When it comes down to cracker-barrel philosophising, only Cat Stevens has Canada's Gordon Lightfoot beat. ["Cold on the Shoulder"] is the successor to the best-selling "Sundown" album, and contains roughly the same proportion of lovesick ballads and homespun sophistry…. The problem, basically speaking, is that Lightfoot doesn't know what he's talking about. Granted, when relating personal experience, Gordon writes a mean love song …, but as for metaphysics, well, John Donne he isn't. His imagery simply doesn't work for him. It's at its most laboured in "Rainbow Trout,"… forever trying to provide analogies between stock country singer/songwriter cliches and something deeper. It's a dangerous approach, and one that consistently backfires. But not to be totally negative, even at his most gibberishly ineffective, Lightfoot still sounds attractive….

Steve Lake, in his review of "Cold on the Shoulder," in Melody Maker (© IPC Business Press Ltd.), May 10, 1975, p. 33.