The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
|
Of the big lake they call 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 big ship and true 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
|
Then 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
|
When the wave broke over the railing
|
And every man knew, as the captain did too
|
'Twas 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 freezing 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 PM a main hatchway caved in
|
He said, "Fellas, it's been good to know ya"
|
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
|
And the big ship and crew was in peril
|
And later that night when his lights went out of sight
|
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
|
|
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
|
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
|
The searchers 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
|
They 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 'til 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
|
|
-----------------
|
The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
|
Gordon Lightfoot |