Lightfoot was commissioned to write this for Canada's centennial celebrations in 1967. He was an amazing storyteller and musician, and a great Canadian.
I love that the pace of the guitars imitate the old rail trains of the time. You can imagine the puffing of the old engines. RIP Gordon Lightfoot... a true Canadian treasure.
Great song by the Great Gordon Lightfoot. I have been so fortunate in my long well lived life to attend concerts by many musicians including seeing Mr. Lightfoot a dozen times. I have a collection of his albums and have displayed many of them on my walls including Gords Gold. Thank You for doing this song and am looking forward to more from this Master. Rest in Peace Gordon, love you and miss you.❤❤❤
Great track. I love that he did not gloss over the hardships & deaths incurred by the Navvies (many of them migrant Chinese labourers) in telling the story. He paints such vivid pictures of what it must have been like back then. Such a great storyteller & Canadian icon. I was privileged to have seen him play live many times. RIP to a legend.
His gorgeous voice painting a true picture. There is a statue here in Winnipeg, Canada in Assiniboine Park dedicated to the Chinese railroad workers who lost their lives building the railroad. They were the ones that were given the most dangerous jobs. Great song. I have another Canadian artist for you to check out. Sass Jordan Make you a believer. Cheers
This was released in 1967, Canada's Centennial Year. So it meant more than just a great musical masterpiece to us Canadians. Later a musical theatre version of the trilogy toured Canada, setting up in small towns, using a semi-trailer for a stage. I saw it during Prince Edward Island's Centennial in 1973. Lightfoot never wrote a bad song. Now, you need to very carefully select a few of Stan Rogers' songs, like Barrett's Privateers, Northwest Passage (Canada's unofficial national anthem), Field Behind the Plow, White Squall (thing of Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald), Make and Break Harbour., Forty-Five Years, The Jeannie C., and especially The Mary Ellen Carter (Rise Again). This is songwriting at its very finest.
Everyone has seen pictures and videos of the Rocky mountains - now imagine the first surveyors walking up to that and trying to figure out how to put a railway through that and two more mountain ranges to the Pacific. It was/is a major feat of engineering.
There is a tv series “Hell on Wheels” about a decade ago, 5 seasons. It shows the American railroad, after our Civil War. One path started from like Chicago, the other from San Francisco. The tracks met in Utah. Soldiers from North and South, former Slaves, immigrants from Ireland, China, Germany -did the labor. And, our Native People, didn’t want the land disturbed by this path, these machines, killing of Buffalo along the way. “Hell on Wheels” was the name of the traveling camp of the railroad -prostitues went along with the workers. They needed dynamite to make tunnels in the mountains. Many died. The series was filmed in Canada, were less population, expanse of land. And, acknowledging the First Nations people view. This is an epic education. I saw Gordon ‘live’ with my Dad, who is also Gordon. I grew up with this music.
One of my all time favorite storytelling songs! Now try another great storyteller who has a great voice as well in Dan Fogelberg. Two songs ; one called Netherlands and the other is Leader of The Band.
Shawn, thank you so much for appreciating this incredible song. But on video it is never as great for me as it was when I watched Gordon Lightfoot sing this song to me and my friends in person...in concert. That entire concert was just mind blowing. I'm pretty sure it was back in 1967 or '68. I also had the good luck to have been able to watch Neil Diamond in concert, and later, the Beach Boys. Those were the good old days. But the price to pay for that luxury is that you have to surrender your youth. Meaning that now I am older than I like. But with incredible memories that my grandchildren will never understand. Lots of love from Alberta.
Hi Shawn. When I was young-ish in northeast Ohio, my sister got an album of GL;s that included this song/ballad, which freakin blew my mind. First it was the melody, and then it was the story, and then it was the real history..I knew nothing about Canada at all, and this was is my first sort of awareness of Canada. I was 11! So you can forgive me for my ignorance. This song sustained me as I grew up... dull details about this but this i sang it a lot as I drove from Maie to Massachusetts for may years
If you listen, you can hear the rythmn of rail travel in the music, and it is familiar to anyone who has spent a lot of time on Canadian trains, and I love Canadian trains.
