child, you were trying to get your head around the fact that "The guy singing this song…is a ghost…"
And then you said, "Of course, now that I’m older and understand the concepts of metaphors and similes better, I realize that Gordon Lightfoot is not literally a ghost "
It's not illogical to assume that the point you were trying to make was that you literally thought, as a child, that the song was literally being sung by a ghost. In fact, after I read the article (but before I read the comments) that's what I thought you were trying to get across here, and not that you found the idea of G. Lightfoot *pretending* to be a ghost as spooky.
But hey, let's not quibble here. Anyone who champions Lightfoot's music is okay in my books. And the guy does have knack for music that has a disquieting subtext....
(Although for something scary in an altogether different way, try tracking down the very early (1962) single by "Gord" Lightfoot called "Negotitations". There's a Cold War metaphor in the song that has to be heard to be believed. I don't want to spoil things for you by going any further...)
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brian
· 12 months ago
i was born in 1971 in canada, and i remember this song well. it's a great song, but fortunately i didn't experience it being played once an hour. it was still on the Big 8 in windsor (probably the most popular AM radio staion in all of canada in the '70s) when i was a kid, but much less frequently played as time went on and they were pretty much done with it by the end of the '70s. they still remained a top 40 station into the early '80s, but was much more adult oriented before changing formats. i only say this because it's not like this song was put on a pedestal on canadian radio, since there was much more canadian content for the stations to play during the '70s. it was a little scary in some ways though as a kid, but so was david bowie's song "fame", as well as david essex' "rock on".
All Comments
Don't mean to imply anything here, Matt, but even when I was three or four, I got that the song's narrator wasn't really a ghost. Maybe Canadian kids are just naturally better at grasping metaphors?
In addition, to understand that he's not really a ghost wouldn't actually mean you've grasped the metaphor. To do that, you would have to also understand the more complex symbolism of the ghost representing someone who's "dead" in the eyes of the singer's former partner. I don't know many 3 or 4 year olds who would be able to grasp that concept.
And "Sundown" is about a vengeful man threatening his wayward lover. Day-um, Lightfoot is scary all around, isn't he?
And then you said, "Of course, now that I’m older and understand the concepts of metaphors and similes better, I realize that Gordon Lightfoot is not literally a ghost "
It's not illogical to assume that the point you were trying to make was that you literally thought, as a child, that the song was literally being sung by a ghost. In fact, after I read the article (but before I read the comments) that's what I thought you were trying to get across here, and not that you found the idea of G. Lightfoot *pretending* to be a ghost as spooky.
But hey, let's not quibble here. Anyone who champions Lightfoot's music is okay in my books. And the guy does have knack for music that has a disquieting subtext....
(Although for something scary in an altogether different way, try tracking down the very early (1962) single by "Gord" Lightfoot called "Negotitations". There's a Cold War metaphor in the song that has to be heard to be believed. I don't want to spoil things for you by going any further...)
.