Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald

There is something about sad songs that have always intrigued me.  For some reason I am drawn to them.  Perhaps it is my melancholic personality.  This is the first of many posts highlighting such music. It follows the second post, which was posted first, due to a complicated series of events which even I do not fully comprehend.

You can find lists of sad songs on the internet.  I'm not really interested in which songs other people consider sad.  The songs I choose will have had some particular impact on my life.  I will NOT be talking about "Honey", by Bobby Goldsboro, "Shannon" by Henry Gross, or "If" by Bread, so as to keep some hint of respect among the men.  Some songs are so sappy they make you want to puke.  Such songs shall be avoided.  O.K... maybe I will do Shannon.  Good grief, I'm going to cry.

Gordon Lightfoot released this song in 1976, commemorating the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975.  None of the crew of 29 survived.

I'm a sucker for a song that tells a great story.  Makes you think about how many things have to line up to have a song like this work so well... the story, the music, the tone, the voice, the timing..... In Lightfoot's case, it only happened a few times in his whole career. 

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

by Gordon Lightfoot

(click on link to listen)

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitchigumi
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 crew 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 feeling?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave tumbled over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
T'was the witch of November come stealing.

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin'
When afternoon came it was freezing rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.  When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck saying
"Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya."
At seven PM the main hatchway caved in, he said
"Fellas, it's been good to know ya."

The captain wired in he had water coming in
And the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one 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.
All that remains are the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her icewater mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
The isles 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 till 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 Gitchigumi
Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early.