Im sure there are many places where rail history shows itself, but near me in British Columbia there is Myrah canyon. It has a dozen wooden trestle bridges for the old rail. (now a bike and walking trail) Along side there are the stone ovens that they used to cook food for the workers. Very remote, especially back then.
My favorite Gord tunes are Circle of Steel, Steel Rail Blues, Don Quixote, If You Could Read My Mind, Old Dan's Records, Affair on 8th Avenue... and this one.
This song prompted me to do some research into the construction of Canada's transcontinental railway. I'm not sure I can now relate accurately what I found, but the railroad, somewhat surprisingly, remained unfinished due to the failure of negotiations with an Indian tribe that had as its reservation the land needed (in Alberta?) to directly connect the eastern and western segments of the rail line, which had already been built. The one thing I do remember was how the stalemate was broken and the railroad completed. The Chief of the tribe agreed to an easement crossing the Indian land in return for a lifetime pass to ride the railroad whenever he wanted. I think I recall that the Chief actually used his free pass a lot, travelling far into Eastern Canada on sight-seeing excursions.
My very favourie of Gordon's magnificent stories. I can see my ancestry in all the lyrics. I cry every single time I hear it. Thank you precious Gordon Lightfoot, much appreciated.. May God enjoy your talents. Amen.
Not well known is there was one life lost per rock cut. My grandfather worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway for 50 years. He started out as a Navi and worked up from there.
One of the most dangerous tasks was to blast tunnels through the mountains. There were many Chinese workers, and for them an incentive that was offered for this dangerous work was the company would pay to bring the successful workers' families from Canada to China. Of course carrying dynamite and other explosives into these tunnels was incredibly dangerous and many of these brave men died in the attempt. It always seemed to me to be a cynical thing to hold possible reunions with their families over them.
I'm going to assume that you're not Canadian and don't know about Heritage Minutes, but there's a heritage minute about all the Chinese immigrants that died blasting a railroad through the Rockies. Building a 3470mi railroad through swamp and forest, field and mountain was dangerous difficult work. Malaria was another big killer too.
Hi, Shawn: Thank you for doing this song. I did a tribute to Gordon last year if anyone is interested. A Tribute To Gordon Lightfoot my all time favourite singer/songwriter Died on May 1 2023 You gave me a lifetime of great music. If You Could Read My Mind ua-cam.com/video/-DPS9uTKGTY/v-deo.html Cotton Jenny ua-cam.com/video/X5NSDyYNx_A/v-deo.html Beautiful ua-cam.com/video/KB03dJePq5o/v-deo.html That Same Old Obsession ua-cam.com/video/ScnwUViYias/v-deo.html Lazy Morning ua-cam.com/video/r7eMeyFeXUo/v-deo.html Sundown ua-cam.com/video/1IBdZ645S-o/v-deo.html Morning Glory ua-cam.com/video/eAs4PEBN05g/v-deo.html A Lesson in Love ua-cam.com/video/Ucqb9Vflc1Y/v-deo.html If Children Had Wings ua-cam.com/video/aPLBgWNC7mk/v-deo.html Dreamland ua-cam.com/video/hnPRJw_O_JE/v-deo.html Hangdog Hotel Room ua-cam.com/video/45i_9BD2A5I/v-deo.html Daylight Katy ua-cam.com/video/wwiosZSJ_pY/v-deo.html Affair On 8th Avenue ua-cam.com/video/_5-HFZhpYEI/v-deo.html Bitter Green