Gordon Lightfoot has died

May 2, 2023

Gordon Lightfoot, the Canadian folk singer/songwriter, has died at age 84.

Here’s a live performance of his beautiful song “If You Could Read My Mind” (1970), which he wrote about his divorce:

In the live video he sings, “I’m just trying to understand the feelings that you lack,” which is in the original recording too. Later on when he played it live, he changed one word at his daughter’s request, instead singing “… the feelings that we lack.” He realized that the deeply personal subject matter had prevented him from being objective enough to think of that improvement.

Rick Beato spends 20 minutes on what makes that song great: