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1971-1974, dal fascino cangiante e multicolore di "Summer Side Of Life" a quello più fumoso, introspettivo e discreto di "Sundown": Gordon Lightfoot apre un ciclo di graduale metamorfosi nella sua musica che passa per i due album del 1972, "Don Quixote" e "Old Dan's Records". Il primo di questi due è il passo iniziale di questo processo: "Summer Side Of Life" è la base della ricetta, "If You Could Read My Mind" ed in misura minore i suoi album degli anni '60 gli ingredienti aggiuntivi da amalgamare, e con materie prime di qualità così alta l'esito finale non può che essere positivo; "Don Quixote" è un ulteriore consolidamento del Lightfoot-sound, le grandi idee e l'ispirazione non mancano nemmeno qui. Come fiocchi di neve, questi album si susseguono apparentemente simili, eppure mai uguali a sé stessi.
Rispetto al suo meraviglioso predecessore "Summer Side Of Life", "Don Quixote" risulta sicuramente più omogeneo e molto più legato a radici strettamente country/folk, "Alberta Bound" e "Second Cup Of Coffee" propongono un sound classico, piacevole e spensierato: la prima, più ruspante e "campagnola", si inserisce in una consolidata linea di divertenti up-tempo sparsi per tutti gli album 70's del Nostro, la seconda nasconde tra le righe una sottile e amara autoironia che scaturisce dalla fallimentare esperienza matrimoniale di Lightfoot medesimo, che a suo tempo aveva già ispirato "If You Could Read My Mind"; sensazioni simili affiorano anche in uno degli highligts del disco, "Ordinary Man", in cui le orchestrazioni di semplice contorno e il canonico mix basso-chitarra acustica valorizzano la bellezza della melodia e l'interpretazione suadente e passionale del Nostro, in maniera più sofferta nella struggente ballata orchestrale "Looking At The Rain" e anche nel singolo "Beautiful", che è già una finestra sul futuro prossimo dell'artista, con la sua atmosfera soffusa e bluesy anticipa lo stile di "Old Dan's Records", "Sundown" e "Cold On The Shoulder", oltre ad essere una delle canzoni-manifesto del suo repertorio.
Uno dei tòpos ricorrenti del songwriting di Gordon Lightfoot è quello del mare; nei suoi risvolti più tragici ("Ballad Of Yarmouth Castle") quanto in quelli più leggeri e folkloristici ("High And Dry"), oppure come semplice poesia e contemplazione ("Ghosts Of Cape Horn") questo tema ha ispirato al cantautore alcune delle sue canzoni più belle e suggestive, e "Don Quixote" ne propone ben due; entrambe si rifanno alla sobria semplicità del Lightfoot acustico degli anni '60, la dolce e sognante ballata "Christian Island" e una canzone volutamente scarna, dall'atmosfera epica e inquietante, "Ode To Big Blue", che nel suo testo dai toni elegiaci e leggendari cela una tagliente denuncia alla caccia delle balene. Queste due perle acustiche rientrano senza dubbio tra i punti più alti dell'album insieme alla titletrack "Don Quixote", che riprende gli stilemi orchestrali ed evocativi di "Minstrel Of The Dawn" narrando di una figura mitica e idealizzata, lontana dal personaggio grottesco del romanzo di Miguel de Cervantes, mescolando immagini auliche con altre decisamente più terrene: ("See the soldier with his gun who must be dead to be admired", "See the man who puts the collar on the ones who dare not tell, "See the youth in the ghetto black, condemned to life upon the street").
Come "Summer Side Of Life", anche "Don Quixote" si chiude andando oltre la semplice forma canzone, e lo fa con il potente messaggio anti-militarista di "Patriot's Dream", nell'apparente allegria e spensieratezza dell'incipit "The patriot's dream is as old as the sky, it lives in the lust of a cold callous lie, let's drink to the men who got caught by the chill of the patriotic fever and the cold steel that kills" e nella cupa e struggente parte centrale, il cuore della canzone "How could she tell those children that their father was shot down, so she took them to her side that day and she told them one by one, your father was a good man, ten thousand miles from home, he tried to do his duty and it took him straight to hell, he might be in some prison, I hope he's treated well.".
Sono tante le atmosfere, le sensazioni, i paesaggi evocati da questo album, a livello di songwriting è sicuramente il più completo e maturo di Gordon Lightfoot, e musicalmente è secondo solo a "Lightfoot!", "If You Could Read My Mind", "Summer Side Of Life" e "Summertime Dream" ma sono differenze sottilissime, per qualsiasi cantautore attuale realizzare un disco di tale spessore è pura utopia, per Gordon Lightfoot oscilla tra le quattro e le cinque stelle.
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01 Don Quixote (03:41)
Through the woodland, through the valley
Comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing
Who can the brave young horseman be
He is wild but he is mellow
He is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle
He is wise but he is meek
Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a battered book into his hand
Standing like a prophet bold
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Till he can shout no more
I have come o'er moor and mountain
Like the hawk upon the wing
I was once a shining knight
Who was the guardian of a king
I have searched the whole world over
Looking for a place to sleep
I have seen the strong survive
And I have seen the lean grown weak
See the children of the earth
Who wake to find the table bare
See the gentry in the country
Riding off to take the air
Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a rusty sword into his hand
Then striking up a knightly pose
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Till he can shout no more
See the jailor with his key
Who locks away all trace of sin
See the judge upon the bench
Who tries the case as best he can
See the wise and wicked ones
Who feed upon life's sacred fire
See the soldier with his gun
Who must be dead to be admired
See the man who tips the needle
See the man who buys and sells
See the man who puts the collar
On the ones who dare not tell
See the drunkard in the tavern
Stemming gold to make ends meet
See the youth in ghetto black
Condemned to life upon the street
Reaching for his saddlebag
He takes a tarnished cross into his hand
Then standing like a preacher now
He shouts across the ocean to the shore
Then in a blaze of tangled hooves
He gallops off across the dusty plain
In vain to search again
Where no one will hear
Through the woodland, through the valley
Comes a horseman wild and free
Tilting at the windmills passing
Who can the brave young horseman be
He is wild but he is mellow
He is strong but he is weak
He is cruel but he is gentle
He is wise but he is meek
03 Alberta Bound (03:07)
©1972 by Gordon Lightfoot
Oh the prairie lights are burning bright
The Chinook wind is a-moving in
Tomorrow night I'll be Alberta bound
Though I've done the best I could
My old luck ain't been so good
Tomorrow night I'll be Alberta bound
No one I've met could e'er forget
The Rocky Mountain sunset
It's a pleasure just to be Alberta bound
I long to see my next of kin
To know what kind of shape they're in
Tomorrow night I'll be Alberta bound
Alberta bound, Alberta bound
It's good to be Alberta bound
Alberta bound, Alberta bound
It's good to be Alberta bound
Alberta bound, Alberta bound
It's good to be Alberta bound
Alberta bound, Alberta bound
It's good to be Alberta bound
Oh the skyline of Toronto
Is something you'll get onto
But they say you've got to live there for a while
And if you got the money
You can get yourself a honey
With a written guarantee to make ya smile
But it's snowin' in the city
And the streets and brown and gritty
And I know there's pretty girls all over town
But they never seem to find me
And the one I left behind me
Is the reason that I'll be Alberta bound
Alberta bound, Alberta bound
It's good to be Alberta bound
Alberta bound, Alberta bound
It's good to be Alberta bound
It's good to be Alberta bound
09 Beautiful (03:23)
©1972 by Gordon Lightfoot
At times I just don't know
How you could be anything but beautiful
I think that I was made for you and you were made for me
And I know that I will never change
'Cause we've been friends through rain or shine
For such a long, long time
Laughing eyes and smiling face, it seems so lucky just to have the right
Of telling you with all my might, you're beautiful tonight
And I know that you will never stray
'Cause you been that way, from day to day
For such a long, long time
And when you hold me tight, how could life be anything but beautiful
I think that I was made for you and you were made for me
And I know that I will never change
'Cause we've been friends through rain or shine
For such a long, long time
Well I must say it means so much to me, to be the one
Who's telling you, I'm telling you, that you're beautiful
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