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Just got a message that Gord died today. 2605:8D80:461:BBB5:C4D4:2E70:69E2:7CA1 ( talk) 01:30, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply

Yeah that's why I updated it 2607:FEA8:6040:8000:94AC:B53B:2C36:9C8D ( talk) 02:19, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply

I don't mean to be insensitive about the loss of a beloved musical artist, but I think the lead section should be changed to remove the word "legend". It's generally best to avoid describing a person as a legend, or legendary, in Wikipedia's voice, though of course it's often easy to find sources that do so. See MOS:FLOWERY, and also "legend" sometimes means that someone didn't actually exist. Plus in this case, I'm getting a "page not found" for the first source (The Dallas Morning News), and the second source (Songwriter's Hall of Fame) doesn't say that he was a legend -- though again, it would be easy to find sources that do say that. I'm going to go ahead and change that part, and replace it with the statement, referenced by the SHOF page, that "... his songs have been recorded by some of the world’s most renowned artists including..." — Mudwater ^{( Talk)} 22:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply

Done. Here's the diff. — Mudwater ^{( Talk)} 23:07, 2 May 2023 (UTC) reply

He did not have an aortic aneurysm. In a Sept 2020 interview with Ian Woolley of the News Beat this was the discussion: "I had to ask him about the many health scares that have dogged him throughout his long career. In the early 70s, it was Bell’s Palsy that froze part of his face, and in 2002 an abdominal artery in his stomach burst."

Gordon said: “It was a ruptured splenic artery aneurysm which was the official term. Rob.mulloy ( talk) 00:37, 3 May 2023 (UTC) reply

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Gordon Lightfoot's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "BBC":

• From Newsweek: Magistad, Mary Kay (February 20, 2013). "China's 'leftover women', unmarried at 27". BBC News. Beijing. Archived from the original on April 10, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2013.
• From List of anti-war songs: Quinn, Michael. "The Proclaimers – Notes & Rhymes – Review". BBC – Music. Retrieved 25 December 2019.
• From November 1975: "Fish Stocks Dwindle- The Decline of the East Coast Fishing Fleet", BBC.co.UK
• From Radio Bart: Martyn, Warren; Wood, Adrian (2000). "Radio Bart". BBC. Retrieved 2009-06-07.
• From Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.: "1968: Martin Luther King shot dead". On This Day. BBC News. 2006. Retrieved September 17, 2006.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. Feel free to remove this comment after fixing the refs. AnomieBOT ⚡ 00:06, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply

 Fixed, I believe. @ Gerda Arendt: Hello! In this edit you added a reference to a BBC article by Nichola Rutherford, and named the reference "Rutherford". Then in two subsequent edits -- here and here -- you added references to "BBC", thus causing our little AnomieBOT to try to help out -- see above. I think I fixed it with this here edit. — Mudwater ^{( Talk)} 01:12, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply

You did, and I'm sorry that I missed it, - I was tired. I normally name refs after the author but had forgotten by the the time I returned late. -- Gerda Arendt ( talk) 06:25, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Gerda Arendt: No worries. I just wanted to make sure I was fixing things instead of messing them up more. Thank you. — Mudwater ^{( Talk)} 10:21, 4 May 2023 (UTC) reply

Why isn't his death listed on Wikipedia front page's "Recent Deaths"? Shouldn't it be added to that list? Summerhaven1 ( talk) 16:40, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply

(I tried to do it myself - I've modified many a Wikipedia article over the years - but don't know how to get his name/link posted in that section of the front page. Does someone else know how to do that?) Summerhaven1 ( talk) 16:41, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply

@ Summerhaven1 It looks like the hangup is the seven {{ citation needed}} tags. See WP:In the news/Candidates#RD: Gordon Lightfoot. — C.Fred ( talk) 16:51, 5 May 2023 (UTC) reply

Well apparently there is one journalist that thinks “that millions came to regard [Lightfoot] as the nation’s greatest songwriter”, but just about everyone else would put Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young before him. Andreas Karrer ( talk) 23:15, 24 March 2024 (UTC) reply