The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Italic title Template:Infobox song "The Wreck of the Edmund FitzgeraldTemplate:-" is a 1976 folk rock ballad written, composed and performed by the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot to memorialize the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Template:VoidTemplate:Void Lightfoot considered this song to be his finest work.

Appearing originally on his 1976 album Summertime Dream, Lightfoot re-recorded the song in 1988 for the compilation album Gord's Gold, Vol. 2. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was a hit for Lightfoot, reaching number 1 in his native Canada in the RPM chart and number 2 in the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.

Following Lightfoot's death, the song had a new peak in popularity that same year, reaching number twenty on the Billboard magazine's Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart in May 2023. In commemoration of Lightfoot's writing of the lyrics to the ballad, the Great Lakes Maritime Academy now follows the commemoration bell count of: "29 for the lives lost that day back in 1975 on Lake Superior, once for all lives lost at sea, and once for singer Gordon Lightfoot, who wrote the ballad of the ship’s sinking".<ref name=":0" />

Composition

The song chronicles the final voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald as it succumbed to an intense late-season storm and sank in Lake Superior with the loss of all 29 crewmen. Lightfoot drew inspiration from news reports he gathered in the immediate aftermath, particularly the article "The Cruelest Month" published in the November 24, 1975 issue of Newsweek.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Lightfoot could also draw upon his personal experience with recreational sailing on the Great Lakes.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Lightfoot himself considered this song to be his finest work.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Recorded before the ship's wreckage had been studied, the song reflects some speculation about how the disaster transpired. In later interviews, Lightfoot recounted how he had agonized over possible inaccuracies while trying to pen the lyrics until his lead guitarist Terry Clements convinced him to do what Clements' favourite author Mark Twain would have advised: just tell a story.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In March 2010, Lightfoot changed a line during live performances to reflect new findings about how the ship had foundered. The original words, "At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in; he said...", Lightfoot began singing as "At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then he said...." Lightfoot learned about the new findings when contacted for permission to use his song for a History Channel documentary that aired on March 31, 2010. Lightfoot stated that he did not intend to change the original copyrighted lyrics; instead, from then on, he simply sang the revised lyrics during live performances.<ref name=Stevenson2010>Template:Cite news</ref> Lightfoot also changed the words "musty old hall" (referring to "the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral", in fact the Mariners' Church of Detroit) to "rustic old hall".<ref name="hour">Template:Cite news</ref>

SS Edmund Fitzgerald (1971)

Melody

The song follows 6/8 time with a straightforward arrangement described by Adam Perlmutter in Accoustic Guitar as "this arrangement of 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' is pretty simple—just five open shapes in the key of A major (sounding as B, due to a second-fret capo). Instead of an A chord (A C# E), there’s an A^sus2, a type of suspended triad in which the third (C#) is replaced with the second (B). Then there’s the G6/A, or a G6 chord (G B D E) with an A as the lowest note, used only in the intro/interlude section".<ref name="key">Template:Cite news</ref> The melody for the song was later adapted by Bobby Sands for his song "Back Home in Derry". When asked about the similarity and why he did not pursue copyright infringement, Lightfoot said that the melody was "just an old Irish folk song; an old Irish dirge. I think I took it from that. It's all folk music and it's all out there for everyone to enjoy."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lyrics

The song narrates the final and difficult journey of the Edmund Fitzgerald through the storm and the frantic moments before the shipwreck. The seven stanzas of the song are written with eight lines each, with the first line of the first stanza reading: "The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down". The lyrics were strongly inspired by the article "The Cruelest Month", which appeared on 24 November 1975 in Newsweek magazine, which in addition to reporting the disaster also illustrated the legends of the Ojibwe Native Americans (termed "Chippewa" by white Europeans) on Lake Superior, which are in fact mentioned in the song. A recurring theme of the song is the violence of the bad weather in the late autumn season on the Great Lakes in November, which would ultimately lead to the catastrophe of the Fitzgerald. For example, one of the central laments in the lyrics of the song speaks of the nearness of safe harbor in the presence of imminent disaster, stating:

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.

Lightfoot, unable to know exactly how the tragedy had unfolded, by his own admission took some artistic liberties in recounting the sequence of events, for example by describing a collapse of a hatchway prior to the wreck.<ref name="Heather Sparling 2023">Heather Sparling, Disaster Songs as Intangible Memorials in Atlantic Canada, New York, Taylor & Francis, 2023, ISBN 978-1-032-11120-9.</ref> Over time Lightfoot made slight modifications to the lyrics as more information about the disaster became available.

During the following years the composer, who was surprised by the enormous success of the song, was open to rework the lyrics in light of new developments in the investigations into the disaster and the public's sensitivity.<ref name="Heather Sparling 2023"/> Although he declared that he did not want to modify the original lyrics of the song officially, often during live performances Lightfoot varied some verses to "update" them or to meet the requests of the public and the families of the victims.<ref>Heather Sparling, Disaster Songs as Intangible Memorials in Atlantic Canada , New York, Taylor & Francis, 2023, ISBN 978-1-032-11120-9.</ref> For example, in the original lyrics the church that commemorates the shipwreck is "a musty old hall"; after the complaints of a parishioner, Lightfoot changed the passage to "a rustic old hall". The song was written with no choruses, and no lyrical bridge or change of key; it was written without any lyrical intro or outro.

