Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

I want to thank Dave at A Sound Day… he wanted us to pick one song we liked that’s about reality – either a real event or a real person, and tell us about it.

As a kid riding in my sister’s car going to one of her friends at the time…I heard this and I liked it right away. It was 1976, and I was 9 years old, so my sister went out and bought the single. I wore this one out and tried to look up the real story in our encyclopedias, but unfortunately, they were published in 1967. 

A song that was, unfortunately, a true story. It was written and performed by Gordon Lightfoot. The Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in a Lake Superior storm on November 10, 1975.

This is a factual retelling of a shipwreck on Lake Superior in November 1975 that claimed the lives of 29 crew members. On November 10, 1975, the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald broke in half and sank in Lake Superior. The storm she was caught in reported winds from 35 to 52 knots, and waves anywhere from 10 to 35 feet high.

The ship was loaded with 26,116 tons of taconite pellets at the Burlington Northern Railroad, Dock #1. Her destination was Zug Island on the Detroit River. 29 crew members perished in the sinking. The tragedy of Edmund Fitzgerald had a huge impact on maritime safety regulations. It led to changes in shipping practices on the Great Lakes, including more accurate weather forecasting, monitoring, and requirements for lifeboat drills and onboard survival equipment.

The cause of the ship’s sinking remains a subject of speculation and debate. Different theories suggest factors such as structural failure, sudden shoaling, topside damage from the storm, or water intake through damaged hatches. The U.S. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board conducted investigations, but a definitive conclusion was never reached.

In 1976, a dive to the wreck site, located at a depth of about 530 feet, confirmed that the ship had broken in two. Later dives and sonar mapping further documented the wreck, but never gave a clear explanation for the rapid sinking.

The song released in 1976 peaked at #1 in Canada and #2 on the Billboard 100. It did peak at #1 on Cash Box. The song was on his album Summertime Dream. 

Gordon Lightfoot: “The Edmund Fitzgerald really seemed to go unnoticed at that time, anything I’d seen in the newspapers or magazines were very short, brief articles, and I felt I would like to expand upon the story of the sinking of the ship itself,”  “And it was quite an undertaking to do that, I went and bought all of the old newspapers, got everything in chronological order, and went ahead and did it because I already had a melody in my mind and it was from an old Irish dirge that I heard when I was about three and a half years old.”

“I think it was one of the first pieces of music that registered to me as being a piece of music,” he continued. “That’s where the melody comes from, from an old Irish folk song.”

Gordon Lightfoot: “When the story came on television, that the Edmund had foundered in Lake Superior three hours earlier, it was right on the CBC here in Canada, I came into the kitchen for a cup of coffee and saw the news and I said ‘That’s my story to go with the melody and the chords.”

For those interested…I have a bio of the event at the bottom.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on downOf the big lake, they called Gitche GumeeThe lake, it is said, never gives up her deadWhen the skies of November turn gloomyWith a load of iron ore, twenty-six thousand tons moreThan the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed emptyThat good ship and true was a bone to be chewedWhen the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American sideComing back from some mill in WisconsinAs the big freighters go, it was bigger than mostWith a crew and good captain well seasonedConcluding some terms with a couple of steel firmsWhen they left fully loaded for ClevelandAnd later that night when the ship’s bell rangCould it be the north wind they’d been feeling?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale soundAnd a wave broke over the railingAnd every man knew, as the captain did too‘Twas the witch of November come stealingThe dawn came late, and the breakfast had to waitWhen the gales of November came slashin’When afternoon came, it was freezin’ rainIn the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’“Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”At seven p.m., a main hatchway caved in, he said“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”The captain wired in he had water comin’ inAnd the good ship and crew was in perilAnd later that night when his lights went outta sightCame the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goesWhen the waves turn the minutes to hours?The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish BayIf they’d put 15 more miles behind herThey might have split up or they might have capsizedThey may have broke deep and took waterAnd all that remains is the faces and the namesOf the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior singsIn the rooms of her ice-water mansionOld Michigan steams like a young man’s dreamsThe islands and bays are for sportsmenAnd farther below Lake OntarioTakes in what Lake Erie can send herAnd the iron boats go as the mariners all knowWith the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit, they prayedIn the Maritime Sailors’ CathedralThe church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine timesFor each man on the Edmund FitzgeraldThe legend lives on from the Chippewa on downOf the big lake, they call Gitche GumeeSuperior, they said, never gives up her deadWhen the gales of November come early

