Take Care to Not 'Get Burned in a Three-Way-Script' | Eastern North Carolina Now

Esoteric in descriptive passion, while leapfrogging non sequiturs at will; powerful in the communication of purpose; the whole of this poetic masterpiece is an essential conversation with the daily Soul.

    Canadian Balladeer Gordon Lightfoot was never a fixture among my favorites, as I consumed volumes of uniquely eclectic music from the most enlightened period of any within the realm of the classical creation of music; however, Balladeer Lightfoot did create one song that has stuck with me over generations. His ballad "If You Could Read My Mind" was that one song that was my guilty pleasure, as an over stimulated rock'n' fool of the late 60's and 70's. It was that song that I truly understood at its essential core, when I was then so pathetically self-absorbed in any melancholy stupor, so common for misdirected minds and spirits. It was a melody that kept me company, as I grew too introspective as to how weird reality rolls with the punches, and then throws them back 2 fold, and with a fine accuracy.

    Regardless of my mood swings while "comfortably numb" to the real world broiling about me then, this song poked a big, valuable hole into the veneer of my pathos, and showed me another side within my introspection that needed some tending and much mending. "If You Could Read My Mind" is that song, in melody and verse, that possesses the perfect blend of what worked then, and even now for just me. I still get its allegorical flow of thought that seems to etch quite a bit deeper upon the wall of my soul. Still, I haven't considered the song for about a decade, and it still has an element of power into my sense of nostalgia flowing through me.

If You Could Read My Mind

     ©1969 by Gordon Lightfoot
If you could read my mind, love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie,
'Bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong,
With chains upon my feet.
You know that ghost is me.
And I will never be set free
As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see.

If I could read your mind, love,
What a tale your thoughts could tell.
Just like a paperback novel,
The kind the drugstores sell.
Then you reached the part where the heartaches come,
The hero would be me.
But heroes often fail,
And you won't read that book again
Because the ending's just too hard to take!

I'd walk away like a movie star
Who gets burned in a three way script.
Enter number two:
A movie queen to play the scene
Of bringing all the good things out in me.
But for now, love, let's be real;
I never thought I could feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it.
I don't know where we went wrong,
But the feeling's gone
And I just can't get it back.

If you could read my mind, love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie,
'Bout a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong.
With chains upon my feet.
But stories always end,
And if you read between the lines,
You'd know that I'm just tryin' to understand
The feelin's that you lack.
I never thought I could feel this way
And I've got to say that I just don't get it.
I don't know where we went wrong,
But the feelin's gone
And I just can't get it back!

    The words above are carried in melody by a healthy allocation of the chords: G, F, C, D, and to a lesser extent, to elevate the the tone /mood in subtle increments, chords G7, Em, and Am7; so from my novice perspective - not too difficult to play. The difficulty will be in getting the picking to a serviceable arrangement, because, there is no strumming in this song, which is good for me; I'm not much of a strummer - I'd rather pull strings up, rather than down. It's a habit. As you will notice in the video, the song is carried by the picking of proper resonant notes out of each individual chord to well accommodate Gordon Lightfoot's pitch perfect brooding baritone, which was magnificent when recorded in 1970, and in the video below made that same year.


This rendition of "If You Could Read My Mind", as well of the arrangement on the recording with Lightfoot's phrasing within his perfect brooding baritone was the allegorical "lightning in a bottle". It is as much musical perfection as is Louis Armstrong's rendition of Henry Mancini's (melody)/ Johnny Mercer's (lyrics) "Moon River", which is high praise indeed. This is what real art looks like.
    What piqued my interest, in this short retrospective of Gordon Lightfoot, was my son-in-law, Neil's, discussion of "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" which was the subject of an interesting telecast that he had recently witnessed. Instantly, I thought of my favorite Gordon Lightfoot song, "If you Could Read My Mind"

    And now, as I am want to do, I searched my laptop for the song's lyrics, the chords, and I hammered out something resembling this classic remembrance of unrequited love, or other melancholy moments. It was fun for a bit, especially when my wife sang along with me, and, remarkably, she remembered the words far better than I. Thank God for my computer at the ready, or, I would be lost in the lyrical remembrance, and I dare not try to assemble the chords without its aid. Still, I enjoyed the moment, and I intend to learn this song on my acoustical six string, just as I plan to learn many more of similar power. I will give an update on this progress when one is warranted.