110 Quotes by Gordon Lightfoot

There was a TV show called Thank Your Lucky Stars, with the catchphrase “I’ll give it five!” The Beatles and Stones were so popular when they were on it. One week The Beatles were number one and then the Stones were right on their heels.

I’m not really a bird person or an Audubon guy who studies them, but as I was around them, they interested me.

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.

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.

See the judge upon the bench who tries the case as best he can, see the wise and wicked ones who feed upon life’s sacred fire, see the soldier with his gun who must be dead to be admired.

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.

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

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.

If there’s a reason for the way that life is I’d like to find it. After all, who’s life is it?