A music icon’s life and work are celebrated in “Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind.” Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosoni’s doc sees the titular folk-rock singer-songwriter, as well as fans and friends, reflecting on his journey from choirboy to global star and “Canadian national hero.”
“He is one of the greatest examples of timeless singer-songwriter,” Rush’s Geddy Lee says in a new trailer for the doc. “The melodies are so powerful and he’s such a good storyteller,” agrees Sarah McLachlan, “and the combination of those things just really makes for a great song.”
“There’s a beauty in what he was writing about, but there’s a lot of internal pain that none of us will know about, and it makes you love him,” another interviewee says of the five-time Grammy nominee. “You just have to listen to his lyrics and then you get it.”
As for Lightfoot himself, he humbly gets down to the brass tacks of his success: “I knew that I had to sit down and do the work!” he recalls.
“If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” and “Rainy Day People” are some of Lightfoot’s best known songs and among his 200-plus recordings. He has sold over 10 million albums.
“Gordon Lightfoot was a ubiquitous presence during my childhood,” Kehoe told us ahead of the film’s Hot Docs premiere last year. “I used to listen to his music. I remember sitting under a willow tree around the age of 10 thinking about the song ‘If You Could Read My Mind’ and wondering what it meant. Later I was privileged to meet and work with Gord on shows big and small over the years.”
“There is no doubt that Gordon’s memorable songs will be running through the minds of the audience after watching the documentary, but I hope they’ll also come away from the theater with more insight into what makes Gordon tick,” Tosoni said. “For a somewhat inscrutable character, he was very generous with his time, and I believe he really tried to give us as honest a look at his ‘inner workings’ as anyone has ever seen.”
“Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind” will be released this summer, with an opening date TBD.
