I know he changed a few things in Edmund Fitz, some for new historical data coming in and one because a local complained the Martime Sailors Catherdral in not musty. He also made changes to If You Could Read My Mind after his daughter by that marriage sat him down and said you know, Dad, there really are 2 sides to that story. Again, how many of us, if we’re being honest, haven’t thought, yeah ok, fair to say.
Thanks for the gift link. I thought this first line from the article was impressive:
Bob Dylan once named Gordon Lightfoot one of his favorite songwriters, and called the musician “somebody of rare talent” while inducting him into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1986.
I do think, though, that somehow trying to define such an extensive career in terms of 10 best songs is a bit unfair. Lightfood produced so much great material that it’s almost impossible to rate, and some of my personal favourites are often passed over in “best song” collections.
Aha – that explains it! I was listening to Early Morning Rain on one of those YouTube links above, and while it was obviously a studio recording, it sounded a bit different than the one I’m familiar with.
Incidentally, Lightfood nearly died in 2002, when he would have been just 64. From Wiki:
… before the second concert of a two-night stand in Orillia, Lightfoot suffered severe stomach pain and was airlifted to McMaster University Medical Centre in Hamilton, Ontario. He underwent emergency vascular surgery for a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm,[42] and he remained in serious condition in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Lightfoot endured a six-week coma and a tracheotomy, and he underwent four surgical operations.[43] All of his remaining 2002 concert dates were cancelled.
Frivolous trivia: I was thinking about the line, “Out on runway number 9, big 707 set to go” from In the Early Morning Rain, wondering if that runway number was just picked at random. There is no such runway at Pearson International, the main airport of Lightfoot’s adopted hometown of Toronto. The closest are runways 06L and 06R. Runway 09 would run due east, but the prevailing winds in North America are usually from the west. But … during crappy weather, prevailing winds often reverse direction, and aircraft often take off in easterly directions. And early morning rain is crappy weather. Probably just a happy coincidence that this actually lines up with reality! 
Yes that was very nice. Thank you!
For some reason I thought he was singing about being in L.A. (and, yeah LAX doesn’t have a runway 9, but poetic license)
Runway 6/24 R&L are new, and runways typically have two designations based on which way traffic is coming from in current conditions. Since 2012, my desk has overlooked the runways immediately on the south side of the 401 and I see planes taking off and landing both ways depending on the winds on 6/24 and 5/23. If the winds shift, they go directly over me on 15/33.
According to this, 9/27 was the old Malton (now Toronto Pearson) airport runway:
So the historical accuracy goes to Gord, and I now return you to remembering his music.
Thank you for posting this - I noticed listening to a live version that he changed “feelings that you lack” to “feelings that we lack” and now know why.
Lightfoot lived in LA only briefly, from 1958 to 1960. In 1960 he returned to Toronto, a city that he loved, and lived there ever since (AFAIK in the upscale neighbourhood of Rosedale). Unlike other famous Canadian performers like Leonard Cohen, who moved to LA and stayed there. In the Early Morning Rain was written in 1966.
I’m aware of course that runways have two opposite designations, depending on which way the traffic is flowing. I was not aware that there was an 09/27 at the old Malton airport. Apparently 06L/24R was built in the 1960s. In 1966 Gord may well have been referencing the actual old runway. And I prefer to think that Gord was aware that on a rainy morning when prevailing winds were not obeying the usual patterns, takeoffs could well have been easterly.
Wait – what runways on the south side of the 401? The entire airport is north of the 401!
The news of Gordon Lightfoot’s death hit me hard when I heard about it yesterday morning. He is my all-time favorite, most-loved singer-songwriter. I’ve been regularly listening to his songs for nearly 50 years—since I was a small child. One of the more pleasant memories I have of my childhood was when my stepfather used to put on LP’s of his music on the stereo. I later played his songs on that same stereo in my dorm room at college.
I’ve seen him at a live concert twice in my life. The first time was at Ravinia Park in Highland Park, Illinois in the ‘80s (where I later graduated from high school). I saw him with my mother and little sisters. It was a lawn concert, so I didn’t get a good look at him then.
The second time was in June 2008 at a small venue here in Connecticut. My son, who is now an avid concert-goer, says he was the first artist he ever saw live. Unfortunately age and hard living had taken a toll on his voice by that time, but I was glad to see him again.
I had an opportunity to see him at a concert just last year, but unfortunately I came down with Covid, so it didn’t happen. And now it never will.
I will miss him.
I feel the same way about Lightfoot. He was not only the first performer I ever saw live, when he performed on our college campus, but also probably the only one, if you don’t count things like musicals and orchestral concerts. I’m naturally now reliving all his music in my collection.