ua-cam.com/video/1bcGpNUQUXU/v-deo.html Did She Mention My Name ua-cam.com/video/r2ni9hRaU5A/v-deo.html Something Very Special ua-cam.com/video/tno9aYLswDU/v-deo.html Pussywillows, Cat-Tails ua-cam.com/video/5rVJjKQxkZg/v-deo.html Does Your Mother Know ua-cam.com/video/zcNO6hhuG2k/v-deo.html Black Day In July ua-cam.com/video/vCQmx_wJH6o/v-deo.html Wherefore & Why ua-cam.com/video/RckpSVKgFmQ/v-deo.html The Last Time I Saw Her ua-cam.com/video/i7wpPS_xwiM/v-deo.html The Way I Feel ua-cam.com/video/QoejmsEuBws/v-deo.html Canadian Railroad Trilogy ua-cam.com/video/YoaEbp3o6LU/v-deo.html Song For A Winter's Night ua-cam.com/video/7F9R94DLniE/v-deo.html Home From The Forest ua-cam.com/video/XwWa46tSego/v-deo.html Go-Go Round ua-cam.com/video/_6ewc6bdMdo/v-deo.html A Minor Ballad ua-cam.com/video/UHTKhetxF28/v-deo.html Softly ua-cam.com/video/w99BHBLLzqw/v-deo.html Steel Rail Blues ua-cam.com/video/vBshV6z2gTk/v-deo.html Early Mornin' Rain ua-cam.com/video/M2FzeMrXSoA/v-deo.html Rainy Day People ua-cam.com/video/MdhRhGX3AG4/v-deo.html Carefree Highway ua-cam.com/video/iYuF99VTEdg/v-deo.html High and Dry ua-cam.com/video/xJ7S6QLDREw/v-deo.html Somewhere U.S.A. ua-cam.com/video/2LzftE-WeWY/v-deo.html Mother of a Miner's Child ua-cam.com/video/aX5Euq6LvMY/v-deo.html It's Worth Believin' ua-cam.com/video/Q5CIBuh8qPI/v-deo.html Summer Side of Life ua-cam.com/video/fiMJk7trF00/v-deo.html Miguel ua-cam.com/video/FBypfO9nKjo/v-deo.html 10 Degrees & Getting Colder ua-cam.com/video/j9EuEr0N5Os/v-deo.html Your Love's Return ua-cam.com/video/D0qj4oPL8Ck/v-deo.html Saturday Clothes ua-cam.com/video/nqjkNP_Muc4/v-deo.html Approaching Lavender ua-cam.com/video/0Tnvd6nT7fQ/v-deo.html Minstrel of the Dawn ua-cam.com/video/NSvx223pNtU/v-deo.html
Great song but I prefer his original recording. Gord's Gold was a rerecording of his tunes as a dispute with his record label. I don't like this productions as much.
Lightfoot was commissioned to write this for Canada's centennial celebrations in 1967. He was an amazing storyteller and musician, and a great Canadian.
I love that the pace of the guitars imitate the old rail trains of the time. You can imagine the puffing of the old engines. RIP Gordon Lightfoot... a true Canadian treasure.
My late brother loved Gordon Lightfoot. He had every album he made. Could play all his songs on the guitar.
RIP Sam...RIP Gordon
Great song by the Great Gordon Lightfoot. I have been so fortunate in my long well lived life to attend concerts by many musicians including seeing Mr. Lightfoot a dozen times. I have a collection of his albums and have displayed many of them on my walls including Gords Gold. Thank You for doing this song and am looking forward to more from this Master. Rest in Peace Gordon, love you and miss you.❤❤❤
I have them all on vinyl -- including Gord's Gold.
Great track. I love that he did not gloss over the hardships & deaths incurred by the Navvies (many of them migrant Chinese labourers) in telling the story. He paints such vivid pictures of what it must have been like back then. Such a great storyteller & Canadian icon. I was privileged to have seen him play live many times. RIP to a legend.
His gorgeous voice painting a true picture. There is a statue here in Winnipeg, Canada in Assiniboine Park dedicated to the Chinese railroad workers who lost their lives building the railroad. They were the ones that were given the most dangerous jobs.
Great song.
I have another Canadian artist for you to check out.
Sass Jordan Make you a believer.
