50 Days, 50 Songs to the 50 Years on the Carefree Highway Concert

Day 45


This song has always been one of my favorites. Written to help celebrate Canada’s centennial celebration, it’s an ambitious song that’s played in three parts and tells of the building of the railroad across that country. A saga in itself, it says much about the men who worked and lived and died to make that dream come true.

Oh there was a time in this fair land

When the railroad did not run

When the wild majestic mountains

Stood alone against the sun

Long before the white man and

Long before the wheel

When the green dark forest was too silent

To be real

Canadian Railroad Trilogy, Gordon Lightfoot

50 Days, 50 Songs to the 50 Years on the Carefree Highway Concert

Day 46


Another song about sailing, but this one is light and mellow, makes you think of warm winds and gentle waves. It’s what I call a feel-good song.

I’m sailin’ down the summer wind

I’ve got whiskers on my chin

And I like the mood I’m in

As I while away the time of day

In the lee of Christian Island.

Christian Island, Gordon Lightfoot

50 Days, 50 Songs to the 50 Years on the Carefree Highway Concert

Day 47



Another favorite theme in many of Gordon Lightfoot’s songs: ships and sailors. Ships on the high seas, ships of the Great Lakes, and the weathered sailors who man them. Some of the songs are lighthearted and lilting, others tragic. None is more haunting than this song that tells of the many ships that were lost when they sailed around the treacherous Cape Horn of South America.

All around Old Cape Horn

Ships of the line, ships of the morn

Some who wish they’d never been born

They are the Ghosts of Cape Horn

Ghosts of Cape Horn, Gordon Lightfoot

50 Days, 50 Songs to the 50 Years on the Carefree Highway Concert

Day 48


Being down on your luck, going home, wanting to see your family, missing the people you love—they’re common themes in many of Gordon Lightfoot’s songs. This song expresses all of that.

Oh the prairie lights are burnin’ bright

The Chinook wind is a movin’ in

Tomorrow night I’ll be Alberta bound.

Though I’ve done the best I’ve could,

My old luck ain’t been so good,

And tomorrow night I’ll be Alberta bound.

Alberta Bound, Gordon Lightfoot

50 Days, 50 Songs to the 50 Years on the Carefree Highway Concert

Day 49


This song has always been one of my favorites. Maybe because I like ponies. It’s a song about a Peter-Pan-like someone who takes children on magical fantasy adventures while they sleep. The lyrics speak of pirate ships, holds filled with gold, and ponies that “live on candy apples instead of oats and hay.” That we should all have such lovely dreams!

When it’s midnight in the meadow and the cats are in the shed

And the river tells a story at the window by my bed

If you listen very closely, be as quiet as you can

In the yard you’ll hear him, it is the pony man.

The Pony Man, Gordon Lightfoot

50 Songs, 50 Days, to the 50 Years on the Carefree Highway Concert

Day 50

I have been a fan of Gordon Lightfoot and his music for most of my life, probably since I first heard “If You Could Read My Mind.” I first saw him in concert in March 1975, at Western Michigan University. I’d already been listening to his music for several years and was excited. So close! My other half (of now 41 years) was much less enamored of him and didn’t want to go, so a girlfriend and I made the trip. Newly expecting my first child, I was finally feeling less exhausted and was thrilled beyond thrilled to get out and see a concert. On the drive to Kalamazoo, the fickle late winter weather turned even more wintry and snow started swirling. Not to be deterred, we forged on. I wish I could remember more about that concert, other than how excited I was to see the man, whose songs I so loved, live on stage. What songs did he sing? This was pre-“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” because the ship was still 8 months away from sinking. I’m sure it was a lot of those early songs that were in his repertoire, the ones that first lifted the Canadian troubadour out of obscurity and sent him on tour across America.

I saw Gordon Lightfoot in concert several more times over the years, twice within the last three years. I think he likes to play in Michigan. I’ll see him again when he stops in Grand Rapids as part of his “50 Years on the Carefree Highway Tour” on May 6. As a tribute to the man and his music, and to reminisce a bit, I’m going to post a few lines from 50 songs, one song on each of the 50 days leading up to that date. Some well-known, some a little less known but no less loved by his legion of fans. So here’s today’s pick, perhaps one he sang at that concert in March 1975.

“In the early mornin’ rain, with a dollar in my hand

With an achin’ in my heart, and my pockets full of sand

I’m a long way from home, and I miss my loved ones so

In the early mornin’ rain, with no place to go.”

Early Morning Rain by Gordon Lightfoot

Beach, Books, and Me

Does the time of year influence what you read? It often does for me. I confess that in the middle of summer you will most often find me reading a story set at the beach, be it lakeshore or seashore, or an island, or at least somewhere that shouts "summertime" to me. Maybe because I grew up and still live in a beach town and many a summer afternoon has been spent at a local beach. My favorite thing is to read a book set near a beach while on a beach. I can't imagine anything I'd love more right now when there is snow falling outside and it's 13 degrees on the first of February! I'd love to feel warm sand under my toes instead of pulling on warm socks and boots to venture outside and clean snow off my vehicle. Unfortunately, the beach picture here doesn't do much for giving anybody a warm glow. But I digress.

While I love reading beach books in summer, September starts me thinking of reading a mystery or maybe a ghost story. Something about sliding through the last days of summer and into the autumn months puts me in a more melancholy or grayer frame of mind. I love the build up to Halloween and the smoky air and the crisp leaves that signal we are heading into the last weeks of the year. I love reading stories then that reflect a more somber mood and the aura of there being a thin line between this world and the next.

Of course quickly on the heels of autumn's mystery comes the holidays and all their glitter and glory. I turn to stories set at Christmas and in wintry settings, because I haven't yet become tired of the cold and snow and having to scrape car windows. I love the nice warm fuzzy feeling that Christmas stories can give you, much like a nice cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows. Both go a long way to dispel any chill you might feel from December's short days and long nights.

This time of year brings a few Valentine stories or maybe some set in New Orleans during Mardis Gras. I usually find myself reading a hodge podge of books, stories that don't really fall into any seasonal category, or starting those books that have been too long on my TBR shelf, which has grown to several bookcases instead of shelf. At the moment I'm into a a mystery/ghost story (because I really do love them anytime of year) and a western historical just put on my Kindle and also finishing up a Christmas story (to go along with the quickly falling snow). But I'm thinking when those are done, I might have to reach for one of those beach books that beckon, in the hope they will take me away, at least for a little while, from February's windchill. I mean, why wait for the season when you can escape into the moment and let a summer story give you that same warm glow.

So what book is on your nightstand or ereader right now? Does the season influence your reading habit?