You know you are a serious Lightfoot fan if the only way you can remember dates is by Gord's album release dates.
Chronology In Lightfoot Units
Gord’s music has not only been the soundtrack of my life but also the chronometer or perhaps calendar of my life...or maybe a book of life. His albums seemed to add “bookmarks” to the various events I’ve lived through. When someone asks me for the date of some occurrence in the book of my life, I use the release dates of Gord’s albums as bookmarks to separate out the chapters.
Teen Years - ‘Back Here On Earth’ (1968)
-good God, that’s pre-Woodstock & pre-Moon Landing
Went to Quebec City to ‘Summer side of Life’ and met my future wife there (1971) . I still cringe at the nightly TV updates on U.S. casualties in Vietnam.
University Years had a soundtrack of ‘Old Dan’s Records‘, ‘Don Quixote’ (1972), ‘Sundown’ (1973) and ‘Cold On The Shoulder’ (1975). Crammed for exams between spins of the vinyl. Second time I saw Gord perform live was at my university’s alumni hall.
Watergate scandal happened to the tune of ‘Cold On the Shoulder’ so it must have been 1975.
(Little did we know that the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975 would inspire Gord’s writing on ‘Summertime Dream’ a year later.)
Bought ‘Summertime Dream’ the week it came out - at Sam’s flagship store while visiting friends in Toronto the so it had to be 1976.
Menachem Begin & Anwar Sadat signed the legendary Camp David peace accord to the tune of ‘Endless Wire’ so they must have done that in 1978. Graduated University to ‘Endless Wire’.
The U.S. Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviet Union Team at Lake Pacid. Must have been 1980 because I recall ‘Dream Street Rose’ playing around that time.
Canoed the Missinaibi in 1980 because I just happened to be playing ‘On The High Seas’ the morning I drove through Hornepayne Ontario.
http://missinaibi-yuri.blogspot.com/...ibi-river.html
Was writing resumes in London Ontario to the tune of ‘Shadows’ and got my first serious job in Toronto a few months later. Had to be 1982 because I always associate those two events with that album.
Lots of Canoeing around the ‘Salute’ album, particularly the Albany, Mississagi, Kamiskotia, French & Spanish Rivers. Had to be around 1983! I’m sure Gord penned ‘Whispers of the North’ to keep me company on those northern rivers!
I got married in 1986 as ‘East of Midnight’ was spinning that year. I recall leaving work for downtown Toronto and a huge billboard of Gord in his white EofM suit was staring down over Yonge Street.
Started a new job after buying ‘Gord’s Gold II’ so I guess that year was 1988
‘Waiting For You‘, ‘Songbook’ etc. etc. Lots more examples, but you get the drift.
‘Harmony’ kept me company when my mom died in 2004
(we almost lost Gord a couple of years earlier)
And….the individual songs are yet another index of events in my life! If Gord is the book, the albums are the chapters of events and the individual songs are the pages of emotions.
Perhaps my days are numbered as Gord’s not releasing any ‘new’ albums. Might be time to find a requiem or a dirge. What a thought - The clock keeps ticking away….