The Way I Feel/Wayfaring Stranger
 

They say "you learn something new everyday" Well, I certainly learned something new at a recent music festival here in the UK. Jamming with a fellow music lover, I was asked if I knew Wayfaring Stranger, I said sure, what key do you do it in, I was asked, Am, says I. My new friend produced a book with it in Dm, I looked at it, only to see that "Gordon Lightfoot had used the tune for The way I feel." That sure WAS news to me. But playing it slowly and mournfully, Wayfaring Stranger is in certainly there. Wow. I suspect that little pearl of wisdom is hidden elsewhere on this site.

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hi jim, what was the name of the book that had that quote?

the verse chant is certainly riding on the melodic riff and chords

as with The Wreck / Back Home in Derry, it's the choruses that set them apart...ie. the two GL tunes don't have any

i suppose traditional folk tune melodies become public domain ie. Greensleeves / What Child is This?

there are many arrangements of WS out there, i dig this one

YouTube - JD Sumner - Wayfaring Stranger

...that piano player must go through a lot of bruelcream

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Bruelcream or hairspray. lol !

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Hey jj, we both spelled it the wrong way ! :rolleyes: :whistle: :confused:

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This is my very favorite version of Wayfaring Stranger -let me know what you think ;)

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This guy is some good guitar player & singer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhL4P...e=channel_page

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6 or 12 string is no problem for this Fret Killer ! :)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrN-Z...e=channel_page

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Aengus Finnan has Wayfaring Stranger on one of his CD's.. it's sublime.
wish I knew how to get it from the cd then online...

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yeah Fretkllr is quite amazing :). Make sure to read his notes for the songs he has up on youtube...like on "Wayfaring"...he adds lots of interesting info @these songs, I've learned alot. He's obviously a big Neil Young fan and refers to a Massey Hall performance on "Tell Me Why".

btw my other very favorite rendition of "Wayfaring" belongs to Johnny Cash :biggrin:

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I have read a lot of his notes @ You Tube.

He is a great guitar player for a guy who taught himself how to play. :)

Joan Baez does a pretty good job with song as well. I also like the Johnny Cash version.

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Nice vocals on the Joan Baez...but I'm not too crazy about it like:

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no need, it's the promo track at his myspace site, just click

http://www.myspace.com/aengusfinnan


i'm not crazy about any of the versions, maybe i'm just not a fan of the song...i do like the vocal echo on last verse of the finnan version though (jenny whitely?)

at one time you could hear his Lightfoot tribute recording and the entire Fool's Gold album mp3s at www.aengusfinnan.com but it's all disappeared...the fools gold track really needed a supporting video, imo...but he said the funding had all dried up...he's a fine photographer

back to Lightfoot, i prefer the 'original' TWIF arangement/recording

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Aengus doesn't have his website any longer.
I never check anybody's MySpace anymore..lol.
So many places for people to be!

He has Rollin' Home on it too..it's a great song...
He's a great talent..
;)

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What would we do without jj ? :biggrin:

Char was right, he does a fantastic job w/ the song... :)

Everytime I listen to my, "BEAUTIFUL/ A Tribute To Gordon Lightfoot" CD, I always look forward to that bonus track #15...LIGHTFOOT by: Aengus Finnan. It sends goosebumps on my goosebumps as they say ! lol

Ever wonder why Gordon Lightfoot has a finger in each ears on the back photo of that cd ? :confused:

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Ever wonder why Gordon Lightfoot has a finger in each ears on the back photo of that cd ?

I've wondered that too, Jesse Joe.

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ooooh yeah VERY nice rendition by Aengus :)!!!

My point here being (in referring to the various renditions) is along the line of what Fretkllr writes, "This is a spiritual song from the American folk music catalog and it's been around for so long that there are countless versions with variations on the lyrics, melody, and harmonic structure."

Some of the versions...it may be easier to pick out similarities to TWIF, than on others -where I'd be hard-pressed to. There are many, many other traditional folk songs that follow similar structures in the melodies, cadence, etc. jj - mentioned Greensleeves and I've added a few others here as examples.

So in response to Jim's post/observation...I too hear the similarities to TWIF and Wayfaring....as is in accordance with the genre of traditional folk music.

Gordon's later more commercial i.e., in structure....contemporary songs naturally become less similar to the traditional folk genre. And as we know...whether it be his earlier works or the later transcend all else :) in par with his genius/skills/creativity/talents -his work continued to flourish, etc.

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ii, you ask in which book did I find the quote that GL used WS as the tune for TWIF, sadly I cannot recall the title, it was a large orange book with about 200 tunes, slanted towards Bluegrass and Old Time music. I skipped through it, but did not grab the title. Sorry.

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thanks, at least we've narrowed it down a wee bit

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I have Emmylou Harris's version on a 45, dated 1980.

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Oops, jj not ii, sorry. I thought the above would be useful, now you can ignore every other colour songbook, and concentrate on orange. Rest assured that next year when I do the rounds of Festivals I will meet this person again and make a point of noting the title and compiler of this book and post it here.

