The first train to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific at Port Arthur, Ontario, 30 June 1886.

(Library and Archives Canada/Image No. C-014464, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

CANADIAN RAILROAD TRILOGY (1967) GORDON LIGHTFOOT

"Canadian Railroad Trilogy" is a story song that was written, composed, and first performed in 1966 by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, who released his original recording of it in 1967. The song was commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to celebrate the Canadian Centennial in 1967. "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" describes the building of the trans-Canada Canadian Pacific Railway, the construction work on which was completed in 1885. The CPR was incorporated in 1881 and merged with the Kansas City Southern Railway in 2023 to form the Canadian Pacific Kansas City.

Background

This song was commissioned from Lightfoot by the CBC for a special broadcast on January 1, 1967, to start Canada's Centennial year. Writing and composing it took him three days. It appeared on Lightfoot's album The Way I Feel later in the same year along with the song "Crossroads," a shorter song of similar theme. The structure of the song, with a slow tempo section in the middle and faster paced sections at the beginning and end, was patterned more or less opposite to Bob Gibson's and Hamilton Camp's "Civil War Trilogy," famously recorded by The Limeliters on the 1963 live album Our Men In San Francisco. In the first section, the song picks up speed like a locomotive building up a head of steam.

While Lightfoot's song echoes the optimism of the railroad age, it also chronicles the cost in sweat and blood of building "an iron road runnin' from the sea to the sea." The slow middle section of the song is especially poignant, vividly describing the efforts and sorrows of the nameless and forgotten "navvies," whose manual labor actually built the railway.

Session personnel for the 1967 recording were these: Gordon Lightfoot on 12-string acoustic guitar, Red Shea on lead acoustic guitar, John Stockfish on Fender bass guitar, and Charlie McCoy on harmonica.

Legacy

Lightfoot re-recorded the track on his 1975 compilation album, Gord's Gold, this time with full orchestration that Lee Holdridge arranged. A live version also appears on two of his live albums, first on his 1969 album Sunday Concert and again on the 2012 release All Live, which consists of songs recorded during the live concerts Lightfoot gave at Toronto's Massey Hall between 1998 and 2001.

According to Lightfoot, Pierre Berton, author of The Last Spike, once said "You did more good with your damn song than I did with my entire book on the same subject." In an interview with The Telegraph, Lightfoot indicated that upon meeting Queen Elizabeth II, she had told him how much she enjoyed the song.

In 2001, Gordon Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" was honored as one of the Canadian MasterWorks by the Audio-Visual Preservation Trust of Canada.

The song has been covered by John Mellencamp and George Hamilton IV (No. 3 Can), among others. James Keelaghan performed the song on the Lightfoot tribute album, Beautiful. In the summer of 2004, the song was performed by that year's Canadian Idol Top 6.

"Canadian Railroad Trilogy" has become one of Lightfoot's signature songs, and for years he concluded many, though not all, of his concerts by performing it.

Lyrics:

There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real

But time has no beginnings and the history has no bounds
As to this verdant country they came from all around
They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall
Built the mines, mills and the factories for the good of us all

And when the young man's fancy was turnin' to the spring
The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring
Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day
And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay

For they looked in the future and what did they see
They saw an iron road running from the sea to the sea
Bringing the goods to a young growing land
All up from the seaports and into their hands

Look away said they across this mighty land
From the eastern shore to the western strand

Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open her heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way 'cause we're moving too slow

Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We're gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open her heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way 'cause we're moving too slow
Get on our way 'cause we're moving too slow

Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declining
The stars they come stealing at the close of the day
Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping
Beyond the dark ocean in a place far away

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun
Living on stew and drinking bad whiskey
Bending our backs til the long days are done

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swinging our hammers in the bright blazing sun
Laying down track and building the bridges
Bending our old backs til the railroad is done

So over the mountains and over the plains
Into the muskeg and into the rain
Up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe
Swinging our hammers and drawing our pay
Layin' 'em in and tying them down
Away to the bunkhouse and into the town
A dollar a day and a place for my head
A drink to the living, a toast to the dead

Oh the song of the future has been sung
All the battles have been won
On the mountain tops we stand
All the world at our command
We have opened up her soil
With our teardrops and our toil

For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
And many are the dead men too silent to be real

Source: Youtube