Production

The song was recorded in December 1975 at Eastern Sound,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> a recording studio composed of two Victorian houses at 48 Yorkville Avenue in a then-hippie district of downtown Toronto. The studio was later demolished and replaced by a parking lot.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Pee Wee Charles and Terry Clements came up with "the haunting guitar and steel riffs" on a "second take" during the evening session.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Chart success

Lightfoot's single version hit number 1 in his native Canada (in the RPM national singles survey) on November 20, 1976, barely a year after the disaster.<ref name=GC>Template:Cite web</ref> In the United States, it reached number 1 in Cashbox and number 2 for two weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 (behind Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night"), making it Lightfoot's second-most successful single, behind only "Sundown". Overseas it was at best a minor hit, peaking at number 40 in the UK Singles Chart.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Weekly charts

Template:Single chartTemplate:Single chartTemplate:Single chart

Weekly chart performance for "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Chart (1976–1977)	Peak position
Australian KMR<ref name="Kent">Template:Cite book</ref>	46
Canadian RPM Top Singles<ref name=GC/>	1
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	1
Canadian RPM Country Tracks<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	1
US Cash Box Top 100<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	1

Template:Single chart

2023–2025 weekly chart performance for "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Chart (2023–2025)	Peak position

Year-end charts

Year-end chart performance for "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"

Chart (1976)	Rank
Canada RPM Top Singles<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	12
US (Joel Whitburn's Pop Annual)<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>	36
US Cash Box<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>	22

Popular culture

Canadian indie rock band Rheostatics did an early cover of the song in 1991.<ref>Rheostatics . Cover for "The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald". 1991. [1]</ref> Another early cover of the song was done by the Indianapolis hard rock musicians Simon Bar Sinister in 1997 for Sage records which includes a lead guitar rock solo after the end of the fourth stanza; in the closing verses of the song the cymbals are intoned in the background 29 times at half-second intervals to honor the 29 dead sailors lost at sea.<ref>Simon Bar Sinister. Cover for "The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald". 1999. Sage Records. [2]</ref> The Cantus vocal ensemble did a pensive cover of the song in 2006 accompanied by acoustic guitar, cello and fife.<ref>Cantus (vocal ensemble). Cover for "The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald". 2006. [3]</ref> In 2018 the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club recorded a live performance of the song featuring a baritone soloist and accompanied by two acoustic guitars, cello and piano.<ref>University of Michigan Men's Glee Club. Cover for "The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald". 2018. [4]</ref> In 2019, the Canadian rock group Headstones covered the song and released a single of their cover.<ref>Headstones (band). Cover for "The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald". 2019. [5]</ref> The American band Punch Brothers did a cover of the song in 2022 with a solo tenor voice accompanied by a mandolin, violin and acoustic guitar.<ref>"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Punch Brothers. 2022. Boston, Mass. [6]</ref> The song was covered in 2023 by the English folk group The Longest Johns with an associated music video.<ref>"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". The Longest Johns. February 2023. [7]</ref> The song was also covered in 2025 by the a cappella group Home Free with an associated music video.<ref>"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". Home Free. October 2025. [8]</ref> American bluegrass artist Billy Strings performed a 12-minute cover of the song in August 2025 featuring a 3-minute extended instrumental introduction to the song played on acoustic guitar, and a second 4-minute acoustic guitar solo at the end of the fourth stanza.<ref>Billy Strings. "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald". August 2025</ref>

Although the lyrics of the song memorialize the 29 lives lost, since Lightfoot's death in 2023 the sinking has been commemorated with 31 rings of the memorial bell at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy: "29 for the lives lost that day back in 1975 on Lake Superior, once for all lives lost at sea, and once for singer Gordon Lightfoot, who wrote the ballad of the ship’s sinking."<ref name=":0">Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Following the singer-songwriter's death, the song had a new peak in popularity that same year, reaching number twenty on the Billboard magazine's Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart in May 2023.

Personnel

Original version from 1976 on Summertime Dream (5 min, 58 sec):

• Gordon Lightfoot – 12-string acoustic guitar, a Gibson B-45-12, and vocals
• Terry Clements – electric guitar
• Pee Wee Charles - pedal steel guitar
• Rick Haynes – electric bass
• Barry Keane – drums
• Gene Martynec - Moog synthesizer

The 1987 version released on the 1999 Songbook album updated the Personnel notes for the re-recorded version (6 min, 28 sec):

• Drums, Percussion: Barry Keane
• Synthesizer: Gene Martynec
• Guitar, Vocals: Gordon Lightfoot
• Producer: Gordon Lightfoot
• Drums: Jim Gordon
• Engineer: Ken Friesen
• Mixing Engineer: Lee Herschberg
• Producer: Lenny Waronker
• Pedal Steel Guitar: Pee Wee Charles
• Bass Guitar: Rick Haynes
• Acoustic Guitar: Terry Clements
• Electric Guitar: Terry Clements
• Writer: Gordon Lightfoot

See also

• Template:SS, another ship disaster memorialized in a song by Lightfoot
• Rock music of Canada
• Music of Canada

External links

• Lyrics from gordonlightfoot.com
• Column by Mark Steyn—"Of Rain and Wrecks"—Song of the Week #338
• Anchored in Rich History