Edmund Fitzgerald
Written by Gordon Lightfoot
Recorded by Frank McKinnon

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 crew 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 waves 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 slashing. When afternoon came, it was freezing 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 that 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 anyone 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 might have broke deep and took water. And all that remains is the faces and names of their wives and their sons and their daughters.

Lake Huron rolls. Superior sings in the rooms of her ice-water mansion. Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams of the islands and bays 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.

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Frank McKinnon:
Guitar
Vocal

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