Without the song, ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ may have been largely forgotten

NASHOTAH Wis AP Without Gordon Lightfoot s song the Edmund Fitzgerald could have faded from memory along with the names of the roughly other ships that went down in the Great Lakes before it Lightfoot was inspired to write his ode to the Fitzgerald and the men who died on board after reading the first Associated Press story about the wreck and a Nov article in Newsweek magazine The song was circulated in August less than a year later Lightfoot s mournful storytelling propelled the tragedy into infamy Affection for the song and interest in the wreck has sustained for half a century though it wasn t even the deadliest recorded on the Great Lakes The deadliest wreck on open waters was the Lady Elgin in which historians estimate killed nearly people The song has made this by far the the majority famous Great Lakes shipwreck explained John U Bacon author of The Gales of November a not long ago published book coinciding with the th anniversary of the wreck He mentioned the Edmund Fitzgerald trails only the Titanic and possibly the Lusitania as the the greater part famous shipwreck in the world Rick Haynes played bass on the single and in Lightfoot s band for years He mentioned the first recorded take of the song was what they circulated on the album Summertime Dream When you listen to the record Edmund Fitzgerald it s like he s putting you right there like he was right there Haynes explained in a telephone interview from his home in Canada And that s pretty hard to do with a tragedy like that you know Debbie Gomez-Felder was when her father Oliver Buck Champeau died on the Fitzgerald She couldn t bear to listen to the song at first I put it on the record sportsman and I thought Oh no this music is eerie she revealed I turned it off But she came to love it The part that says All that remains are the faces and the names of the wives and the sons and the daughters I thought there wasn t a word he missed Gomez-Felder mentioned There wasn t anything he didn t recognize Lightfoot died in His widow Kim Lightfoot mentioned in a report to The Associated Press that the Edmund Fitzgerald was constantly present in Gordon s mind Just as he eulogized the tragedy in song for the world he also kept the memory alive in our home Paintings models and tributes adorned the walls and followed us from room to room as we went about our daily lives Kim Lightfoot noted If Gordon were with us in the present day he would have been intent on helping keep the candle of memory lit Lightfoot met regularly with family members and famously changed one of the lyrics at their request removing a reference to a disproven theory that unsecured hatch covers caused the wreck The exact cause remains a mystery That mystery and the song continue to draw people to the wreck including a new generation encountering the story through TikTok and social media Bruce Lynn executive director of the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum commented children visit the museum wearing costumes of the Fitzgerald There s something about the Fitzgerald that really draws that attention he mentioned Haynes estimated that he has played The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald more than two thousand times without tiring of it Lightfoot s band still tours and plays it at every concert Haynes remembers flying with Lightfoot to Whitefish Point Michigan to mark an anniversary of the wreck They met with sufferers families then Haynes took a walk along the shores of Lake Superior looking out toward where the Fitz sank about miles away I just sat there for about or minutes reflecting on all this stuff that had passed in connection with the Edmund Fitzgerald Haynes commented And it was very emotional for me It invariably has been Associated Press writer Isabella Volmert contributed to this overview from Lansing Michigan Source