Lyrics to
If You Could Read My Mind

This version of If You Could Read My Mind was released by Gordon Lightfoot in 1970.

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If you could read my mind, love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old-time movie
‘Bout a ghost from a wishin’ 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’t see

If I could read your mind, love
What a tale your thoughts could tell
Just like a paperback novel
The kind the drugstores sell
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail
And you won’t read that book again
Because the ending’s just too hard to take

I’d 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, let’s 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 feeling’s 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
‘Bout a ghost from a wishin’ well
In a castle dark or a fortress strong
With chains upon my feet
But stories always end
And if you read between the lines
You’ll know that I’m just tryin’ to understand
The feelings that you lack
I never thought I could feel 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 feeling’s gone and I just can’t get it back

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Gordon Lightfoot has released many songs over the years besides If You Could Read My Mind. Gordon Lightfoot released songs from 1966 to 2004 spanning across albums like Lightfoot!, The Way I Feel, Back Here On Earth, Did She Mention My Name, Sunday Concert, Sit Down Young Stranger / If You Could Read My Mind, Summer Side Of Life, Don Quixote, Old Dan's Records, Sundown, Cold On The Shoulder, Summertime Dream, Endless Wire, Dream Street Rose, Shadows, Salute, East Of Midnight, Waiting For You, A Painter Passing Through, and Harmony. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by Gordon Lightfoot.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1970 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot

The lyrics to If You Could Read My Mind are the words, verses and chorus for the song released by Gordon Lightfoot in 1970. Elements of the lyrics to If You Could Read My Mind are both direct in meaning and also metaphorical with the real meanings of the song only known by Gordon Lightfoot and any collaborating writers working on the lyrics for If You Could Read My Mind back when it was created.

Some people have an interest in the etymology behind words and phrases. You can take apart the lyrics to If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot in a number of ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to If You Could Read My Mind" means the words set to the music of If You Could Read My Mind, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by Gordon Lightfoot. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to If You Could Read My Mind and the lyrics to If You Could Read My Mind are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of Gordon Lightfoot who came here looking just for the lyrics to If You Could Read My Mind, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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