Race Among the Ruins

You broke up with your girlfriend. You know you were right to do it, but now you're feeling sad about it, depressed enough to call off work.

(Chorus) This was supposed to be the one, your dream girl. You're pitying yourself because you realize you have one less friend and you're lamenting the fact that you got to start over and go through the rat race of finding a new love (that's the race among the ruins). Gordon's advices to do it soon.

You I know it happens to everyone (the road to love is littered by the bones of other ones- what a great line). You try to understand it but it seems like you'll never find that special someone. Then, you tell yourself the quit thinking like that (just another state of mind) and be positive.

You try to stay positive (take the best of all that's left) you know the hurt will pass. You tell yourself to grow up, don't be a fool. Be a man about it.

(Chorus again) ;)

Gordon Lightfoot was always able to write very poignant and meaningful songs in a sort of a ballad format. I tend to agree with the other people above who say that the song is written about people who have had lost loves, or perhaps, unrequited loves.

We all tend to go through those things. The first line of the second verse, where he talks about the road to love is littered with the bones of other ones is particularly comforting to anyone who has had unhappiness about a love gone sour.

To the person who made the comment about Obama and Biden, the antithesis of this is much closer to the truth. People who have put their faith in the orange man, and now convicted felon, have been the fools playing jester to the clown. Just ask Rudy Giuliani, Michael Cohen, Mike Lindell, and thousands of other people whose lives have been ruined, thinking it was going to help them.

In a taped radio interview done in the fall of 1980 with Wally Crouter of CFRB, Toronto, Canada, Gordon says "the song has got something to do with sailing" and "something to do about your upbringing. It's philosophical." He goes on to say "people ask me, how can you possibly come up with a line like "away you will go sailing in a race among the ruins. I think.. probably a lot of the lines I write, I don''t know where they come from, they just come from out of the sky, like when my boat got struck by lightening up in the Mackinaw race this year." Wally asks: "did you write a song about that?" Gord responds: "not yet; I think I already have." The interview then goes onto another segment. There were several interviews done around that time and I think Gord may have been taking a nip or two at the time. I could hear the sound of ice clicking in the glass.

This is somewhat about mental health as well as "growing up". Moreover, this song is about a retrospective/ introspective look at the emotions and feelings one may have about past relationships and the lasting effect they have on you and others. The "ruins" are the bits and pieces of us we all leave behind somewhere with the bits and peices of other people (and perhaps their friends)after people change and their relationships change/ end. 'Racing through" them is sometimes what we do to cope with those memories or to deal with how they affect us in new relationships... or maybe just the long term effects they have on us... maybe lasting guilt, feeling foolish, even a sense of accomplishment that you got out of a terrible relationship. It's amazing how we can feel all those things at once! Also, it seems some people are hurt so bad it seems they are always waiting for the other shoe to fall even though their relationship seems so strong now.

Race among the angels, Gordon....

This song for me is about mortality with a boat race as a metaphor for the journey of life. "You think you have the last laugh, now you know this can't be true"; death has the last laugh. So "you make the best of each new day". At times you think "your dream world's coming true" but then a friend dies ("Was it someone that I knew?"), reminding you of the temporariness of life and if you have plans "do it soon". You are sailing in a race among the ruins (people you've let go of, or who have died). You just continue on with "the best of all that's left, you know this cannot last". This being life. The last six lines may be autobiographical, Lightfoot ended up by his "virtue" (i.e., talent) providing entertainment ("playing jester") to his audiences.

[Edit: typo]

From the 1976 album, Summertime Dream; the hit, "Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald" is the first track.
Heard this particular song on a progressive rock show on a local FM album station when I was 12 and totally had a change of heart re: Lightfoot's AM radio fodder (OK, not that bad! I liked "Sundown" and "If You Could Read My Mind"). "Race Among the Ruins" was also the 1st song I used my dad's Fisher cassette deck to tape of f the radio, followed in subsequent yrs. by taping punk music off college radio, but I digress... What does this song mean to me? First, after I wore out my cassette overplaying this song, I broke down (during my Goth years, mind you!) and bought the album for myself in my 20s. Lyrically, to my mind, it's about someone who has a long-term mental illness describing all the highs and lows of coping with his/her own symptoms as well as viewing other MH consumers (friends, relatives, etc.) dealing with MIs in their own fashion. Ultimately,the chorus repeats, no matter how bumpy the ride or how difficult navigating life's waters, one only gets one life, so live the best life one can. One of the few but best songs I've heard that seems to honestly speak to those with and/or about the underdiscussed, underrated stigma of a mental illness.

To me, this song is about achieving something that few others have. The verse about thinking you have the last laugh is often not true as the song states. Unfortunately, what you may have as a result of your hard work and achievement is ruins. I think the ruins can be anything, but the song refers to love. So I could imagine someone who has achieved what he or she thought would be great love, only to find there was nothing there. Now, there is a race among the ruins. A race to get divorced, a race to keep the kids, a race among a destroyed relationship. I think the jester to the clown reference could be referring to the judges in our courts. Perhaps the husband or wife has to play jester to judge (who are often just clowns in gowns) in their race among the ruins.

Either way, this song touches me deeply, not for the love part, but for the achievement part. Much of what we seek to achieve through our efforts turns out to be less fruitful than we first imagined and all of that work is ruins.

Seems to me it's about losing loved ones ("one less friend", "bones")

The song is about all that is lost on the road to success, it's fleeting nature and coping with the losses