I'm not sure if this incident is very well known outside of North America, or even through most parts of the US outside of the Great Lakes region, but today marks the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior and I've been thinking about it a lot, so now you're stuck reading about it.

The ship was a massive 700-foot American freighter that got caught in a hurricane-strength storm (not technically a hurricane, but the Great Lakes are so huge they have their own violent weather systems that can rival the oceans) and went down suddenly in Canadian waters with all 29 men aboard without even a final distress call.

Surely not the biggest of naval catastrophes in the world, but perhaps one of the best known because it was immortalized by singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot in his haunting folk ballad "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." I'm old enough to have grown up with the song, and to this day it remains hugely influential in driving interest to the museum in the region that honours the fallen sailors.

The ship has been found but the exact cause of the wreck still isn't known, and further expeditions are largely forbidden. The waters are so cold there that the ship and its crew are still largely preserved, so it's essentially considered a graveyard at sea.

Anyway, it's a fascinating story, and a gut-wrenching tribute song by Lightfoot if you've never heard it. I encourage you to have a listen, and I can't imagine anyone not being moved by it.

Fun fact: The song was recorded only a month or so after the sinking, and the recording was not just from a single take, but the very first take, and even more incredibly, the very first time they actually played it together in full. The drummer didn't even know when to come in, waiting for Lightfoot to nod as a cue, and it went on so long without that he thought Lightfoot had forgotten! They did a few more takes after that, but none captured the magic of that very first attempt.



And as a special bonus, here's a fairly new music video with a cover of the song by an a capella group called Home Free. I was initially skeptical that anyone could do the song justice, but dang they dun good!

Thank you for posting this, Jack. I remember hearing about the wreck, either from my late husband or his dad, who was a ship's engineer in the Royal Navy during WWII and later in the merchant marines taking freight across the Atlantic. Being from N. Ireland, he would have liked this song, which feels like a sea shanty. I've always liked Lightfoot's voice, but that a capella group is outstanding.

This is just an aside, but my husband's grandfather helped build the Titanic in Belfast.

I’m sure your father-in-law would have liked it, LK. I’m not how much he adapted it, but Lightfoot himself said his melody was "just an old Irish folk song; an old Irish dirge.”

The ship has been found but the exact cause of the wreck still isn't known, and further expeditions are largely forbidden. The waters are so cold there that the ship and its crew are still largely preserved, so it's essentially considered a graveyard at sea.

That's equal parts grim and fascinating.

Good song, the story is very evocative. I was surprised by the cover - quite polished, but still a lot of atmosphere.

Local radio host here in Minneapolis did an interview with Mark C. Gumbinger, an expert on the wreck.  Instead of asking Mark his questions, he sang his questions, in the style of the Gordon Lightfoot song. 

The best part about the interview is that Mark doesn't flinch.  He doesn't laugh along. He answers the questions straight as if it's the most normal interview in the world.  Just amazing.

https://mischke.fandom.com/wiki/Edmund_F..._interview

That's a great story, but I wish I'd just listened to the interview. I don't mind the gag (apart from the giggling), but the radio host came off like quite the butthead in the preamble. "I sang it because I didn't really want the guy on and figured he'd hang up" (paraphrasing) is disrespectful to anyone and everyone involved. I wonder if that's really true, though, or if he was just trying to be funny then, because he'd obviously prepared multiple questions in that style. And assuming that Gumbinger's professionalism was just because he was tired and didn't care? Eesh. I can see why that interview was the host's career peak.

I have to assume the interview was edited, as it was far too slick to have happened exacly like that. (And the interview was scheduled for an hour.) Would've been nice to hear the unedited version.

But still, I hadn't heard about this before!

This was a really haunting and beautiful song. I had not heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald before.
I like both versions, for very different reasons.

Fun fact: The song was recorded only a month or so after the sinking, and the recording was not just from a single take, but the very first take, and even more incredibly, the very first time they actually played it together in full. The drummer didn't even know when to come in, waiting for Lightfoot to nod as a cue, and it went on so long without that he thought Lightfoot had forgotten! They did a few more takes after that, but none captured the magic of that very first attempt.

That’s incredible! I guess the song was meant to be that way.