Cheers
This was released in 1967, Canada's Centennial Year. So it meant more than just a great musical masterpiece to us Canadians. Later a musical theatre version of the trilogy toured Canada, setting up in small towns, using a semi-trailer for a stage. I saw it during Prince Edward Island's Centennial in 1973. Lightfoot never wrote a bad song. Now, you need to very carefully select a few of Stan Rogers' songs, like Barrett's Privateers, Northwest Passage (Canada's unofficial national anthem), Field Behind the Plow, White Squall (thing of Lightfoot's Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald), Make and Break Harbour., Forty-Five Years, The Jeannie C., and especially The Mary Ellen Carter (Rise Again). This is songwriting at its very finest.
Everyone has seen pictures and videos of the Rocky mountains - now imagine the first surveyors walking up to that and trying to figure out how to put a railway through that and two more mountain ranges to the Pacific. It was/is a major feat of engineering.
There is a tv series “Hell on Wheels” about a decade ago, 5 seasons. It shows the American railroad, after our Civil War. One path started from like Chicago, the other from San Francisco. The tracks met in Utah.
Soldiers from North and South, former Slaves, immigrants from Ireland, China, Germany -did the labor. And, our Native People, didn’t want the land disturbed by this path, these machines, killing of Buffalo along the way. “Hell on Wheels” was the name of the traveling camp of the railroad -prostitues went along with the workers. They needed dynamite to make tunnels in the mountains. Many died.
The series was filmed in Canada, were less population, expanse of land. And, acknowledging the First Nations people view.
This is an epic education. I saw Gordon ‘live’ with my Dad, who is also Gordon. I grew up with this music.
Lightfoot just told the history of Canada in a song.
All of north America really!!
A lot of Chinese men lost their lives on this railroad They were the ones that did the most dangerous work basically being treated very poorly
The poor downtrodden Chinamen.
Absolutely.
One of my all time favorite storytelling songs! Now try another great storyteller who has a great voice as well in Dan Fogelberg. Two songs ; one called Netherlands and the other is Leader of The Band.
Shawn, thank you so much for appreciating this incredible song. But on video it is never as great for me as it was when I watched Gordon Lightfoot sing this song to me and my friends in person...in concert. That entire concert was just mind blowing. I'm pretty sure it was back in 1967 or '68. I also had the good luck to have been able to watch Neil Diamond in concert, and later, the Beach Boys. Those were the good old days. But the price to pay for that luxury is that you have to surrender your youth. Meaning that now I am older than I like. But with incredible memories that my grandchildren will never understand. Lots of love from Alberta.
Hi Shawn. When I was young-ish in northeast Ohio, my sister got an album of GL;s that included this song/ballad, which freakin blew my mind. First it was the melody, and then it was the story, and then it was the real history..I knew nothing about Canada at all, and this was is my first sort of awareness of Canada. I was 11! So you can forgive me for my ignorance. This song sustained me as I grew up... dull details about this but this i sang it a lot as I drove from Maie to Massachusetts for may years
If you listen, you can hear the rythmn of rail travel in the music, and it is familiar to anyone who has spent a lot of time on Canadian trains, and I love Canadian trains.
Im sure there are many places where rail history shows itself, but near me in British Columbia there is Myrah canyon. It has a dozen wooden trestle bridges for the old rail. (now a bike and walking trail)
Along side there are the stone ovens that they used to cook food for the workers. Very remote, especially back then.
My favorite Gord tunes are Circle of Steel, Steel Rail Blues, Don Quixote, If You Could Read My Mind, Old Dan's Records, Affair on 8th Avenue... and this one.
This song prompted me to do some research into the construction of Canada's transcontinental railway. I'm not sure I can now relate accurately what I found, but the railroad, somewhat surprisingly, remained unfinished due to the failure of negotiations with an Indian tribe that had as its reservation the land needed (in Alberta?) to directly connect the eastern and western segments of the rail line, which had already been built. The one thing I do remember was how the stalemate was broken and the railroad completed. The Chief of the tribe agreed to an easement crossing the Indian land in return for a lifetime pass to ride the railroad whenever he wanted. I think I recall that the Chief actually used his free pass a lot, travelling far into Eastern Canada on sight-seeing excursions.
