Gordon Lightfoot Walks Among Us

I could tell when I drove into downtown Phoenixville to pick up our Taco Tuesday dinner that last evening was not a typical weeknight. Traffic was a bit heavier and my easy parking spots couldn’t be found. At first I didn’t know the cause of this excitement but then I remembered.

Gordon Lightfoot is walking among us!

Lightfoot, the renowned Canadian troubadour responsible for “If You Could Read My Mind”, “Sundown”, and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, is playing the Colonial Theatre last night and tonight.

The Lightfootian celebratory electricity on Bridge Street was palpable.

Sure, I’m being somewhat tongue-in-cheek. But only somewhat. I very much enjoy Lightfoot’s classics and I understand why Bob Dylan rates Gord highly as a songwriter. Of course, for me there is also that level of actually remembering when Lightfoot hits were saturating a.m. radio in the 1970s.

Think about this: “If You Could Read My Mind”, “Sundown”, “Carefree Highway”, and “Edmund Fitzgerald” are substantial, sturdy songs that all also happened to be Top 10 pop hits, their titles intoned by Casey Kasem. The sultry “Sundown” – "in a room where you do what you don’t confess”, indeed! -- even spent a week at #1.

Enjoy your stay here in Phoenixville, Gordon Lightfoot, until the carefree highway carries you down the line.

~217~