Latest Gordon Lightfoot Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• I would never have ever dreamed that I would get married again and then all of a sudden you meet somebody. That's the thing about life. It can be so unexpected.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Unexpected, Married

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• My daughter Meredith Moon from my second wife has a band that does Appalachian music, with five-strong banjo, clawhammer style. I may have to direct her somewhere. Meredith was my middle name. I would have to direct her because I am always directing something. She's in the musician's union and she is only 21. Your kids surprise you.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Daughter, Strong, Kids

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• What has changed for me is that I now have a huge family [Lightfoot has four children, from his first two marriages] - the result of my living.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Children, Two, Four

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I play piano, but not well enough to play professionally.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Play, Piano, Enough

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I never really had stage nerves but I did have had trouble getting up to the right energy level. For a long time I drank. I drank up until 1982 and then I gave up alcohol.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Long, Alcohol, Energy

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I remember when I first rocked in it was a great big dance hall and Tommy Young was blowing trombone and Louis [Armstrong] was singing a tune and it was just Satchmo and you could hear it resounding through the dance hall and people were dancing. It was a highlight.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  People, Dancing, Singing

• I love jazz. I still do. Dave Brubeck and Stan Getz are so good. I took a notification course in Jazz Orchestration. It wasn't a grandiose as you'd think but I did have to to go to Los Angeles to do it and get an understanding of the keyboard because the keyboard became my tool and I used it a lot in transposing and composing. All the flats and time values. I spent a year doing that because in those days you had to be able to write your own music and read sheets.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Writing, Thinking, Years

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• When I was 16, I used to drive huge loads of laundry in a three ton truck. I would turn round at night to drive back and see the band in a place north of Toronto called Dunn's Pavilion. I would drive that truck all day and they drive back and all the way until one day I wrecked the truck. I fell asleep and wrecked it. I was OK and so was my helper. I called my dad and the first words out of his mouth were, "are you OK?" I was really lucky I had a kind father.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Dad, Father, Night

• I never got really good at hockey.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Hockey

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I worked in a plant when I was 14 for two years. I always wanted to do the summer jobs. Honest to God, I always had to be doing something.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Summer, Jobs, Years

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I had lots of friends who were fighting in Vietnam and I am still friends with veterans of the war.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  War, Fighting, Lots Of Friends

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I was a drummer in the bugle band in cadets. I marched. It's probably quite funny to look back on it.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Cadets, Looks, Band

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I can remember sitting in a cabin outside of Denver writing that with a can of soup on the stove.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Writing, Cabins, Denver

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• Don Quixote was a song for a 1969 Michael Douglas movie called Hail Hero! I wrote the title song for the film and they also used the Don Quixote one I had submitted.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Hero, Titles

• I once performed The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to about 15 sea captains. The song was about a ship that broke in half and sank.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Sea, Half

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I try to write songs. At our concerts, we take the cream of the crop from my back catalogue and I don't know if I could write something now that would replace any of that. We don't lose any of the standards. We have lots of songs in rotation.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Writing, Trying

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• There is always something wrong with a song, you can't be perfect.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Perfect

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I went on tours with [Bob] Dylan - the big one was in 1975 and called Roaring Thunder Review. I knew him well because I met him around the time he did his second album, in 1963. He recorded one of my songs called Shadows. In the 1970s, it was suggested that we do a duet, because we had the same manager, Albert Grossman, who also managed Odetta and Peter, Paul and Mary. Dylan and I respected what each other did, but I just decided not to do it.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Shadow, Roaring

• My first song was Hula Hoop Song, in 1955. It was a novelty song. I had to find someway to reach out and it was with a novelty song. Now, all of my recording obligations have been taken care of. I made 14 albums for Warner Brothers. Five for United Artist before that.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Brother, Taken

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• Of course I knew The Band's Canadian keyboard player, the late Richard Manuel, but I didn't play that night because I was there as a guest with my record executives. People ask, "why didn't you play?" If I had known I was going to be playing then I would have been prepared for it.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Player, Night, People

• A lot of people influenced me as I was learning but probably Bing Crosby was the most influential, because I would hear his Christmas albums, which my parents played a lot.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  People, Parent, Albums

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• My parents got my sister and I to go to church and have piano lessons. We were keen and they could see that.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Piano, Parent, Church

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I got to sing solo in the junior choir when I was 10 or 11 and won a competition, and my sister's piano playing improved to a certain level. One time my sister and I worked together. The first song we ever sang in High School was Rags to Riches by Tony Bennett.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, School, Piano

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I took the song The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face from a folk singer called Bonnie Dobson. I knew her and she had a record with that track on it.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Song, Track, Records

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

• I liked the American folk style of Woody Guthrie.

  Gordon Lightfoot

  Style, Woody, Folks

  Source: www.telegraph.co.uk