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

64 thoughts on “Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald”

    1. Yea I felt bad about taking a Canadian…I should have let you guys take one but I was afraid you guys would have taken someone else since you had to hear this a lot back then,

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  4. Aron Ralston, in his book “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” reminded us that “geological time includes now” to let us know that stuff we think of as ancient still occurs, and not everything is a slow process. In a similar vein, Gordon Lightfoot brought home that ships sinking in storms isn’t something that used to happen back in the 1600s. It still happens today.

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      1. Ya’, that was good one. My favorite was ‘Every Highway’ or maybe I got the title wrong…back then I remember just singing the chorus whether I knew the words or not. His singing & writing style made am impression on me when I was 10 years old through his last hit when I was 14 or 15 years old. I was into funk & rock & roll then but he was one of those acts that made an impression on me that wasn’t glitzy & glamorous.

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      2. Carl, I think you are thinking of, “Carefree Highway … let me slip away, slip away on you…” I like the way you describe his music as not glitzy and glamorous. Down home is grounding and that he was.

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  6. I was so glad when I saw on Turntable Talk you had picked this song. There’s something in this story, this song that ought to remind us all about the history we two countries share. An American tragedy, immortalized by a Canadian singer. There will always be ups and downs but in the end we’re still neighbours.

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      3. he evidently didn’t think that it would be like adding another California (plus a million or two extra people) which wouldn’t historically do his party any favors come election time

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  7. Songs based on reality is a topic that I never covered in Song Lyric Sunday. A quick search showed there are a lot of these songs like A Day in the Life by The Beatles, Alice’s Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie, American Pie by Don McLean, Baba O’Riley by The Who, Battle of New Orleans by Johnny Horton, Candle in the Wind by Elton John,  Coming to America by Neil Diamond, Dancing in the Dark by Bruce Springsteen, Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey, Fast Car by Tracy Chapman, For What It’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield, Hurricane by Dylan, I Don’t Like Mondays by The Boomtown Rats, I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner, Man on the Moon by R.E.M., Ohio by CSNY, She’s Leaving Home by The Beatles, Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple, Something by The Beatles, Strange Fruit by Billie Holliday, Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2, Sweet Child of Nine by Guns’N’Roses, Suite Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby, Stills and Nash, Tears In Heaven by Eric Clapton, The River by Bruce Springsteen, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia by Vicki Lawrence, Winds Of Change by the Scorpions, With or Without You by U2, Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton and Woodstock by Joni Mitchell.

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      6. Yes they would. Ticket To Ride comes to mind…many people say it was about the health certifications of hookers in Hamburg.

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      8. I’ve read different things…this it says in Wiki:
        While the lyrics describe a girl “riding out of the life of the narrator”,[22] the inspiration of the title phrase is unclear,[6] as is the meaning of the song.[23][24] McCartney said the title referred to “a British Railways ticket to the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight”,[13] and Lennon said it described cards indicating a clean bill of health carried by Hamburg prostitutes in the 1960s.[22] The Beatles played in Hamburg early in their musical career, and a “ride” was British slang for having sex.[23] Gaby Whitehill and Andrew Trendall of Gigwise have interpreted the song to be about a woman leaving her boyfriend to become a prostitute.

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  9. A haunting song. Driving through desert California, Needles to Fresno, late, maybe 2AM, and I find the song on the radio. It gave me chills. After that, I tuned into Art Bell and he covered Demons and Angels. What a night.

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      1. Back in the 90s, I suffered through a multi-year period of Art Bell addiction. At 11:45 my eyes would pop open and my bedside radio would come on, always to Art Bell’s show. The man was a master at sucking you into whatever topic he covered that night. I was sleep deprived for many years. I finally went back to an alarm clock with no radio. Instant cure.

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      2. I remember… his guests were out there. “I died and went to hell but came back” and all sorts. It was hard not to listen at times.

