In the old days of popular music, men were men and women were—it says in some of those recent analyses of old songs—abused. Now, though, David Bowie and other painted persons are happy to be asexual, bisexual, polysexual, pansexual, whatever works, and many of the pop stars who are still interested in music (you remember music) are phasing out the Me-Tarzan-You-Jane (or vice versa) slant in favor of a commitment more, ah, aware politically.

Against that background then, one is likely to notice all the more that two powerful new albums from America's best Canadian songwriters, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot, have the flavor of yesterday's heterosexuality about them, and seem, too, rather luxuriously traditional in their romanticism. The Canadian upbringing no doubt is a factor, as is the long view both artists are able to take. Lightfoot's "Sundown" … is a scrumptious summation of what else...