Fifty-one years ago, a violent storm on Lake Superior claimed the lives of all crew members aboard the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald. Today, the tragedy is remembered not only through the history of one of the Great Lakes’ most infamous shipwrecks, but through a song that helped ensure those lives would never be forgotten. Gordon Lightfoot’s The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was released 50 years ago. What began as an unexpected addition to an album became one of the Canadian singer-songwriter’s most enduring hits. Even Ed “Peewee Charles” Ringwald, one of Lightfoot’s former bandmates who played pedal steel guitar on the recording, never anticipated its success. “It was meant to actually be an album filler at the time,” Ringwald said. The song tells the story of the freighter’s final voyage on Nov. 10, 1975, when it sank in Canadian waters during a violent storm, taking all 29 crew members with it. Bruce Lynn, executive director with the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society, said the ship encountered treacherous conditions as the storm intensified. “They ended up getting into a snow squall and at that point, the Fitzgerald literally disappeared off of the radar,” Lynn said. Lightfoot was inspired to write the song after reading about the disaster, wanting to pay tribute to the crew members who lost their lives. “There was just magic in the air that first take” Ringwald remembers the day the band first recorded it. “We had recorded a bunch of songs that day, and at the end of the day Gord had said, ‘Let’s try this song I just wrote,’” he recalled. That first recording would become the version heard by millions. “We tried many times after that, but we couldn’t reproduce it. There was just magic in the air that first take,” Ringwald said. His pedal steel guitar became a distinctive part of the recording, adding an eerie, almost haunting second voice to Lightfoot’s storytelling. “It’s really the sound of rock bottom loneliness,” Ringwald said. Despite its unusual subject matter and unconventional structure, the song found an audience. “Gordon Lightfoot’s song has to be up there with one of the strangest hits in music history,” said music industry expert Eric Alper. “It’s seven verses of eight lines each. No chorus. No bridge. No key changes. No intro. And no outro lyrics.” But the song’s impact has endured, continuing to introduce new generations to the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the 29 people who were aboard. “That song established the story of the Edmund Fitzgerald into the public consciousness,” said Lynn. Without it, many people may never have learned the story of the ship or the crew who died. In one of the song’s most memorable moments, Lightfoot sings about a church bell ringing 29 times, once for each crew member. And as another grim anniversary arrives, the music serves as a reminder that while the Edmund Fitzgerald may be gone, the 29 lives lost aboard her have not been forgotten.
