Nachota, Wisconsin– If not for Gordon Lightfoot’s song, the Edmund Fitzgerald would have faded from memory along with the names of nearly 6,500 other ships that went down the Great Lakes before it.
Lightfoot was inspired to write his poem to the Fitzgerald and the 29 men who died aboard after reading First AP story About the wreck and a November 24, 1975 article in Newsweek. The single was released in August 1976, less than a year later.
Lightfoot’s somber account pushed the tragedy into infamy. Affection for the song and interest in the wreck continued for half a century, although it was not even the deadliest on record in the Great Lakes. The deadliest open-water wreck was the ship Lady Elgin in 1860, which historians estimate killed nearly 400 people.
John Yu said. “The song has made this the most famous Great Lakes shipwreck of all time,” said Bacon, author of “November Storms,” a recently published book that coincides with the 50th anniversary of the wreck. He said Edmund Fitzgerald only traces the Titanic and perhaps the Lusitania as the world’s most famous shipwreck.
Rick Haynes, 80, has played bass on the single and in Lightfoot’s band for 55 years. He said the first recorded verse of the song was what they released on the album, “Summertime Dream.”
“When you listen to an Edmund Fitzgerald recording, it’s as if he puts you there, as if he was there,” Haynes said in a phone interview from his home in Canada. “And that’s very difficult with a tragedy like this, you know?”
Debbie Gomez Felder was 17 years old when her father, Oliver “Buck” Shambaugh, died at the Fitzgerald Hotel. She couldn’t bear to hear the song at first.
“I put it on the tape recorder and thought: ‘Oh no, this music is weird,'” she said. “I turned it off.”
But she came to love him.
“The part that says ‘All that remains are the faces and the names of the wives, sons and daughters,’ I thought he didn’t miss a single word,” Gomez Felder said. “There wasn’t anything he didn’t recognize.”
Lightfoot died in 2023. “Edmund Fitzgerald was always present in Gordon’s mind,” his widow, Kim Lightfoot, said in a statement to The Associated Press.
“Just as he paid tribute to the world in song to the tragedy, he kept the memory alive in our home; plaques, models and tributes adorned the walls and followed us from room to room as we went about our daily lives,” Kim Lightfoot said. “If Gordon were with us today, he would be determined to help keep the candle of remembrance lit.”
Lightfoot met regularly with family members and changed one of the lyrics at their request, removing reference to an unproven theory that unsecured hatch covers caused the wreck. The exact cause remains a mystery.
This mystery and song continue to draw people to the wreck, including a new generation encountering the story through TikTok and social media. Children visit the museum dressed in Fitzgerald costumes, said Bruce Lane, executive director of the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum.
“There’s something about the Fitzgerald that really catches the eye,” he said.
Haynes estimated that he played “The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald” more than 2,000 times tirelessly. Lightfoot’s band still tours and plays it at every concert.
Hines recalls flying with Lightfoot to Whitefish Point, Michigan, to commemorate the anniversary of the wreck. They met with the families of the victims, and then Hines walked along the shores of Lake Superior, looking toward the spot where the Fitz sank, about 17 miles away.
“I sat there for about 15 or 20 minutes thinking about all these things that had happened in relation to Edmund Fitzgerald,” Haynes said. “And it was very emotional for me. It always has been.”
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Associated Press writer Isabella Vollmert contributed to this report from Lansing, Michigan.