The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from

The Chippewa on down

Of the big lake they called '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 wave 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 slashin'

When afternoon came it was freezin' 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 Seven P M a main

Hatchway caved in he said

Fellas it's been good t'know ya

The captain wired in 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 any one know

Where the love of God goes

When the waves turn the minutes to hours

The searches 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;

May have broke deep and took water

And all that remains

Is the faces and the names

Of the wives and

The sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls Superior sings

In the rooms of her ice-water mansion

Old Michigan steams

Like a young man's dreams;

The islands and bays are 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 till

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