Proverbs from Gord
 

To me, Gord's song "The House You Live In" reminds me very much of the Book of Proverbs.
The song is full of truth and wisdom. I seem to recall somewhere that Gordon mentioned that "THYLI" was his mother's favorite. It's always has been high on my list also.

Besides this song being a wonderful place to start what are some more lyrics that we could add to this proposed book of wisdom and truth

I'll start off with a couple...

And if you got the money you can get yourself a honey
With a written guarantee to make you smile ..... Alberta Bound

You can't jump a jet plane like you can a freight train ..... Early Morning Rain


Kevin

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Gather not your gold on earth, your kingdom is in Heaven ..... Apology

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But will you gather daydreams or will you gather wealth, How can you find your fortune when you cannot find yourself? ..... Sit Down Young Stranger

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Hi everyone. I haven't posted here for some time, although I check Corfid out everytime I'm online. Anyway, I had to jump in on this one with:

"Time has been wasting away
You know time doesn't wait for nobody to find what they're after
It just keeps on rolling on down the deep canyons
And through the green meadows
Into the broad ocean . . . ."
-TATTOO

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I always loved the line "Be known as a man who will always be candid on questions that do not relate". Lots to be learned from this song for sure.

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dunno if that one ranks, he's mentioned he doesn't like that line and doesn't sing it live anymore (the entire second verse gone actually)

YouTube- Gordon Lightfoot - Alberta Bound- Live

(the date says 10/16/18....what is that all about?)

cool topic, kevin...there is an archive of some fave lyrical lines i recall but they were more about imagery i believe than a proverb/wisdom theme...good stuff, lemme think (that's dangerous)

"beauty lies within the wounds, of lonliness and dark despair..." FO1000P

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18 - typo - should be 08..
lol

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"Our love for each other may not be explained
We live in a world where tears must fall like rain"

This one has always been one of my favorites.

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I hope this is appropriate :

Think of the air you're breathing in, think of the time you waste
Think of the right and wrong and consider the frown on your face

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I like, "The answer is not easy, for souls are not reborn
To wear the crown of peace, you must wear the crown of thorns."
________
buy silver surfer vaporizer

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Great thread. I think "The Soul is the Rock" is one continuous example, as well as being an underrated song.

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If Jesus had a reason, I'm sure he would not tell
We(they) treated him so badly, how could he wish us(them) well

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"See it through, don't let the night put the bite on you
Take your time, make your plan...be your own best man"

i hope this fits the proverb category...i still don't even know what a pronoun is

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Hear, hear! Also, "If you must do it better, ya just gotta do it the most..." from Make Way For The Lady

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Im not sure I understand what he means by these lines in "Make Way for The Lady" ???

Making hay with no gravy, gets the day's work done

Making hay with no gravy, brings all the good folk down

Anyone who can explain this to a french Canadian ? :redface:

jj or Char maybe ? :confused:

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I guess gravy would refer to excess, and not having anything but the bare essentials to work with on a daily basis. JMO...

I like the line:
"You know living a life of ease don't make your meals taste better, if you please" from Someone To Believe In.

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jjo, i've been exposed to and utilized the two expressions much over the decades but i've never put the two together in the lyric with any certainty as to what GL is getting at....same with the blue moon phrase ie. the not so common occurrence of having an 'extra' full moon during a season...maybe it ties into formerlylavender's gravy/'extra' interpretation

anyhow, we use the 'better make hay' line early in the morning when there is a call for bad weather later on and there is a outdoor chore/project to be done that is time sensitive....or when we're trying to finish up a task early in the eve as darkness creeps in, quickly...so making hay is basically "getting at 'er"!

gravy usually meant getting rewards or perqs as a result of little extra effort...recently the neighbour and i needed to demo a shed...when the work was done we realized we could take some bits to the scrap metal yard for $$$...later i thanked him for the help and said 'you can keep the gravy($)'

i always liked his phrasing of the line but am not much for making sense of GL phrases (once he said of a particular penning, 'it's just a lyric')...when he follows it up with 'brings the good folk down', you could interpret 'down' more than one way...either way, for me, the song has a 'daily routine' vibe to it

char and many others likely have a more concise and conclusive response, lol

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perhaps making hay with no gravy refers to making 'something' without any "payment" and that is what brings the folks 'down'..?

hmmm.....

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Thank's formerlylavender, jj & Char, I believe I do get it now. For me gravy was something you eat with fries or potato(e)s. :biggrin:

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"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy..." (Nursery rhyme used by the camp commandant on Bridge Over The River Kwai). I dunno - I think that's what Gord is getting at.

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"Be always too soon, be never be last at the time when all times must be laid" that song is FULL of em!

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"Friends are for sorting out the hang-ups that we hide" ~ Walls

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A most interesting topic Kevin and thanks for putting it up there.

After reflecting on some thoughts that came to me regarding "The House You Live In," I recall an interview that I taped during the years I lived in Toronto which Gord did with radio station CFRB interviewer, "Wally Crouter, a friend of Gord and they talked about THYLI.

In that interview Gord says that he was asked by a girlfriend of one of the band members of "April Wine" to write a song for her boyfriend and he wrote that song at her request and the first verse was written within the first five minutes.

I remember also during the early sixties when he performed on a live CBC TV show and I was up front sitting and listening to him sing "Face of a Thousand People."

That was a mind blower believe me!

The song was never recorded but the lyrics are available on Wayne Francis' site.

