Summertime Dream (Audio Cassette) [Import]

To the eternal frustration of casual Lightfoot fans, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was recorded a year too late to make it onto "Gord's Gold." This has probably turned out to be a good thing for Lightfoot, as many of those fans have bought "Summertime Dream" and were so impressed that they then began buying his other original albums. This was the last good release in a phenomenal run by Lightfoot that included a dozen albums in ten years. (Unfortunately, Gord would jump the shark with his next one, "Endless Wire.")

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is a song that will chill you to the bone, especially if you've lived near the Big Lake, as I have, and know how menacing it can be. (Incidentally, this song was acknowledged in the film "High Fidelity" as the best song ever about death.)

"Edmund Fitzgerald" is such a monster that it tends to dwarf everything else on the album, yet Lightfoot did a very good job of coming up with songs that compliment it. The opener, "Race Among the Ruins," has morbid lyrics that belie its jaunty tune, immediately creating an atmosphere of irony and foreboding. Two later tracks, "Protocol" and "Too Many Clues in This Room," are very dark both musically and lyrically, and both make allusions to ill-fated sailors.

The rest is a mixture of melancholy songs about relationships gone wrong and bouncy tunes about the simple joys of life. None of them are great, but they are all good--the kind of songs that will sound as good years from now as they do when you first hear this disc. (I should know--I've had a vinyl copy of this album for about 15 years, and I still listen to it.)

The lyrics are uniformly solid and sometimes outstanding. "Never Too Close," for example, could be a song about divorce, with its opening line, "I remember when best friends were jealous lovers." The suggestion is that the singer has gotten past his regrets and his hurt feelings and is ready to accept the other person as a friend. It's a fine line to walk in a song, but Lightfoot succeeds, as usual, with seeming effortlessness. Still, I bet this song was harder to write than it appears.

The "Summertime Dream" poem on the album sleeve (or CD booklet), I have to admit, is pretty corny, but what the heck, nobody's forcing you to read it, so take it for what it is. It helps to think of it as a poem that was written by a non-poet--probably someone who works hard for a living and is taking a moment to appreciate the little things. And I guess that's what the album is about: being thankful for what you have because sometimes the world can be mighty cold.

Shipwrecks, old seadogs who would storm the gates of hell, a room full of ghosts and desolation, and an ocean of ruins are not exactly the things one would find in a summertime dream, a reference so pure that the listener finds that they've been wonderfully misled once they dive into this, one of Gordon Lightfoot's greatest albums. Irony is something that has always drifted into Lightfoot's music, and has always made it all the more unique. Unfortunately, an ironic fact here is that "Summertime Dream," released in 1976, was the last album of the singer/songwriter's wave of popularity.
In characteristic fashion, Lightfoot ends his era of commercial popularity with a bang, and "Summertime Dream" boasts a body of some of the most solid, conscious songs ever produced in the 70s. Most of the songs here contain some reference to the ocean, a metaphorical symbol that would be cliched with any other artist, but Lightfoot keeps his lyrical prowess flowing like the waters he describes. The first notes of "Summertime Dream" are misleading, as an upbeat tune describes a 'Race Among the Ruins,' one of many Lightfoot songs that should have been more commercially successful than it actually was. The album's biggest hit, the harrowing true story 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' remains popular to this day, and is a lasting example of the soft-spoken folk era gritting its teeth and unleashing a powerful, ominous tale that defies the old acoustic formula. But it doesn't end there, as some of Lightfoot's most stirring imagery unveils itself in 'Too Many Clues in This Room,' and 'Protocol,' but the title track seems to be an honest, lyrically whistful song set amidst such deep tunes as these. There's even some old wisdom appearing in the nearly 40 year old Lightfoot (as of 1976) in 'The House You Live In,' seemingly reflecting New Testament teachings ("And the house you live in will never fall down if you pity the stranger who stands at your gate").
Like most of Gordon Lightfoot's material, this album is more dense and meaningful than his associations with the "folk" genre allow people to realize. "Summertime Dream" may have been among the last of Lightfoot's commercially successful releases, but it certainly wasn't the last breath of his poignancy and musical determination.

I first heard this track,The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,in a ducumentry on the Discovery channel.It struck a cord with me to the battle the crew made to save their ship in the worst storm the great lake had seen.The words and tune stuck in my mind,it is trully a great track and album.