Go-Go Round

Album: The Way I Feel (1966)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song tells the story of a go-go dancer at a club who falls in love with a singer she dances for. When it's time for him to move on, he leaves her behind, brokenhearted.

    Go-go dancers were big in the '60s, seen dancing on stage during concerts. In Toronto where Gordon Lightfoot lived there was a club called Le Coq d'Or with go-go dancers that often accompanied his friend, Ronnie Hawkins, when he performed. (Hawkins' backing back later evolved into The Band).

    "He was playing a place downtown that had girls in gilded cages, who would dance while the band played," Lightfoot explained in his Complete Greatest Hits collection. "It was about dealing with feelings of a go-go dancer, falling in love. And then, of course, she gets left holding the bag."
  • Lightfoot was just getting started as a solo artist at this point, but did have two chart hits under his belt with songs recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary: "For Lovin' Me" and "Early Morning Rain." "Go-Go Round" was released as a single from his second album, The Way I Feel. The song went to #27 in his native Canada and got some exposure in America when the disc jockey Scott Muni played it on the New York City radio station WNEW.

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