Gordon Lightfoot's 'Wreck of the Fitzgerald' was an unlikely radio hit in 1976

Editor's note: Gordon Lightfoot’s 1976 megahit, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” held a special resonance in Detroit. This story appeared on page three of the Free Press on Sept. 5, 1976.

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

The song is long and moody, an unlikely hit in the highly competitive world of popular music. But in Detroit and other Great Lakes cities, it's now one of the top records on AM radio.

The song is "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot's tribute to the giant freighter that went down in Lake Superior last November with all 29 hands lost.

"Because of this one tune, the album it's on is No. 1 in Great Lakes cities," says Bob Merlis, of Warner Brothers Records.

More: Gordon Lightfoot, 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' singer, dies at 84

"The whole thing caught us by surprise," he added. "So we decided to release it as a single two weeks ago, and it's now our hottest single."

The appeal of the song is not limited to the Midwest. It has caught on in New York, Boston and Houston and is starting to be played on West Coast stations.

Les Garland, program director for CKLW radio in Windsor, says the song is being played an average of once every three hours on his station, a frequency that only the biggest hits receive.

Garland said the song was "in the top five" in requests each day at CKLW, and that the single went from 14th to seventh in sales in the Detroit area last week.

The album, ironically, is entitled "Summertime Dream."

But there is no hint of summer in the moody strains of the "Edmund Fitzgerald." The lyrics are funeral; the beat is heavily syncopated, recalling the pitch and roll of a great ship in heavy water.

The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound

And a wave broke over the railing

And every man knew as the captain did too

‘Twas the witch November come stealin’

November is the crudest month on the Great Lakes. The turning of the seasons can generate fierce storms, and the worst disasters in Great Lakes history have occurred in that month.

In November 1913, for example, a savage five-day story sent 12 ships to the bottom and killed 248 men. Five of the ships simply vanished without a trace.

The Edmund Fitzgerald was lost in similar fashion last Nov. 10. The 729-foot freighter simply disappeared from the radar screen of a nearby vessel, after battling 25-foot waves and 80-mile-an-hour winds on Lake Superior about 60 miles northwest of Sault Ste. Marie.

The vessel's captain, Ernest McSorley, 63, a veteran skipper with more than 40 years of experience on the Great Lakes, radioed to a nearby ship around 7 p.m. that evening that his ship was taking water through two hatches.

More: This week in Michigan history: Edmund Fitzgerald sinks

McSorley calmly said he was sure his pumps could handle any excess water, although waves as high as 30 feet were hammering the ship as it headed for (the relative safety of) Whitefish Bay. At that moment, radio contact was lost, and the Edmund Fitzgerald disappeared from the other ship's radar screen.

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 to know ya"

The "old cook" of the Fitzgerald was Robert Rafferty, 62, of Toledo. Rafferty, a 44-year-veteran of Great Lakes waters, had signed on the big freighter only three weeks before the tragedy.

Just one week before he went down with the Edmund Fitzgerald, he sent his wife a postcard. "I may be home by Nov. 8," Rafferty wrote. "However, nothing is certain."

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

Lightfoot has been fascinated by the Great Lakes for years, according to his sister and office manager, Bev Lightfoot of Toronto.

"We grew up in Orillia, Ont., which is right near Georgian Bay," she said. "He's had his eye on the big vessels for years.

"He felt very badly when The Edmund Fitzgerald went down," she continued. "He decided to write the song in memory of the families left behind."

She said her brother has received several letters from family members, all expressing pleasure over the song. Lightfoot is off on a long canoeing trip, she said, and couldn't comment on the success of his song. He isn't aware yet of its mushrooming popularity, she added.

They might have split up or they might have capsized

They may have broke deep and took water

And all that remains is the faces and names

Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

The U.S. Coast Guard, which has been investigating the disaster, still isn't sure why the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. Its latest attempt to pinpoint the cause used an unmanned submarine with a remote-controlled camera which filmed and videotaped the remains of the sunken ship at the bottom of the lake in May.

"It's like reconstructing an airliner crash, except it's harder to piece it back together," says Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Dan Shotwell. "All we've got are photos and the TV tape."

Shotwell said Coast Guard officials are reviewing the evidence, and will issue a final report later this year. But he cautioned that the precise cause of the sinking may never be known for certain.

Sonar readings indicate that the ship broke into two pieces suddenly before it sank. One theory is that the ship was caught simultaneously by two giant waves that lifted its bow and stern, snapping it in the middle. Another theory suggests that the vessel was hit in mid-hull by a great wave, causing it to fracture.

Meanwhile, the old legends of the big lake-called "Gitche Gumee," or "great water" by the Chippewa Indians remain. So does the memory of the lost men.

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed

In the maritime sailors' cathedral

The church bell chimed till it rang 29 times

For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.

When Father Richard Ingalls, rector of Old Mariners' Church on Jefferson in downtown Detroit, heard news of the ship's loss the morning after the sinking, he tolled the big church bells 29 times once for each member of the crew.

In March, Father Ingalls dedicated his annual memorial service for lost sailors to the crew of the doomed ship. "Several relatives of crew members came," Father Ingalls said. "They told me it was the most meaningful memorial service they had been to."

(Song lyrics copyright 1974 by Moose Music Ltd.)

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Gordon Lightfoot's 'Wreck of the Fitzgerald' was radio hit: Lyrics