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thanks, i shall keep an eye peeled...

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jim, not sure if you noticed that Gord used to do a live cover version of Wayfaring Stranger (i can't find the enlarged version of the Newport setlist pic but i think it may have been in there)...that may have influenced him either consciously or subconsciously to come up with the similar verse

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jj, I seem to remember a photo of Gordon with his guitar and stuck to the top side was a list of songs, quite extensive if I remember rightly. I took a magnifying glass to it and was impressed with the range of songs. I cannot locate it in my Lightfoot memorabilia. Wayfaring Stranger may have been there. I shall keep looking.

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jim, i think that's in the Songbook(let)...i have a large version some where on the hard drive of an old clunker in the basement

ok, i dug a bit and apparently, this is what he played at Newport:

I'm Not Sayin'
The Way I Feel
The Auctioneer
For Lovin' Me
Hollis Brown (Dylan)
The Hands I Love (Early title of "Song For A Winter's Night"!)
The General Store
Early Morning Rain

i recommend you check Wayne's site for more goodies...

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jj, for some reason whilst trying to find the picture I mentioned, I did not look at the Songbook booklet. Songbook CD in another CD rack from all my other Gordon CDs. However close perusal of said picture shows Wayfaring Stranger in what is a lot of songs in Gordon's earlier repertoire. So he did do the song way back. I have sung The Way I feel many times and play Wayfaring Stranger quite often and never noticed the similarity, strange.

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jim, this is the Wayne section i was referring to

http://www.lightfoot.ca/newport.htm

didn't realize he'd been singing Red Velvet for so long...liked his APPT recording of it, and would like to have heard it in his '65 voice

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do you perform the slower tempo, pickin arrangement or the groovy, strummin version? btw, i never noticed the verse similarity either

...GL once said when asked about where the songs come from: (paraphrased) 'you take everything you've ever heard and it gets all jumbled up inside your head'

YouTube - The Way I Feel (1967)


food for thought: if you take any alt cover arrangement you may have toyed with over the years, keep the general chord progressions, alter tempo and the phrasings and/melody plus adding or removing a bridge, well, you can end up with something that you could call your own...of course, if recording, you've got all those production tools that will help set it totally apart from anything that already exists ...i say there's a fine line between stealing something and being influenced by something)

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jj as I mentioned earlier I play WS in Am, I flatpick it starting with 2 triplets in the Am chord, repeat that then off to the melody, slow and gentle. To my ear it sounds fine, it may not to others. With regard to the fine line you mention, a bunch of us sing and play every week in a pub, we do Steve Earle's Galway Girl (a great song) we do a couple of instrumental breaks against a chord progressionof " D / / / D / / / G / / / D / / / G /D /
A / D / A / / / D / / / " whilst playing this I get the urge to sing an old song called "The Tennessee Wig Walk" The lyric is "I'm a bow legged chicken I'm a knock kneed hen, Never been so happy since I don't know when. I walk with wiggle, a wiggle and a walk. Doing the Tennessee Wig Walk" It is just that progression, not the tune.

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jj, it has just occured to me (my lightening fast brain working overtime) that you may have been asking how I play The Way I Feel. I try and imitate the "Lightfoot" version, Not the "The Way I Feel" version. I prefer the first album version rather than the reworked second version.

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Ron Hynes version pretty good but some ropey versions on there too, why did The White Stripes bother? Nice to hear Tennessee Ernie Ford and Alison Krauss. It would have been nice to hear Gordon's version with that beautiful voice of his younger days.

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Ron Hynes does a nice version..he's a good buddy of our Ron Jones..two boys from The Rock.
;)

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I didn't know Ron Jones (lighthead2toe) was from The Rock. Always thought he was an Ontario boy, who was now living in the West of Canada. Thanks for the info... :)

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RJ is my favourite Newfie/Torontonian/Vancouverite..
;)

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Very good indeed... :clap:

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Ah, you are so very kind and yes, I am very blessed to have experienced life right across this beautiful country of ours.

But just a follow up on "The Doc" (Ron Hynes' manager, Lynne Horne and I refer to him as "The Doc" because he has an honorary doctorate from Memorial University in
St. John's), he is a big Gord fan and Gord acknowledges him as talented singer/songwriter.

He's a good guy and a good friend and he'll be happy to know he is part of this thread.

Cheers, RJ.

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You are very privileged to have Ron Hynes as your friend lighthead2toe. 'Sonny's Dream' is a GEM to me. Is it true that he has never recorded it ? I heard him tell Pamela Wallin this some years ago. :)

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He did record it subsequent to that interview Jessie Joe.
It came out on his "Face To The Gale" CD and it is a fantastic version.

Chad Irschik produced the recording done in Toronto in 1997.

"Sonny's Dream" also referred to as "Sonny" sold more that one million copies world wide and was recorded by some 70 different artists.

A nice version is the one by Emmy Lou Harris, Mary Black and Delores Keane.

Some cool harmony in that version.

RJ.