TORONTO - If only you could have read Gordon Lightfoot's mind when he heard the news he was dead.
"I looked in the mirror in my car and said 'I don't look dead,' " the Canadian music legend said Thursday night.
But if you believe what you read, for several hours Thursday, the iconic singer was no longer with us.
Twitter said so.
So did many reputable media websites and news outlets. Turns out reports of Lightfoot's death were not just exaggerated but outright wrong.
"It's crazy," the Orillia-born singer of such hits as The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, If You Could Read My Mind, Sundown and Rainy Day People said. "I don't know where it came from."
Lightfoot started his day by dropping into his office at Early Morning Productions at Yonge and Bloor Sts., and then drove to a dental appointment. Then he got the shock of his life.
"I was listening to Charles Adler on AM 640 when I heard him say I was dead," said the 16-time Juno winner, member of the Order of Canada and Canada's Walk of Fame. "I was stunned. I immediately went into the office and had them call, and then I went on with Charles to let everyone know I am here."
It was great radio for the nationally syndicated Adler, who so far is the only media person to admit his error. "What a relief said host with egg on face," Adler said jokingly last night. "I have never been happier to be wrong about a story."
But this is the fast-paced media world. You can't blame a national radio host for going live on the air with something posted on news websites.
Some are calling it an Internet hoax, but that does not take off the hook the mainstream newspapers that went with the story -- quoting Rompin' Ronnie Hawkins as the primary source.
Lightfoot said at first he thought it was humourous. But then came the reality that he has a young daughter in school. "She heard about it and was upset," he said. "I had to reassure her I was OK."
It shows how dangerous news-by-tweet can be.
One call to Early Morning Productions put the false report to rest -- which is what the Sun's music writer Jane Stevenson did. "I'm fine, thank you," Lightfoot told her. "The whole thing is a hoax. I'm in great health. I'm doing fine. I'm running around right now, doing my errands."
Yet the rumours persisted on line.
Gordon is so strong and such a battler, it would be hard to imagine him going down without a fight. His survival from a 2002 stomach aneurysm, and his comeback to touring, is stuff of legend.
When I tracked down Gordon at a downtown office building yesterday he had a grin on his face and a gleam in his eye. Wearing a Canada pin and a yellow Support the Troops pin, he told me he had never had a stranger day.
"I am too busy to be dead," Lightfoot said with a smile. "I have a rehearsal (Friday) and next week we are heading to the United States for 10 shows before coming back home to play at Casino Rama."
"Heck, I haven't had this much publicity and radio air-time in years."
