Music Friday: Gordon Lightfoot Sings, ‘She’s More Than Money, She’s 14-Karat Gold'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you great songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today, folk-rock legend Gordon Lightfoot sings “14 Karat Gold,” a song that uses a precious metal metaphor to express just how much he appreciates the love of his life.

Repeated throughout the song is this memorable phrase: “She’s more than money / She’s 14 karat gold.”

“14 Karat Gold” appeared as the first track on Lightfoot’s 15th original album, Shadows. Prior to its 1982 release, the Canadian singer/songwriter/musician provided radio stations with an "interview album" that included his commentary about each of the tracks.

The velvet-throated vocalist described “14 Karat Gold” as surrealistic and a departure from some of the other songs he's done.

“It has to do with the human relationship," he said. "What it says is that you don’t know everything there is to know, about everybody else, or about each other, or about anything for that matter. But [the song is] saying that you appreciate your lady in very positive terms.”

“14 Karat Gold” was apparently one of Lightfoot’s favorite performance pieces.

“The song works extremely well on stage,” he said, “because I’ve sung it many times.”

Rated fifth on the CBC's list of the greatest Canadian songwriters ever, Lightfoot’s music career has spanned 63 years and counting. Lightfoot has produced more than 200 recordings, including the chart topping “If You Could Read My Mind” (1970), “Sundown” (1974), “Carefree Highway” (1974), “Rainy Day People” (1975) and “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976).

He has written songs for prominent artists, such as Bob Dylan, Dan Fogelberg, Jimmy Buffett and Jim Croce.

Dylan famously said of Lightfoot, "Every time I hear a song of his, it's like I wish it would last forever."

In March of 2020, the 82-year-old released his 21st studio album.

Please check out the audio track of Lightfoot performing “14 Karat Gold.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“14 Karat Gold”
Written and performed by Gordon Lightfoot.

If you see me smile don’t think I’m acting strange
I got my just reward for all my pains
If you see me on the TV talkin' proud
Please understand if I don’t talk too loud

Step around and dance a bit
Polish up the dice
Set ’em loose and let ’em roll
This is my advice
Keep your mind a mystery
Running hot ‘n cold
She’s more than money
She’s 14 karat gold

If you wonder why I’m acting up this way
Gonna cash my chips I’m leaving town today
I got more love than I could ever spend
So long, farewell, good-bye, this is the end

Step around and dance a bit
Polish up the dice
Set ’em loose and let ’em roll
Be as cool as ice
Keep your mind a mystery
Running hot ‘n cold
She’s more than money
She’s 14 karat gold

If you get hit by the bug that bit on me
If you get caught with something soft and sweet
If you get found with something you can’t waste
Then listen bud, let me give you a taste

Step around and dance a bit
Polish up the dice
Set ’em loose and let ’em roll
This is my advice
Keep your mind a mystery
Running hot ‘n cold
She’s more than money
She’s 14 karat gold. Sold.

Step around and dance a bit
Polish up the dice
Set ’em loose and let ’em roll
Be as cool as ice
Keep your mind a mystery
Running hot ‘n cold
She’s more than money
She’s 14 karat gold

Credit: Image by Arnielee, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Every Medal Awarded at Tokyo Olympics Will Be Made From 100% Recycled Materials

After a year's delay due to global health concerns, Tokyo’s 2020 Summer Olympics will finally take place from July 23 to August 8. The highly anticipated event, which retains the 2020 name for marketing and branding purposes, will bring together world-class athletes from 206 nations.

Each of them will be competing for the coveted gold, silver and bronze medals — the symbols of the ultimate accomplishment in competitive sports.

What many people don't know is that every one of the 5,000 medals awarded at Tokyo's Summer Olympic Games and Summer Paralympic Games will be fabricated from 100% recycled material.

In the two years between April 2017 and March 2019, all of the metal required to manufacture the medals were extracted from small electronic devices contributed by people of Japan. NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s leading mobile carrier, led the effort by placing collection boxes in each of its 2,400 stores.

“Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic medals will be made out of people’s thoughts and appreciation for avoiding waste,” Japanese three-time Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Kohei Uchimura told The Japan Times in April of 2017. “I think there is an important message in this for future generations.”

Despite being a country with virtually no precious metal resources, Japan’s “urban mine” of discarded small consumer electronics is believed to contain the equivalent of 16% of the world’s gold reserves and 22% of the world’s silver reserves.

