Gordon Lightfoot recently revealed how he wrote celebrated songs like “If You Could Read My Mind” in the late 60s. The 71-year-old Canadian singer-songwriter, who will tour the Southern states in March, used to like to compose his tunes in empty houses.

“I knew a couple of real-estate agents. My sister was running the business at that time, she found out who to contact and I said, ‘I’d like to use the house to write some songs while you’re trying to sell it.’

It was a method I had of writing when I was feeling like I wasn’t coming up with the goods, coming up with the material. I would go in there with a chair and a table. I have a Quebec table here that fits in the trunk of my car that I take with me – just the chair and the table and the pad and the manuscript.”