His legacy certainly contains "silly" songs, but i would hope that anyone interested would come to a deeper appreciation of his music than that. His art was immediate, not something that he mulled over for 6 weeks before he wrote a lyric, and through that he captured as much of the true north, strong and free, than almost any other musician I can remember. He travelled the entire length and breadth of our vast nation more times than he could count, and left us far-flung Canucks feeling closer to each other through his songs about the mundane, the ordinary, the ironic, and yes, the silly. He means as much to Canadians as Pete Seeger or Woody Guthrie does to the US, in spite of the fact(or perhaps because) he was apolitical. I have not spoken with a single person in the last 24 hours that has not made mention of his passing, and our nation is slightly poorer today than yesterday for his absence.

He was no doubt beloved, but he was hard to take seriously, for myself, at least. Always funny and entertaining, he just never struck me as a deeply passionate musician, but as a story teller and jester who utilized music as a backdrop. Nothing wrong with that, just not a role model of virtuosity. Nevertheless, he was a deservedly popular icon who defined goodhearted virtues, and would likely have been a welcome guest in any Canadian home.