The Tokyo 2020 Medal Project was a tremendous success as Japanese consumers donated 78,985 tons of electronics, including 6.21 million used mobile phones. Those devices yielded 7,716 pounds of silver and 70.5 pounds of gold, according to the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee.

Interestingly, Olympic gold medals contain just a small amount of gold. The weight of the Tokyo 2020 gold medal is 556 grams, but only 6 grams of that total is 24-karat gold. The rest is silver.

Each silver medal is fabricated from 550 grams of pure silver. Each bronze medal weighs 450 grams and is made from red brass, which is a combination of 95% copper and 5% zinc.

Olympic gold medals were once made of solid gold, with the last ones awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, back in 1912. Starting in 1916, the International Olympic Committee mandated that gold medals be made with a 24-karat gilding of exactly 6 grams (.211 ounces).

On the front side of the medals designed by Junichi Kawanishi, Nike, the mythical Greek goddess of victory, stands in front of the Panathinaikos Stadium. The back side features a raised, pebble-like center, reflective Olympic rings, and a checkered Tokyo 2020 “ichimatsu moyo” emblem inside a swirl design. Kawanishi designed the medals to resemble rough stones that have been newly polished, and now “shine with light and brilliance.”

The medals measure 85mm in diameter and have a thickness of 7.7mm.

The Tokyo 2020 Paralympics start August 24 and run through September 5.

Credits: Images courtesy of Tokyo 2020.

'AGT' Judge Sofia Vergara's Engagement Ring Played Starring Role in Last Week's Episode

Sofia Vergara's impressive diamond engagement ring was the unexpected star of last Tuesday's episode of America's Got Talent.

During a segment featuring psychic Peter Antoniou, TV's highest paid actress was asked by the contestant to hand her ring over to fellow judge Simon Cowell, who would soon hide the ring within one of 1,000 identical ring boxes scattered upon the furniture and floor of the AGT green room.

Even though Vergara did not see where Cowell hid the ring, Antoniou asked her to think about the memory attached to ring so she could psychically guide him to it.

(Vergara's platinum engagement ring reportedly features a 5 to 7 carat brilliant cushion-cut center diamond surrounded by a halo of diamond pavé.)

It took Antoniou about 70 seconds to hone in on his target and pick a ring box from the floor.

"How confident are you that I am holding the ring," Antoniou asked Vergara.

"Like zero," she said. “There’s no way you know that that’s there.”

Then Antoniou opened the box, and there was her ring.

"I'm going to throw up," Vergara said, half-jokingly.

But, then there was more. Somehow, Antoniou knew much more about the circumstances surrounding Joe Manganiello's proposal to Vergara in Hawaii on Christmas Eve of 2014.

“When you were proposed [to], you weren’t at home were you? You were somewhere else, you were far away,” Antoniou said. “And the plans had to change for your engagement.”

Vergara confirmed that Manganiello originally wanted to propose on the beach, but changed his mind at the last moment. Instead, the proposal took place in their hotel suite.

Antoniou then revealed a detail that had never been revealed to the media — that after Manganiello got down on one knee, she looked up and there was a rainbow.

A stunned Vergara explained, "He was gonna propose by the ocean, but then he panicked, and he came upstairs to the room and proposed to me in the room. And then suddenly he gave me the ring, and I look up, and there was a rainbow. It was beautiful."

Vergara seemed very impressed by Antoniou's psychic abilities.

"I want to say that there’s no way that you knew that about a rainbow, because no one knows that," she said. "Like, that story has not been on the press or nothing. So that was amazing."

Manganiello had previously dished about his proposal and the ring in an interview with Haute Living in 2015: “Our first date was in June [2014], and then I proposed to her on Christmas Eve. We had this big bay window [that I opened up], and the sun was going down pink over the mountains and over the bay, and I had this ring. I had looked at every ring in the world, and this is the ring that I wanted. I had a whole speech prepared in Spanish. I proposed to her on one knee in Spanish with the sun going down. It was awesome.”

Interestingly, the couple's rainbow detail didn't make it into the Haute Living story.

At the 2015 SAG Awards, Vergara showed off her new ring using the E! News Mani Cam.

“This is the love hand,” she exclaimed as she slipped her left hand in a tiny set that looks like a red carpet runway. E! News used the box to get neat close-ups of celebrity jewelry and manicures.

Vergara and Manganiello have been married since November 2015.

Antoniou ended up earning four yeses from the judges. The complete AGT segment can be viewed below. Antoniou focuses on Vergara's engagement ring, starting at the 3:55 mark.

Credits: Screen captures via YouTube.com/America's Got Talent; Screen capture via E! News .