Gordon Lightfoot’s ’74 “If You Could Read My Mind” Performance Will Break Your Heart

That Ghost Is Me

Performing on The Midnight Special in ’74, Gordon Lightfoot is shining during his vulnerable and heart wrenching “If You Could Read My Mind” performance that will have you fighting back tears. Now, this is real music; just a man and his guitar serenading people that truly love his music- there’s nothing better.

“If you could read my mind love, what a tale my thoughts could tell. Just like an old time movie, about a ghost from a wishing well…”

Written about Gordon’s failed marriage, you can really hear the heartbreak and regret not only in the lyrics, but in his deep, subtly powerful voice. Gordon needed no special effects or a fancy background band, it was just him, the audience and his story and that’s the greatest part of the performance.

Interesting Fact: Other recordings include those by Carroll Baker, Glen Campbell, The Bells, Johnny Mathis, Liza Minelli, Barbara Streisand and Andy Williams. Instrumental arrangements have been recorded by Herb Alpert, John Arpin, James Last, The Boss Brass and others.

The honesty and exposure of this personal song really carry through all the way to your heart and you really feel for him, regardless of the reasons the marriage didn’t work out, you want to have his back just listening to his voice. We definitely believe that Gordon was one of the most underrated and under appreciated artists of the ’70’s. Enjoy this raw, bare performance that will tug at your heart strings!

+ If You Could Read My Mind Lyrics +

If you could read my mind love,
What a tale my thoughts could tell.
Just like an old time movie
About 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 see.

If I could read your mind love,
What a tale your thoughts could tell.
Just like a paperback novel,
The kind the drugstore sells.
When you reach the part where the heartaches
Come the hero would be me.
Heroes often fail.
And you won’t read that book again
Because the endings just to hard to take.

I 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 lets be real.

I never thought I could act 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 feelings 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 about a ghost from a wishing well.
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet the story always ends.
And if you read between the lines
You’ll know that I’m just trying to understand
The feeling that you left.

I never thought I could feel this way
And I got to say that I just don’t get it.
I don’t know where we went wrong
But the feelings gone
And I just can’t get it back.