Gordon Lightfoot – "Sundown" (1974)

Sometimes I think it’s a sin

When I feel like I’m winnin’ 

When I’m losin’ again

In 2003, Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright was embedded with Bravo Company of the 1st Marine Reconnaissance Battalion – the unit that was the “tip of the spear” in Operation Iraqi Freedom.  

Wright’s book about his experiences, Generation Kill, was made into an HBO series with the same title.  I watched that series a few weeks ago, and found it so compelling that I checked Wright’s book out of the library.

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Wright rides in the backseat of a Humvee commanded by Sergeant Brad Colbert, a fascinating character who doesn’t conform to many of the usual Marine stereotypes – although he can sling profanity and politically-incorrect insults with the best of them.  

Sgt. Brad Colbert

Colbert’s fellow Marines nicknamed him “The Iceman” in recognition of his coolness in combat.  He demonstrates that coolness when his platoon is ambushed as they attempt to cross a bridge in total darkness despite not having adequate night-vision equipment.

In our vehicle, Colbert seems to have entered a private realm.  He fires bursts and, for some inexplicable reason, hums “Sundown,” the depressing 1970s Gordon Lightfoot anthem.  His M4 [rifle] jams repeatedly, but each time he calmly clears the chamber and resumes firing, while mumbling the chorus: “Sometimes I think it’s a sin/When I feel like I’m winning’/When I’m losing’ again.”

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Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” reached number one on the Billboard “Hot 100” in May of 1974 – which was about two months before Brad Colbert was born.

Lightfoot wrote the song while he was in the middle of an affair with Cathy Smith – a notorious rock groupie, drug dealer, and occasional backup singer.

From a 2014 interview with Lightfoot:

Well, I had this girlfriend one time, and I was at home working, at my desk, working at my songwriting which I had been doing all week since I was on a roll, and my girlfriend was somewhere drinking . . . . So I was hoping that no one else would get their hands on her, because she was pretty good looking!  And that's how I wrote the song “Sundown,” and as a matter of fact, it was written just around sundown, just as the sun was setting, behind the farm I had rented to use as a place to write the album. 

The Lightfoot-Smith relationship was volatile and violent at times – he broke her cheekbone one night in a fit of jealousy – and also quite expensive for the Canadian singer/songwriter.  Smith was cited in Mrs. Lightfoot’s divorce complaint, and the resulting property settlement was the most expensive in Canadian history at the time.

Lightfoot and Smith

Smith later became a full-time drug dealer and courier.  Her customers included Keith Richards and Ron Wood, who hooked her up with John Belushi.  

Belushi died after Smith injected him with heroin and cocaine at a hotel in Hollywood in 1982.  She eventually pled guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and served 15 months in a California women’s prison.

After he release, she was deported back to Canada, where she worked as a legal secretary and spoke to high-school students about the dangers of drug abuse.

Click here to listen to “Sundown.”

And click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon: