Gordon Lightfoot Forums - Which songs best represent GL's song types?

I spoke of this in "one record you could not live without", thought at first it did not warrant a thread; but the more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me the conversation that would ensue regarding the question again, unbridled by the length of the thread title box "Which Lightfoot song(s) best represent his song "types" such as Love Ballad Fulfilled, historical story tune, social injustice, prayer of sorts, rough-and-tumble broad-brimmed close-to-cowboy as he gets, contemporary events, songs dedicated to legendary styles, etc. Here is my plea: would you guys like to:, in any way you want, I'm not suggesting structure of your responses, only what I am curious to hear and I think others would be too:
1. Identify the type of song, in your opinion
2. Identify the song(s) that best represent it to you
2. Why, and comments

There are no wrong answers, just opinions IMO lol

here is my starter:

Love fuflfilled:
"Beautiful" best represents it IMO, because, well, perhaps this one speaks for itself, but clearly he is happy in it, at least the mood of the song, and not being a songwriter, I can only assume that was his mood at the time he wrote it regarding her....

Almost Western, not C&W per se, but tumblin' tumbleweeds WESTERN :

"Cold on the Shoulder" - has that clippety-clop of horsehooves sorta, rythm of many westerns on the trail... full of sage wisdom.... . To me, its also part of, not a "type" of song, but one song during a period of his music pundits/reviewers several times called his "Broad-Brimmed" period - expressed by them as '73 - '75.

In other terms, roughly from Old Dan's records "My Pony Won't Go", through a peak of sorts of the period in Sundown by sound and various attributes, ending they have said with COTS, only by virtue of Summertime Dream ,

while classic of the 70's as a whole

, was less "Western Broad Brimmed"-sounding to me and apparently reviewers, which I know begs the question, but I think maybe the best explanation I have is he introduced new electric intruments, essentially left behind the "rough-and'tumbl(in) tumbleweeds" nature of COTS the song, Sundown, the admonishment, Watchman, the tough, but introspective (and drunk?) character in the song "[He's] been on the town, washin the B.S. down", andf interestingly, in this "period" I think.... it also was representative of his change from hired orchestral accompaniment, notably strings, woodwinds, etc., becase I think on Summertime dreams the orchestration was synthesized by the "moog" synthesizer (old term) now the amazingly-well-played electric keyboard with multiple instruments and other types of sounds, that Heffernan plays. Gotta look at my Summertime Dream LP album cover to verify that orchestration change to keyboard (not sure, and I can't find it since I moved) lol.

OK.. I'd better not ramble on way too much, and leave types, periods, songs, etc, and opinions oppurtunities to you guys ( as well as disagreement in opinion with mine) - my start, is all , of some... of his styles...to all of you... I am really interested to hear what you think are his song "types", even "genre", "period" if you think there were, as do I, the songs themselves...and why - what you think....and disagree with or agree... mine and others opinions, mine are only a beginning.... ding ! goes the round bell.... lol j/k.... this one may get ....interesting....

Oh...BTW... For the classically-trained musicians and songwriters and singers, this is a great oppurtunity to "educate" us others to the textbook aspects of these terms I am only guessing apply - types, genres, periods, etc....:):whistle::headbang::biggrin:

~geoSteve