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Last week, we lost the great singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. In honor of his passing, Alec is sharing his 2016 conversation with the musician, one of his favorites in the history of the podcast: Over the course of a career that has lasted more than half a century, Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot achieved global stardom and exceptional influence. Bob Dylan\u2019s a fan\u2014he's said, \u201cI can\u2019t think of any [Lightfoot songs] I don\u2019t like.\u201d These songs\u2014\u201cBeautiful,\u201d \u201cSundown,\u201d \u201cIf You Could Read My Mind,\u201d and many others\u2014have been treasured by generations of popular musicians and listeners around the world. But Gordon Lightfoot was just one of many aspirants who moved to Toronto in the early 1960s to try their hand in the burgeoning folk music scene there. Lightfoot tells Alec about fitting a feeling to a melody, why he owes his first hit record to an exec's girlfriend, and how he wrote "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by pulling lines straight from the newspaper.\xa0

You can listen to all of the music from this episode and other selections from Gordon Lightfoot in a curated playlist here.

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