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  10. This song has grown on me over the years. I was in the middle of being a snot nosed rocker when this came out. I didn’t get it. I do now. Gord did a good job with the story. Told it well. I like a good story song and this is up there.
    Again here is some crosscurrent. I was listening to a Tony Rice album a while ago. It was a tribute to Lightfoot and he covered this song. Did a really good job.

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    1. I was so young when I heard it…it turned into a story telling song and of course at that age I ate it up. I appreciated it even more as I got older like you have.
      I’ve heard of Tony Rice before….maybe it was from Randy I don’t know.

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      1. Rice is known as a bluegrass guy but plays all over the map. Played with Hillman, Garcia and every good player in the States. Fantastic player and singer. I’m sure you would know his gear. Probably not using run of the mill equipment

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      2. I checked out some of his guitar playing…yea man…he is way above good. I saw a video where he plays on a Yamaha acoustic (I have a 1974 Yamaha)…close to the one I have. The newer ones I wouldn’t give you a dime for but the older ones…oh yes! Some great instruments.

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  11. Sadly it takes some tragedy like this to drag old obsolete ‘safety’ rules up to date. Ol’ Ma Nature can give us a nasty reality check. Our version was an inter-islander ferry, the Wahine, grounding on a reef outside our capitol, Wellington in April ’68. The shortest distance between the North and South Islands is a mere 14 miles, but that can be 14 miles of the foulest water you can wish to see. Or wish to unsee. If you’re on a bad pitch-and-roll ferry journey you’ll be glad to reach port having only lost your cookies, not your life- believe me. One of those stories that leaves a scar on the national psyche.

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    1. 14 miles is quite a stretch I would think for a ferry. We had one when I was a teen but it couldn’t have been more than 300 yards. We would have swam ashore if the worse happened…it did get loose one day and just floated and floated down the river…people that day had a free ride…but no sinking!

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      1. This ferry was a big beast of a thing. I’d been on the thing the previous year, on a class trip up to Wellington. I’d cancel any trip booked nowadays, if the weather was rough, if I have to. Flying into Wellington on a rip-roaring bad day can be a strain on personal evacuation procedures too though.

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      3. Yeah, we still have the ferry’s but at the moment if they’re not being run aground (true story) or losing a propeller (true story) or just disintegrating due to premature aging or poor shit- shipbuilding, (true story) they still do ‘run.’ On a good day, with a fair wind and the Captains heartfelt prayer …

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  12. Max, I had to look up taconite pellets and see they are a kind of ore. Imagining that much weight in the ship, those winds, and the mega waves could have converged to rip it in half. I wonder if the taconite is still there (guessing yes.) Lake Superior has several ships at the bottom. Have driven along it many times on visits to my younger son when he was in college. The Great Lakes are, well, great.

    You know what a fan I am of Mr. Lightfoot. I praise him for filling in details on the wreck that probably would have quickly passed into history without his song.

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    1. They are so much larger than I ever thought. I can’t wait to see them in person one day. I can’t imagine how many ships are at the bottom.

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      1. I think Lake MI is 70+ miles across from here to Wisconsin. Up in Munising, they have a glass-bottomed boat tour that allows you to see them down at the bottom. I think I read that the water is so cold the wood won’t rot.

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      2. That is in a way to the naked eye in places like seeing the ocean…where I live we only have rivers…and no they nothing compared to that.

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      4. The flattest area I’ve ever seen was Kansas and Oklahoma…and yes it was weird to see. We do have mountains and a lot of them. I grew up between two.

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  13. Iconic song. I think I had this on a 45. I guess I assumed it was fiction, or just never looked into the story at the time. I did hear much later about it being based on an actual incident.

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    1. Yes I remember the 45 and the Reprise label…my sister got it… I was the same…I found out about the real event from this.

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  14. Back in the high school days I remember when a house party I was at ended at the wee early morning hours and someone put on this song. What an end of the night send off!

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  18. What a masterpiece this record is. It’s also a lost art as far as chart hits go – telling a true story just doesn’t seem relevant to the “me me it’s all about me and my feelings” rap and pop songs of current music. Gordon Lightfoot fit beautifully into that folk tradition. Haunting and dark, love that guitar especially.

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  20. Pingback: I’m Not Supposed to Care (1976) – Gordon Lightfoot | Observation Blogger
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