My favorite proverb is from that song and it was written many years ago and this is it:

"Today I saw the world again
It seemed the same as yesterday
The splendor of it's ruins and it's shame,
It's towers rose against the sky
Reminding all who care to look
That what's been built can be destroyed again."

Was Gordon Lightfoot ahead of his time or what!

Cheers,
RJ.

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A true genius in songwriting. That one (FOATP) is a very powerful song first brought to my attention by John Fowles.

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the first one that came to mind from from that tune...i guess i used the wrong short form, lol

interesting tidbit from Wally, rj...i miss Wally (who's basking in the sun)...and Ron Sonin

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LOL...I was wondering what the letters/numbers meant. I have to check out the words to this song that until this moment, I didn't know existed. Thanks for the heads up jj and RJ.

Moose, I like your choice too. Simple but so, so true.

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hey, formerly lavender...here is some of our lightheadtotoe powerful performance of FO1000P (i'm sticking with this, lol)

i had just settled into taping this jam when rj got up there and blew me away with his powerful (non-miked) vocal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6v51FX37ZSY

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Wow, JJ, what an adrenalin rush that gave me (again).

Wouldn't it be fantastic to have all the gang together and do that again next May in Toronto during the festive week of the Massey concerts?

I would just love to get to hang out with all those friends again.

Hey guys; the call is out!

RJ.

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Matt is going to come next May - third times a charm I hope.
the last two tries didn't work for him. He's a talented fellow for sure..Billyboy has said he's coming too and I'm holding him to it!

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Thanks, jj. I really enjoyed watching the link. FOA1000P is a real gem for sure. I love when I can discover something new about Gord-almost like the feeling of anticipation I had when the final four were released on CD. It was the best knowing I had four whole albums of new material to listen to. Vividly remember hearing the first notes of Farewell to Annabel...it's still one of my favorites.

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spot on cher ami it is an almost overhelming Lightfoot performance
Those who have not previously heard the original rendition just play Gord's version (see below) a few times at high volume and I'll be surprised if your head is nor spinning afterwards.I just cannot understand why this never became a studio recording (I include in my top ten Gordsong list)

It is comments like that Omer that make me so very pleased that I managed to record this fabulous song from my Montreal apartment's television set's loudspeaker back in 1968
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfoot/images/cbctv.jpg
Fo those who have yet to hear this unreleased masterpeice (I won't say "unrecorded" as Jones The Elder did because there certainly was the CBC recording which I believe is still in existence as it was shown in the Toronto CBC cinema a few years ago), in addition to mine which you can download from this link
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfo...and_People.mp3
(Note that I recorded this myself on a battery powered el cheapo monaural (non stereo) reel to reel tape recorder that looked remarkably like this one
http://www.johnfowles.org.uk/lightfo...3J_collage.jpg
so the sound quality is not exactly high fidelity but is the best available until or unless the CBC issue a better version made from the original broadcast, and preferably a complete video of the show (hint hint to a certain notable corfiddler I am still patiently waiting for you! see you in May???)

The elder Jones has twice now done me the favour of performing this song for me firstly at the November 2006 jam session at the Delta Chelsea then again at the May 2008 jam at Mcveighs most excellent irish pub.
I videod both but am unable at this moment to locate the file for the 2008 and the 2006 recording features pretty disgusting sound quality so I will not inflict it on your ears I think that the 2008 was rather better soundwise so I will keep looking
OK since I drafted the above I see that Jones The Younger being obviously far more organisd than me has been able to upload his recording to youtube

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Another one you told me so much about John is "Echoes Of A Heroe" and I do listen to both of them often. :)

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Echoes of Heroes - classic, joo



sir J, i don't know who has the Show of the Week for that....only broadcasters (my lil outfit is primarily postproduction, not broadcast) and educators can purchase the footage from CBC ...they used to show this at one of the little theatre rooms occasionally, before all the cutbacks

jones sr (i'm too heavy) will have to scale the building walls and drop from a fine wire, you will have to keep watch on the street and trip any authorities up

if you do a GL search at the archive you will find 21 pages of hits of GL appearances....it's fun (and aggravating!) to sift through

btw, what i posted doesn't have the full rj version of FO1000P...i synched my video to the nice audio capture job that Ottawa Mike did...he has full version...good luck finding the 2008 version...you need char's see thru storage:)

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Great job as always jj... that's from La Cave 1964 right ?? I have it on CD 15 songs & he has to do "Ribbon Of Darkness" twice because first time around he forgot the words.

Just him & his guitars 6 & 12 string,,, correct ??

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yeah, no back up band...you can see a pic of GL at la cave in the recent steeles tavern thread

will keep a watch for whenthey are playing Wherefor and Why at the Spry theatre again....they played it the year of the charbq...anyone see it?

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a contradiciton between the clip john poste and the screen capture i posted from cbc archives as far as what tunes GL sang....i realize they refer to the tune in question as 'I was born' but what about Rosanna, Does you mother Know etc?

rj, what key do you do the tune in? c? (ie. A on guitar with capo up a few?)

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It's in the key of "C,"JJ.
I put the capo on the third fret and play it in the "A" position.
I cover the strings ("A"position) with the index, middle and ring fingers, giving the ring finger the opportunity to lift off the "B" string, (and back on) in order to sweeten the sound.
It should be played on a twelve string guitar. (too many notes?)

On another "NOTE," I'm in good ol' Toronto town arriving last night for a month or so and I have those books, you know, the ones with "too many notes" with me and Liam tells me he can scan them so we'll get that done asap to close the book on the "Gord chord" matter.

Stay loose,

RJ.

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That was so fun, I would love to be see a repeat. What a great group!!