SO glad you got to this one!
Great song and reaction!♥
Poetry with music . . . What talent . . . Miss you Gordon Lightfoot 🇨🇦 ❤️👍🏻👍🏽👍🏼👍🏾🌎🌍🌏
My very favourie of Gordon's magnificent stories. I can see my ancestry in all the lyrics. I cry every single time I hear it. Thank you precious Gordon Lightfoot, much appreciated.. May God enjoy your talents. Amen.
What can you say, but a true masterpiece. Incredibly well done Gordon. RIP
Commissioned by the Canadian government to celebrate the centennial of their trans-continental railroad.
No, commissioned to celebrate the Centennial of Canada in 1967. The Canadian Pacific Railway was not completed until 1885.
Not well known is there was one life lost per rock cut. My grandfather worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway for 50 years. He started out as a Navi and worked up from there.
Thank you for reacting to this awesome song!
I think the Gords Gold version played here is actually better than his earlier recording of it!
1967 was our Centennial year ,this song was written in celebration of our 100th year.
As Christmas approaches put Gordon's great song Circle of Steel on your listen list.
So love this song I've never understood why it wasn't more popular it's wonderfully enjoyable history
I really enjoyed your reaction ❤
Great take away man. Peace.
We lost one of the souls of this country when he passed
And in his own words this song he had written very quickiy
Canada's minstrel.
Rural areas! Are you kidding me, this is raw land, forest, mountains to CUT
RAILROAD
Gotta do The Edmond Fitzgerald!!
One of the most dangerous tasks was to blast tunnels through the mountains. There were many Chinese workers, and for them an incentive that was offered for this dangerous work was the company would pay to bring the successful workers' families from Canada to China. Of course carrying dynamite and other explosives into these tunnels was incredibly dangerous and many of these brave men died in the attempt. It always seemed to me to be a cynical thing to hold possible reunions with their families over them.
We had a trilogy before star wars
Definitely not going home each night - the railway is 12,500 miles long
I'm going to assume that you're not Canadian and don't know about Heritage Minutes, but there's a heritage minute about all the Chinese immigrants that died blasting a railroad through the Rockies. Building a 3470mi railroad through swamp and forest, field and mountain was dangerous difficult work. Malaria was another big killer too.
Interesting, malaria in Canada.....
And unlike too many verbose yakkers you LISTEN and pay attention to history.
Hi, Shawn: Thank you for doing this song. I did a tribute to Gordon last year if anyone is interested.
A Tribute To Gordon Lightfoot my all time favourite singer/songwriter Died on May 1 2023
You gave me a lifetime of great music.
If You Could Read My Mind
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Cotton Jenny
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Beautiful
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That Same Old Obsession
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Lazy Morning
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Sundown
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Morning Glory
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A Lesson in Love
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If Children Had Wings
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Dreamland
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Hangdog Hotel Room
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Daylight Katy
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Affair On 8th Avenue
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Bitter Green
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Did She Mention My Name
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Something Very Special
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Pussywillows, Cat-Tails
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Does Your Mother Know
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Black Day In July
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Wherefore & Why
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The Last Time I Saw Her
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The Way I Feel
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Canadian Railroad Trilogy
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Song For A Winter's Night
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Home From The Forest
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Go-Go Round
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A Minor Ballad
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Softly
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Steel Rail Blues
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Early Mornin' Rain
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Rainy Day People
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Carefree Highway
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High and Dry
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Somewhere U.S.A.
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Mother of a Miner's Child
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It's Worth Believin'
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Summer Side of Life
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Miguel
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10 Degrees & Getting Colder
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Your Love's Return
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Saturday Clothes
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Approaching Lavender
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Minstrel of the Dawn
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Great song but this track was from Gord's Gold which rerecorded his classics and added unnecessary orchestration. I much prefer the original releases.
Great song but I prefer his original recording. Gord's Gold was a rerecording of his tunes as a dispute with his record label. I don't like this productions as much.
This is my least favourite all his versions. You should reviewed the live performance from the 1972 BBC Concert,