Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown lyrics

Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown lyrics

I can see her lyin' back in her satin dress
In a room where ya do what ya don't confess
Sundown ya better take care
If I find you been creepin' 'round my back stairs
Sundown ya better take care
If I find you been creepin' 'round my back stairs
She's been lookin' like a queen in a sailor's dream
And she don't always say what she really means
Sometimes I think it's a shame
When I get feelin' better when I'm feelin' no pain
Sometimes I think it's a shame
When I get feelin' better when I'm feelin' no pain

I can picture every move that a man could make
Getting lost in her lovin' is your first mistake
Sundown ya better take care
If I find you been creepin' 'round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it's a sin
When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin again

I can see her lookin' fast in her faded jeans
She's a hard lovin' woman, got me feelin' mean
Sometimes I think it's a shame
When I get feelin' better when I'm feelin' no pain
Sundown ya better take care
If I find you been creepin' 'round my back stairs
Sundown ya better take care
If I find you been creepin' 'round my back stairs
Sometimes I think it's a sin
When I feel like I'm winnin' when I'm losin' again

Lyrics taken from /lyrics/g/gordon_lightfoot/sundown.html

Songwriters: Gordon Lightfoot

Sundown lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.

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+ 39
Ajax 2009-12-20 06:52:02

Gordon Lightfoot's own words:.
"A song about infidelity. Lenny Waronker, a producer and former Warner Bros. Records president, and all of us at the studio realized that when we laid it down that it would be the single. There's nothing like unrequited love with a touch of infidelity to capture people's imaginations. In the whole time I've been recording, I've never had the sense that a song was going to click the way it did with this one. I lived out in the country when I was writing that album, and each night there was a beautiful sunset to the west of the barn, and that imagery made it into the song. The cover of the album was taken at the farm, where I'm sitting on a bale of hay. The farmhouse was a very good workroom; I have fond memories of working there."

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+ 36
Unregistered 2016-02-26 21:29:32

This song is pretty straight forward. It's from the point of a man done wrong by a woman he loves and is jealous of. "She's a hard lovin' woman got me feeling mean". We've all probably felt pangs of jealousy and anger, this song brings it out well even though not a pleasant subject. The bass guitar line added a lot to the feel of this song, it just worked.

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+ 35
Unregistered 2020-09-02 22:24:54

Catherine Evelyn Smith, who served time for her role in the overdose death of comedian John Belushi, has died at age 73, the Globe and Mail reports.
Also a backup singer and the ex of musician Gordon Lightfoot, Smith became a figure of infamy as part of the small crowd that partied with Belushi at West Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont in his final days, a coterie that also included Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. He died March 5, 1982, of an accidental overdose of heroin and cocaine — known as a “speedball.”
Arrested for second-degree murder, she plea-bargained for lesser charges including involuntary manslaughter and served a 15-month prison sentence in Chino, California.
Lightfoot, who lived with Smith for four years in the early ’70s, is said to have written his dark hit “Sundown” about their volatile relationship.
“Cathy was a great lady,” he told The Globe and Mail this week. “Men were drawn to her, and she used to make me jealous. But I don’t have a bad thing to say about her.”

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+ 32
Unregistered 2020-12-31 03:39:10

I always thought Sundown was another man. I think the woman he's singing about is a prostitute (lying back in a satin dress in a room where you do what you don't confess)
I like to think there is a lot more to the meaning of the rest of the lyrics, especially the evolving choruses, between the lines but I'm not sure how to articulate it, it is more the feelings they instill.
Going with the thesis that she is a prostitute I would suggest that Sundown is her connection for drugs and they probably party together when the narrator of the story isn't around which is probably what had him feeling mean. Not saying what she really means goes without saying she will do whatever she needs to do to get what she needs.
I think the choruses are about his hope that their relationship is improving and evolving but it is just more of the same.

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+ 1
manonash 2023-05-03 13:11:40

I like your interpretations. It seems clear, from my reading about it, that the woman in the song was Cathy Smith, a rock groupie associated first with Levon Helm, then with Lightfoot (and others), who became infamous for administering the speedball that killed John Belushi in 1982. So she did apparently function at times as "a drug connection"; and she did seem to be the sort that could trigger both passionate feelings and strong jealousy from the men who got interested in her. She seems both to have valued, and to have exercised, her independence.

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DesertRat 2022-10-11 08:47:23

I've heard this song my whole life and liked the sound, never really listening to the meaning of the lyrics. I'm sure we all do that. But when I did really pay attention, the meaning was no mystery. Then after reading Gordon's description and knowing the song is about infidelity, the chorus variations seem pretty evident.

"Sometimes I think it's a sin when I feel like I'm winning when I'm losing again".
--To cheat on someone might feel great at the moment. It might feel like a win, but you know inside that you are losing a part of yourself and that it's a sin.

"Sometimes I think it's a shame when I get feeling better when I'm feeling no pain".
--Again, infidelity might make your feel great physically, but you weren't feeling bad to begin and inside one would feel shame in that (or we'd hope they would).

I have a different take on the "Sundown" portion.
"Sundown, you better beware if I find you've been creeping 'round my back stairs."
--To me, this seems like he knows that while he's away, his lover is also cheating on him. At the end of the day when you come home, at sundown, if you find out someone has been sneaking around your house, that person had better beware. They're living dangerously and you might just hurt them. That's what jumps out at me immediately. I could be wrong, but sometimes you hear the lyrics of a song and something jumps out at you. Once it does, it's hard to shake it or see it in another way.
Either way, I've always loved the mellow sound of the song and remember it from my early childhood. Despite the dark lyrics, I'll always enjoy hearing it and punish those around me by singing along out loud.

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- 17
Unregistered 2021-10-13 00:35:18

This song might be about sundown towns and laws. If you think deep and find meaning in great lyrics, this would nail how the description describes the mindset of the American small town past and how people thought of others.
"Creeping by my back stairs"," it's a sin", and "feeling better when I'm losing again", like finding dislike for unfounded reasons?

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