Death of a steel mill -

My cousin, Mike, was working as a deckhand on various Lake Superior ore freighters, at the time. Scared my family half to death.

I was in Ashland, Wisconsin for the first time ever that night...I watched on TV as a TV Weatherman from Duluth announced with fear and trepidation that the Ore Carrier Anderson had lost radar contact with the Fitzgerald.

The horror of the storm and the loss became clear the next morning. I had spent the night in Mellen, Wisconsin 25 miles south of Ashland in the beautiful Penokee range and woke up to 12 inches of snow courtesy of the storm that sank the Fitzgerald.

I remember years later sailing on Lake Superior in a 36' sailboat ...listening to the Duluth radio station..as the fog and mist of early evening started to settle in, the radio played the Gordon Lightfoot tribute to the Fitzgerald..the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

I've never sailed on the lakes, just from Baltimore. But that description brought chills to me, too. Thanks so much for posting that.

Marks time in my life as a youth. I did not know until decades later that Gordon released the song perhaps less than a year after the accident. Coulda been from the 1800's for all I knew, or even completely fictional.

Thanks. Bittersweet memories of my youth.

-90% Jimmy

She was 3 or 4 when the Fitzgerald went down, and didn't know until recently that it had happened within her lifetime. The song does sound very timeless.

in my lifetime until just now. I guess the style of the song always made it sound like something that happened a long time ago.

First off, he just has a style that sounds kind of timeless, but he really brought out the eternal parts of this story with his amazing fitting of the lyrics to the tune.

I was a kid, totally oblivious to how recent the incident had been. It wasn't until I was in my thirties that I learned the details.

I always thought it was from an earlier time. I was much older when I realized it was from the 70's!

It's a song I can help but listen to when it comes on.

When I was growing up, I would listen to music with my father (parents divorced when I was an infant - father lived far away so time together was special) and he loved softer music and this was our favorite. He had the tape of 'Gord's Gold' and we would rewind and repeat the song on our drives,

In October of 1991 (after highschool, I moved in with him) , he was diagnosed with late stage small cell cancer of the lungs. Chemo started right away. He wasted away and was not eating due to the chemo. One night I came to the house with a bag of decent reefer (well...decent for the times and East Coast - well before Medical MJ was a real thing) and he and I smoked up a nice joint. We put The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald (Dammit.....crying now as I type.....) and listened to it 4-5 times as we discussed life, weed and a host of other things - anything other than his impending death. That night, he ate a steak and lobster meal - 1st meal he kept down in a month. It is my last good memory of him.

He died in May of 1992.

In 1996, I went to see Gordon at Wolftrap (Northern VA) and he played the Wreck before the 1st set break. As the lights came up, I dried my eyes and left --- I had what I came for....one last night of hearing that song with my old man (my father loved seeing shows at Wolftap).

So, for me, that Churchbell chimes 40 times....

I will never hear this song without thinking of your post, and your father. Sometimes it is hard to share these kind of memories, but you will usually feel better after you have let others see it thru your eyes. Thanks again.

And still are, to me, all these years later.
I still have many of his albums, now in cd format.
The wreck of the Fitzgerald is a finely crafted tune, indeed.

Thanks for the reminder. I think it makes history ( and not ancient history) a little more personal.

I've never seen him live. That must have been amazing.

Wore the damn thing out.

Song still gives me chills some 45+ years later.

Mostly in the Chesapeake, but once you're out of sight of land, it's kind of all the same from an emotional standpoint....

This was one of the tunes he performed. Still brings chills.
Many thanks for posting this!
K&R!

I remember the event but will admit to being more than a little distracted at the time. This song brings back the years that followed. Thanks for posting.

And prompted me once to visit the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point Michigan which has a Fitz exhibit. Way off the beaten path, but a fascinating place to go visit if you're ever in the area.

http://www.shipwreckmuseum.com/

a boat to pass through. It was the Edmond Fitzgerald. Hours later we listened on the radio about the storm and that she was caught in it.

that had a sort of tradition. It had lights that hung from cords above the bar and whenever this song came on the jukebox the bartender would gently start those lights swinging from side to side. I remember being in there on cold winter nights, late, when everyone was getting pretty warmed up and invariably someone would play that song and the lights would start swinging. It wasn't gimmicky or schmaltzy. It seemed like everyone felt a kind of reverence. It would always be the same. It was a powerful song.

All those fellows were pretty shook up about the loss of the Fitzgerald. They just could not get there quick enough. In water that cold, someone has just a very few minutes before hypothermia sets in, if they even could get off the ship before it went down.

They were haunted by it.

Thanks for the post. This song is one of those immortal pieces of art that will be listened to and performed for centuries.

The loss of all those men had to have been a terrible loss to their loved ones and friends. Here is hoping the they found peace and healing. Rest in peace, brave sailors.