Song keeps lost ship afloat
Lightfoot epic of 1975 sinking Memories linger of doomed carrier
DETROIT— It’s an evocative song that defies description: haunting yet comforting, wistful yet powerful, mythic yet real. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” was among Gordon Lightfoot’s greatest hits, an unlikely Top 40 smash about the deaths of 29 men aboard an ore carrier that plunged to the floor of Lake Superior during a nasty storm on this day in 1975.
“ In large measure, his song is the reason we remember the Edmund Fitzgerald,” said maritime historian Frederick Stonehouse. “ That single ballad has made such a powerful contribution to the legend of the Great Lakes.”
Three decades after the tragedy, the Fitzgerald remains the most famous of the 6,000 ships that disappeared on the Great Lakes. A new book is out about the sinking, Mighty Fitz ( Bloomsbury) by Wisconsin author Michael Schumacher.
Lightfoot first read about the doomed ship in Newsweek. That telling inspired him to write one of the signature songs of his lengthy career.
At 61⁄ minutes, “ The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” came out in 1976 and reached No. 2 during 21 weeks on the pop charts. It still lingers like the memory of the doomed craft. The song remains on Lightfoot’s set list; he played it last summer at Detroit’s Fox Theater, where the crowd included Ruth Hudson, the mother of a deckhand from the Fitzgerald. Hudson, who met backstage with Lightfoot, has become friendly with the singer over the years. The Ohio resident said the song is therapeutic to the families of the crew.
“ It’s kept the men and the memorial to the men alive,” said Hudson. “ I think it’s been good for the families. They have felt comfort in it. I have talked to just about all of them, and I haven’t talked to anyone who didn’t like the song.”
Lightfoot declined to be interviewed for this story. But he told the Associated Press in 2000 that “ Wreck” was “ a song you can’t walk away from.
“ You can’t walk away from the people (victims), either,” he said. “ The song has a sound and total feel all of its own.” The structure of the song is simple: 14 verses, each four lines long. Its 450-plus words are carefully chosen, delivered over a haunting melody. The song tells the story of the Fitzgerald’s fatal voyage, which began Nov. 9 in Superior, Wis., where it took on 28,700 tonnes of iron ore for a trip to Detroit. Aday later it was being pounded by 145- km/h wind gusts and 9- metre waves.
Ship’s captain Ernest McSorley radioed a trailing freighter, the Arthur M. Anderson, to say the Fitzgerald had sustained topside damage and was listing. At 7: 10 p. m., he announced, “ We are holding our own.” But the ship soon disappeared from radar without issuing an SOS. After a few days, a vessel with sonar was able to locate the Fitzgerald only 24 kilometres from the safe haven of Whitefish Bay in upper Michigan. Memorial events are planned for today at the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point, Mich., and the Mariners’ Church of Detroit.
Last Saturday, the Sault Symphony Orchestra in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., was to present a 2002 piano concerto that chronicles the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking.
In communities hugging the Great Lakes, “ The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is bound to be heard and discussed today.
“ Any bit of literature, prose or poetry that magnifies the loss of loved ones is so dramatic,” said Bishop Richard W. Ingalls of the Mariners’ Church. “ Lightfoot’s song definitely has given it a life that seems not to end.”