A Perfect Storm

Today at Song Lyric Sunday, Jim is asking us to write about a song based on true events. My husband Bill and I have lived near the water all our lives; he grew up on City Island in New York and spent all his teen years working in marinas repairing boats. Years ago we bought a boat which was supposed to be a fun family get-away adventure until we realized I get heinously seasick; Bill uses it for fishing. Before Covid, we spent 35 summers in Montauk, NY with the Atlantic Ocean as our view. It’s only natural that I would be drawn to a song about a nautical event.

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior 49 years ago. Gordon Lightfoot’s song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” (1976, Moose Music, Ltd.) is a tribute to this shipwreck and the men who lost their lives.

On November 9, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald departed from Superior, Wisconsin with approximately 26,000 tons of ore bound for Detroit, Michigan. Just think about that for a second …. 26,000 tons; the cargo weighed more than the ship itself. Around 7 p.m. the National Weather Service issued a gale warning for Lake Superior. Overnight the winds increased tremendously and waves grew to incredible heights; no longer protected by land, the Fitzgerald was in terrible danger. At some point, another ship – the Anderson – made radio contact with the Fitzgerald and had her on their radar. When asked how the Fitzgerald was making out, they replied “We’re holding our own”. Shortly afterwards, the Fitzgerald disappeared from the Anderson’s radar screen.

There are phrases in the song that have been embellished, romanticized, making it sound as if the crew knew they were doomed. In reality, the sinking of the Fitzgerald was very rapid and it’s likely they didn’t know the seriousness of their condition. Thank the gods for that! In fact, after the wreck, a severely damaged lifeboat was found and only part of the second, suggesting that no attempts were made to leave the ship. No distress signals were ever issued. They didn’t know what hit them.

On November 10, 1975 the SS Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior; all 29 crew members died. At the time, it was the worst shipping disaster on the Great Lakes in more than 10 years. No bodies were ever recovered from the wreckage. When the wreck was found, the ship had broken in half by the storm. It still sits on the bottom of Lake Superior at 530 feet deep.

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was written, composed and performed by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot. The song was recorded in December 1975 at Eastern Sound, a recording studio in a then-hippie district of downtown Toronto. The famous studio was later torn down and replaced by a parking lot …. cue Joni Mitchell! Lightfoot cleared the studio and killed all the lights except for the one illuminating the paper with his scribbled words when he recorded his vocals; he considered this song to be his finest work.

The single version hit #1 in Lightfoot’s native Canada on November 20, 1976, barely a year after the disaster. In the US it reached #1 in Cashbox and #2 for two weeks in the Billboard Hot 100. Overseas it was at best a minor hit, peaking at #40 in the UK Singles Chart. 

This is “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot

Lyrics

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchegumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well-seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship’s bell rang
Could it be the north wind they’d been feelin’?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
T’was the witch of November come stealin’
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin’
When afternoon came it was freezin’ rain
In 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 7 PM, a main hatchway caved in, he said
“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the maritime sailors’ cathedral
The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitchegumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Gordon Lightfoot
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc

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