The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald 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. 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.
The song chronicles the final voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald as it succumbed to a massive 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 Cruelest Month", published in Newsweek magazine's November 24, 1975, issue. Lightfoot's passion for recreational sailing on the Great Lakes informs his ballad's verses throughout.
Recorded before the ship's wreckage could be examined, the song contains some artistic conjectures, omissions and paraphrases. 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.
In March 2010, Lightfoot changed a line during live performances to reflect new findings that there had been no crew error involved in the sinking. The line originally read, "At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in; he said..."; Lightfoot began singing it as "At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then he said..." Lightfoot learned about the new research when contacted for permission to use his song for a History Channel documentary that aired on March 31, 2010. Lightfoot stated that he had no intention of changing the original copyrighted lyrics; instead, from then on, he simply sang the new lyrics during live performances. Lightfoot also changed the description of the Mariners' Church of Detroit ("the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral") from a "musty old hall" to a "rustic old hall".
The song follows 6/8 time and is in the key of B Mixolydian mode. 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."
The song narrates the final and difficult journey of the Edmund Fitzgerald through the storm and the frantic moments before the shipwreck. 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 Chippewa Indians 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 speak of the nearness of safe harbor in the presence of immanent 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 'er
Lightfoot, unable to know exactly how the tragedy had unfolded, by his own admission took some artistic liberties in imagining its dynamics, for example by stating in one verse that the ship's doors had not been closed properly and thus implicitly attributing the responsibility to the crew itself. After complaints from the families of the victims, Lightfoot modified the verse, making the moment of the shipwreck more nuanced and suggestive.
During the following years the author, 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. Although he declared that he did not officially want to modify the original lyrics of the song, often during live performances Lightfoot used to vary some verses to "update" it, or to meet the requests of the public and the families of the victims. For example, in the original lyrics the church that commemorates the shipwreck is "a musty old hall", while after the complaints of a parishioner Lightfoot changed the passage to "a rustic old hall".
The song was recorded in December 1975 at Eastern Sound, 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. Pee Wee Charles and Terry Clements came up with "the haunting guitar and steel riffs" on a "second take" during the evening session. The song was the first commercial digital multitrack recording on the 3M 32-track digital recorder – a prototype technology at the time.
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. 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.
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