How Gordon Lightfoot Turned Heartbreak and History Into Rock Classics

Writing songs that felt like letters from a lonely highway or the deck of a sinking ship, Gordon Lightfoot turned heartbreak and history into chart-topping hits. And sometimes, the stories behind the songs were just as intense as the ones he told through lyrics. On this episode, we’re telling the story of one of Canada’s finest through five defining songs. Including the chart-topping hit Sundown, fueled by jealous obsession over a passionate relationship with a woman who would later be jailed in connection with the death of a major icon.. And there is also The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a song that stopped radio listeners cold—a six-minute ballad about a doomed freighter. It became one of the most haunting songs of the 70s. Plus, If You Could Read My Mind, a song that was so commercially successful, the artist’s label changed the name of the album to match it. We’re tracing the evolution of one of the premier troubadours of the rock era… NEXT on the Professor of Rock. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .