 In 1987 Lightfoot filed a lawsuit against the composer of Whitney Houston's hit "The Greatest Love of All", Michael Masser, 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, as 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.