Politics & Power Quote by Gordon Lightfoot

Lightfoot isn’t raging against tanks; he’s describing a softer annexation that feels even harder to resist. “Inexorably” does the heavy lifting here: not a conspiracy, not a sudden betrayal, just a slow, certain current pulling Canada toward the U.S. “Taken over” lands with the emotional force of loss, then he immediately undercuts the melodrama: “I don't mean invaded.” That self-correction is the point. He’s not trying to sound like a crank. He’s insisting the danger is precisely that it doesn’t look like danger.

The phrase “By degrees” is almost musical: incremental, measured, inevitable. It captures how cultural dominance works in real life - through TV schedules, radio rotations, touring circuits, record-label priorities, advertising, and the way American stories set the default settings for what “normal” looks like. For a Canadian musician who built a career that had to pass through American gates (airplay, distribution, critical prestige), it’s also autobiographical. Lightfoot is both beneficiary and witness: his success is intertwined with the very gravitational pull he’s naming.

The subtext isn’t anti-American so much as pro-distinctness: a fear that Canadian identity becomes a regional accent rather than a separate voice. Lightfoot’s restraint makes the line sharper. He’s not asking you to panic; he’s asking you to notice what you stopped noticing - the takeover you hum along to.