♫ Sundown ♫ (Redux)

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Our friend Keith posted about Gordon Lightfoot yesterday and ever since, my memory dial has been tuned to Lightfoot songs!  Digging back through my archives, I last played this on two years ago, so you should be ready for a redux by now, yes?

The inspiration for this song, released in 1974, came from Lightfoot worrying about his girlfriend, who was out at bars all day while he was at home writing songs.  Well heck … I’d have a problem if my significant other was hanging out in bars all day too!

“I had this girlfriend one time, and I was at home working, at my desk, working at my songwriting which I had been doing all week since I was on a roll, and my girlfriend was somewhere drinking, drinking somewhere. So I was hoping that no one else would get their hands on her, because she was pretty good lookin’! As a matter of fact, it was written just around Sundown, just as the sun was setting, behind the farm I had rented to use as a place to write the album.”

Turned out the girlfriend he was with at the time was Cathy Smith.  They were together only 3 years, but Ms. Smith was charged in 1986 with administering the fatal dose of heroine that killed actor John Belushi, and spent 15 months in prison.  Methinks he was well shed of her!

Sundown
Gordon Lightfoot

I can see her lyin’ back in her satin dress
In a room where ya do what ya don’t confess
Sundown you better take care
If I find you beenn creepin’ ’round my back stairs
Sundown ya better take care
If I find you been creepin’ ’round my back stairs

She’s been lookin’ like a queen in a sailor’s dream
And she don’t always say what she really means
Sometimes I think it’s a shame
When I get feelin’ better when I’m feelin’ no pain
Sometimes I think it’s a shame
When I get feelin’ better when I’m feelin’ no pain

I can picture every move that a man could make
Getting lost in her lovin’ is your first mistake
Sundown you better take care
If I find you been creepin’ ’round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it’s a sin
When I feel like I’m winnin’ when I’m losin’ again

I can see her lookin’ fast in her faded jeans
She’s a hard lovin’ woman, got me feelin’ mean
Sometimes I think it’s a shame
When I get feelin’ better when I’m feelin’ no pain
Sundown you better take care
If I find you been creepin’ ’round my back stairs
Sundown you better take care
If I find you been creepin’ ’round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it’s a sin
When I feel like I’m winnin’ when I’m losin’ again

Songwriters: Gordon Lightfoot
Sundown lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

35 thoughts on “♫ Sundown ♫ (Redux)”

  2. Pingback: Sundown | Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal

    • Yes, I saw your comments on Keith’s post last night and was surprised, for in my book you are the ‘go-to guy’ for music … between you and John Howell, I don’t think there’s anything you guys don’t know about music, songs, and artists! Glad you liked this one! I debated between this and the Edmund Fitzgerald … dunno what made the decision … heck, it was around 3:00 a.m.!

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      • He never really got much airplay here. I’ve looked him up: he had four chart singles here in the seventies, which peaked between #30 and #41. This one got to #33 here. It was easy for me to overlook him, when there were so many other great singer-songwriters around at the time. Edmund Fitzgerald would be a good choice too.

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  4. I’d call him a Troubador except he doesn’t do old Occitan lyric poetry (as far as I know) so I’ll just say he’s a great writer/performer. Thanks to you I’ll have to indulge in the Edmund Fitzgerald now.
    Cwtch

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  8. Oh, oh. I swore to myself I would keep certain thoughts to myself, but this one I can’t. I love Lightfoot’s music, and his lyrics are exemplary, but he was pretty much a man who believed women should be in their place. I am not siding with Ms, Smith or saying anything about her, but she was just a girlfriend, and certainly not a wife. That is as far as I will say, but in rebuttal I give you the First Wive’s Club

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      • It’s all part and parcel of the song for me. I can’t compartmentalize. Yet using using Light foot as an example, I can listen to Black Day in July or Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald without thinking about those things, but songs about the women in his life, it’s all right there. Maybe it’s a male thing, or just a me thing, I have no idea. But like I said, I’m trying not to write when these feeling come up, but that one hit me at the wrong moment.

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        • Well, we are all different and our tastes in music are a personal thing, what might affect my view of a song might not yours. For me, it’s rather like keeping Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame for betting on baseball. Yes, what he did was wrong, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he was an exceptional athlete. What Michael Jackson did was wrong, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t make some great music.

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