Back in the mid to late 1970s, when I turned 16 and got my driver's license, my siblings and I made many weekend trips from Chehalis, Washington to Sandy, Oregon where my big brother lived. He would drive up from Oregon on Saturday to pick us up and would let me drive us all back down to Sandy. My brother's car was a muscle car/hot rod, so I had fun doing that!
One of the music tapes we had for the drive was a compilation of Gordon Lightfoot hit songs.
Gordon Lightfoot (1938-2023) was a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s.He has been referred to as Canada's greatest songwriter and his songs have been recorded by some of the world's most renowned musical artists. Lightfoot's biographer Nicholas Jennings said, "His name is synonymous with timeless songs about trains and shipwrecks, rivers and highways, lovers and loneliness." ~Wikipedia
Lightfoot's many hit songs include "Carefree Highway," "Rainy Day People," "If You Could Read My Mind Lord," "Sundown," and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."
Gordon Lightfoot Biography
The song "The Wreck of the Edmund" was written to commemorate the loss of the The American Great Lakes freighter S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald with her entire crew of 29 men on Lake Superior November 10, 1975.
The ship first sailed in 1958 and was over 729 feet long, bigger than even most modern-day ships on the lakes..
Edmund Fitzgerald - Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society
As noted by WRKR radio station "Lightfoot's attachment to the ship and it's fate kind of came by chance. He was reading an edition of Newsweek, and stumbled across an article about the ship and its sinking. He became so enamored with the story, that he wrote about the ship, the storm, and the men aboard as they fought to keep the ship afloat. He used [the song] as a commemoration to the men and their families, then released the song in 1976. It was an instant hit." The song has become an anthem for the tragedy.
THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD, lyrics
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee
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 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
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 Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early
Gordon Lightfoot - "The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald" - Chicago - 1979