It’s a major honor for a singer-songwriter when a legendary musician chooses to cover their music…especially when the musician in question is as iconic as Bob Dylan or Elvis Presley. That’s what Gordon Lightfoot discovered, thanks to his beloved song “Early Mornin’ Rain.”
Of course, Presley and Dylan weren’t the only ones to cover the classic tune; in fact, Lightfoot’s recorded version of his own song didn’t come out until after several other artists released renditions: Judy Collins, Ian & Sylvia, and Peter, Paul and Mary all covered “Early Mornin’ Rain” in 1965. Lighfoot’s “Early Mornin’ Rain,” meanwhile, was finally released on his album Lightfoot! in 1966.
The song was a deeply personal one for Lightfoot. As the Canadian told American Songwriter in 2008, he was living in Los Angeles when he wrote “Early Mornin’ Rain.”
“I got homesick out there a few times, and I remember I was going out to the airport, and it was a rainy day, and there was a place you could watch the approach of the airplanes,” Lightfoot recalled.
“They were actually coming in where I was standing, and I could see them leaving on the other runway right over on the other side,” he continued. “And I was inspired right there with that imagery of an airplane climbing off into overcast, and then I recreated that around 1964, about five years later.”
Lightfoot went on to explain that he was taking care of his infant son when inspiration finally struck.
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“So that was an image that stayed there for five years, and all of a sudden it emerged in one afternoon when I was babysitting my five-month-old first child,” Lightfoot explained. “And I said, ‘I’ll put him over here in his crib, and I’ll write myself a tune.’ I have done that a few times. And that’s what came out, and I said, ‘That’s fine, and I’ll send that off to the guys in New York and see what they say.’ And they called me right back and said, ‘Geez, Gordon. This one is great! It’s a lot better than the other 19 you sent us three months ago, because none of them were any good.'”
“I was starting to catch on,” Lightfoot added. “That was right around the time I started listening to Bob Dylan, and I started getting a more direct approach, getting away from the love songs and getting a little more down to earth. Or up in the sky, whichever.”
Given Dylan’s influence on the song, it must have been particularly satisfying for Lightfoot when Dylan released a cover of “Early Mornin’ Rain” on his 1970 album Self Portrait. A couple of years later, Presley followed suit on the 1972 album Elvis Now. (Both Dylan and the King must have been big Lightfoot fans, because they both covered “If You Could Read My Mind,” too.)
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