Rediscovering Gordon Lightfoot's "Miguel"

Once, when I was in my twenties, I walked into some beach boutique kind of place in Destin, Florida, and was looking for some trinket or other, and in the background, they had a sound system, and I heard this song — two acoustic guitars, a haunting melody, caught my attention immediately .   I recognized the singer as Gordon Lightfoot, but I didn’t recognize the song, and I left without asking — something I would later come to regret.   Years went by, and every now and then I would look for it.  In those days it was possible to actually have a problem finding a song by an artist you liked — there was no iTunes, no Pandora, nothing like that.  And so 20 -25 years went by and I never quite figured out what the song was — but I could still hear it.  Imagine, just hearing it once, and the melody was still there twenty years later.

Eventually, in the age of the internet and iTunes, I figured it out — the song was Miguel.  It’s on my iPhone now of course, and I still like to listen to it, particularly late at night — it just has a cool acoustic vibe to it and a poignancy to the story.  I was just rummaging around in Youtube before calling it a night, and I came across it.  I’m happy to share it — maybe it’ll be new to some who hear it, or an old friend to others.

The song starts at 0:37 if you’re in a hurry.