• Bass – Rick Haynes
• Design, Photography By – Barry Feinstein, Tom Wilkes (2)
• Guitar – Gordon Lightfoot, Red Shea
• Mastered By [Pre-Mastering] – WCI Record Group
• Producer – Joe Wissert, Lenny Waronker
• Recorded By – Gary Brandt
• Recorded By, Mixed By – Lee Hershberg
• Written-By – Gordon Lightfoot (tracks: 1, 3 to 11)

The song was produced by Lenny Waronker and Joe Wissert at Sunwest Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California, with the classical music arrangement of violins by Nick DeCaro.

The song is in A major and uses the subtonic chord.

This song first appeared on Lightfoot's 1970 album Sit Down Young Stranger, later renamed If You Could Read My Mind following the song's success.^{[citation needed]}

On release, the song reached #1 in Canadian Singles Chart, and was his first recording to appear in the U.S., reaching #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in February 1971. Later in the year, it reached #27 on the Australian singles chart and #30 on the United Kingdom's singles chart. The song also reached #1 for one week on the Billboard Easy Listening chart, and was the first of four Lightfoot releases to reach #1.

In 1987, Lightfoot filed a lawsuit against Michael Masser, the composer of Whitney Houston's hit "The Greatest Love of All", alleging plagiarism of 24 bars of "If You Could Read My Mind"; the transitional section that begins "I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow" of the Masser song has the same melody as "I never thought I could act this way and I got to say that I just don't get it; I don't know where we went wrong but the feeling's gone and I just can't get it back" of Lightfoot's song. Lightfoot has stated that he dropped the lawsuit when he felt it was having a negative effect on the singer Houston because the lawsuit was about the writer and not her. He also said that he didn't want people thinking that he had stolen his melody from Masser. The case was settled out of court, and Masser issued a public apology.