| "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Gordon Lightfoot | ||||
| from the album The Way I Feel | ||||
| B-side | "It's My Time" | |||
| Released | 1967 | |||
| Recorded | 1966 (rerecorded 1975) | |||
| Genre | Folk | |||
| Length | 6:22 (rerecorded 7:04) | |||
| Label | United Artists | |||
| Songwriter(s) | Gordon Lightfoot | |||
| Gordon Lightfoot singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
"Canadian Railroad Trilogy" is a story song that was written, composed, and first performed in 1966 by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who released his original recording of it in 1967. The song was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to celebrate the Canadian Centennial in 1967. "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" describes the building of the trans-Canada Canadian Pacific Railway, the construction work on which was completed in 1885. The CPR was incorporated in 1881 and merged with the Kansas City Southern Railway in 2023 to form the Canadian Pacific Kansas City.
This song was commissioned from Lightfoot by the CBC for a special broadcast on January 1, 1967, to start Canada's Centennial year. Writing and composing it took him three days. [1] It appeared on Lightfoot's album The Way I Feel later in the same year along with the song "Crossroads," a shorter song of similar theme. [2] The structure of the song, with a slow tempo section in the middle and faster paced sections at the beginning and end, was patterned more or less opposite to Bob Gibson's and Hamilton Camp's "Civil War Trilogy," famously recorded by The Limeliters on the 1963 live album Our Men In San Francisco. In the first section, the song picks up speed like a locomotive building up a head of steam. [3]
While Lightfoot's song echoes the optimism of the railroad age, it also chronicles the cost in sweat and blood of building "an iron road runnin' from the sea to the sea." The slow middle section of the song is especially poignant, vividly describing the efforts and sorrows of the nameless and forgotten "navvies," whose manual labour actually built the railway.
Session personnel for the 1967 recording were these: Gordon Lightfoot on 12-string acoustic guitar, Red Shea on lead acoustic guitar, John Stockfish on Fender bass guitar, and Charlie McCoy on harmonica.
Lightfoot re-recorded the track on his 1975 compilation album, Gord's Gold, this time with full orchestration that Lee Holdridge arranged. A live version also appears on two of his live albums, first on his 1969 album Sunday Concert and again on the 2012 release All Live, which consists of songs recorded during the live concerts Lightfoot gave at Toronto's Massey Hall between 1998 and 2001. [4]
According to Lightfoot, Pierre Berton, author of The Last Spike , once said "You did more good with your damn song than I did with my entire book on the same subject." [5] [6] In an interview with The Telegraph, Lightfoot indicated that upon meeting Queen Elizabeth II, she had told him how much she enjoyed the song. [7]
In 2001, Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" was honoured as one of the Canadian MasterWorks by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada.
The song has been covered by John Mellencamp and George Hamilton IV (#3Can [8] ), among others. [9] James Keelaghan performed the song on the Lightfoot tribute album, Beautiful. In the summer of 2004, the song was performed by that year's Canadian Idol Top 6. [10]
"Canadian Railroad Trilogy" has become one of Lightfoot's signature songs, and for years he concluded many, though not all, of his concerts by performing it.[ citation needed ]
Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. was a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been referred to as Canada's greatest songwriter and his songs have been recorded by some of the world's most renowned musical artists. Lightfoot's biographer Nicholas Jennings said, "His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness."
John J. Mellencamp, previously known as Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American singer-songwriter. He is known for his catchy brand of heartland rock, which emphasizes traditional instrumentation. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, followed by an induction into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2018.
The Canadian Centennial was a yearlong celebration held in 1967 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation. Celebrations in Canada occurred throughout the year but culminated on Dominion Day, July 1. Commemorative coins were minted, that were different from typical issues with animals on each — the cent, for instance, had a dove on its reverse. Communities and organizations across Canada were encouraged to engage in Centennial projects to celebrate the anniversary. The projects ranged from special one-time events to local improvement projects, such as the construction of municipal arenas and parks. The Centennial Flame was also added to Parliament Hill. Children born in 1967 were declared Centennial babies.
The Way I Feel is the second studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, originally released in 1967 on the United Artists label.
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Back Here On Earth is Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot's fourth studio album, released in 1968 on the United Artists label.
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Sunday Concert is Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot's first solo live album, released in 1969 on the United Artists label. Lightfoot's last recording for United Artists, it was also his first live album and until the release of a live DVD in 2002 remained Lightfoot's only officially released live recording. The album was recorded at Massey Hall in Toronto.
Samuel Robert Gibson was an American folk singer and a key figure in the folk music revival in the late 1950s and early 1960s. His principal instruments were banjo and 12-string guitar.
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Terra Lightfoot is a Canadian musician and singer-songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario who has released four albums with the independent music label Sonic Unyon Recording Company and is distributed by Universal Music Group in Canada and The Orchard outside of Canada. She performs in a folk and roots rock style known for bold vocals and electric guitar riffs.
Red Shea was a renowned Canadian folk guitarist. Over his career, he helped define the sounds of artists such as Gordon Lightfoot and Ian and Sylvia Tyson, and was a regular on the TV show of Canadian Country music singer Tommy Hunter. In 1965, he began working in the studio with Gordon Lightfoot, and toured with him until 1971, when he left the touring band to focus on his family. He continued working with Lightfoot in the studio and briefly toured with Lightfoot and his band during his 1975 tour. The same year, he left and began working with Ian Tyson. Later on, he hosted his own Canadian variety show and became the band leader for Tommy Hunter’s TV show in the early 1980s. Red Shea died of pancreatic cancer on June 10th, 2008, just a month after his 70th birthday.
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