Actually, come to think of it, I believe he was the first major artist I saw live as well. I had never attended a live concert before that one at Ravinia Park.
I watched a documentary on him. He had disavowed this song, refused to ever play it again. He said it couldn’t reconcile the message in the lyrics with his own feelings.
He later felt some embarrassment about the song, and said, “I didn’t know what chauvinism was.”
Back to Early Morning Rain - Songfacts suggests it was inspired by being in L.A. https://www.songfacts.com/facts/gordon-lightfoot/early-morning-rain
If we think he’s being specific, wherever the airport is, it’s 3 hours away from home.
Lightfoot also modified the lyrics to “Wreck of the Edmund Fitz” too, by changing the word ‘musty’ to ‘rustic’ in the line about the Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral in Detroit. He’d received feedback from the cathedral that it wasn’t musty at all, but rather it was well maintained.
He told us about this change during his Summer 2019 performance in Milwaukee, the very last time I saw him perform.
My office is on the south side of the 401, the airport is on the north side.
Lots of confusion and speculation. The New York Times “10 Essential Songs” article says Early Morning Rain was written in 1966, your source says 1964. Actually your source seems to be right about that, since Ian & Sylvia released an album with that as the title song in 1965.
Regardless, Lightfoot was in Toronto when he wrote it, and had been for years. He could of course have been remembering a moment of homesickness at LAX, but “three hours time” makes no sense in reference to Toronto, which he would have been nostalgic about, and is indeed the reason he moved back. But beyond that, the plane is westward bound:
Hear the mighty engines roar, see the silver wing on high
She’s away and westward bound, far above the clouds she’ll fly
My own entirely unfounded speculation is based on both real-life experiences and various Canadian songs reflecting them, that center on westerners migrating east to the Big City (typically Toronto) and, for one reason or another, longing for home. So I’ve always imagined this is one of those folks longing to return home. And indeed three hours flying time from Toronto would get you out to around Saskatchewan.
Lightfoot himself writes about this in Alberta Bound:
Tomorrow night I’ll be Alberta bound
Though I’ve done the best I could
My old luck ain’t been so good and
Tomorrow night I’ll be Alberta bound
No one-eyed man could e’er forget
The Rocky Mountain sunset
It’s a pleasure just to be Alberta bound
I long to see my next of kin
To know what kind of shape they’re in
Tomorrow night I’ll be Alberta bound
So did Ian Tyson (of Ian & Sylvia) in the deeply melancholy Four Strong Winds:
Think I’ll go out to Alberta
Weather’s good there in the fall
I got some friends that I could go to working for
Still, I wish you’d change your mind
If I ask you one more time
But we’ve been through this a hundred times or more
Four strong winds that blow lonely
Seven seas that run high
All those things that don’t change, come what may
If the good times are all gone
Then I’m bound for moving on
I’ll look for you if I’m ever back this way
Nitpick, while Neil Young’s version of Four Strong Winds may be the best known, let’s give credit where it’s due; its writer is Ian Tyson. I’d heard Young sing it many times but didn’t really appreciate it until I heard Ian and Sylvia: https://youtu.be/B3m7ckGhnsc?t=24
Here’s a good Gordon Lightfoot song that I’d forgotten about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rVJjKQxkZg&ab
And wasn’t there a minor plane crash at Pearson some years ago, where a jet ended up with its nose facing south and blocking the 2 northmost lanes of the westbound 401? All I’m coming up with on google is the 2005 Air France crash, but this wasn’t as serious, even though it looked crazy
Thanks for the clarification – I actually knew that but got confused because both versions are quite prominent. I just had time to edit the post to correct the mistake.
From the NY Times obit for Tyson, Dec 2022:
“Before Canadian musicians like Neil Young, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell or Leonard Cohen, there was Ian Tyson. . . .
“Four Strong Winds” was voted the most essential Canadian piece of music by the listeners of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation public radio network in 2005 . . . .
Mr. [Neil] Young, in the Jonathan Demme concert film “Heart of Gold” (2006), recalled being 16 or 17 and spending all his money playing the Ian and Sylvia version of “Four Strong Winds” over and over on the jukebox at a restaurant near Winnipeg. “It was the most beautiful record that I’ve heard in my life, and I just could not get enough of it,” he said.”
And the 1986 CBC video shows Gordon Lightfoot, Judy Collins and I think Neil Young and Anne Murray joining Ian and Sylvia at 3:08; I’ve cued up to their entrance in this link: Ian and Sylvia - Four Strong Winds (CBC TV 1986) - YouTube
That link seems to be miscued, below is the link to the full song.
That song is all of the things you said, but it’s also achingly sad.
To be fair, that was after his triple A, he was in a coma for 6 weeks and had a tracheotomy. I’d give you 3 to 1 that had more to do with his voice.