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

NASHOTAH, Wis. — Without Gordon Lightfoot’s song, the Edmund Fitzgerald might have faded from memory, along with the names of the nearly 6,500 other ships that sank in the Great Lakes before her.

Lightfoot was inspired to write his ode to the Fitzgerald and the 29 men who died aboard after reading the first Associated Press article about the wreck and a Nov. 24, 1975, article in Newsweek magazine. The song was released in August 1976, less than a year later.

Lightfoot’s grim account propelled the tragedy to infamy. Affection for the song and interest in the wreck has endured for half a century, even though it is not even the deadliest recorded on the Great Lakes. The deadliest wreck in open waters was that of the Lady Elgin in 1860, which historians estimate killed nearly 400 people.

“That song made this wreck by far the most famous in the Great Lakes,” said John U. Bacon, author of “The Gales of November,” a recently published book coinciding with the wreck’s 50th anniversary. He said the Edmund Fitzgerald was behind the Titanic and perhaps the Lusitania as the world’s most famous wreck.

Rick Haynes, 80, played bass on the single and in Lightfoot’s band for 55 years. He said the first recorded version of the song was the one they released on the “Summertime Dream” album.

“When you listen to the Edmund Fitzgerald record, it’s like he puts you there, like he’s right there,” Haynes said in a telephone interview from his home in Canada. “And that’s kind of hard to do with a tragedy like that, you know?”

Debbie Gomez-Felder was 17 when her father, Oliver “Buck” Champeau, died on the Fitzgerald. At first, she couldn’t stand listening to the song.

“I put it on the record player and I was like, ‘Oh no, this music is weird,'” she said. “I turned it off.”

But she came to love it.

“The part that says ‘All that’s left are the faces and names of the wives and sons and daughters,’ I thought there wasn’t a word that was missing,” Gomez-Felder said. “There was nothing he didn’t recognize.”

Lightfoot died in 2023. His widow, Kim Lightfoot, said in a statement to the Associated Press that “Edmund Fitzgerald was always on Gordon’s mind.”

“Just as he eulogized the tragedy by singing to 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 in our daily lives,” said Kim Lightfoot. “If Gordon had been with us today, he would have intended to help keep the candle of memory burning. »

Lightfoot met regularly with family members and changed one of the lyrics at their request, removing a reference to a disproven theory that unsecured hatch covers caused the sinking. The exact cause remains a mystery.

That mystery and the song continue to draw people to the wreck, including a new generation discovering the story through TikTok and social media. Bruce Lynn, executive director of the Great Lake Shipwreck Museum, said children tour the museum wearing Fitzgerald costumes.

“There’s something about the Fitzgerald that really gets that attention,” he said.

Haynes estimates he has played “The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald” more than two thousand times without getting tired of it. Lightfoot’s band continues to tour and perform it at every show.

Haynes remembers flying with Lightfoot to Whitefish Point, Michigan, to mark an anniversary of the wreck. They met with the victims’ families, then Haynes walked along the shores of Lake Superior, looking toward where the Fitz sank, about 17 miles away.

“I sat there for about 15 or 20 minutes, thinking about everything that had happened in relation to the Edmund Fitzgerald,” Haynes said. “And it was very emotional for me. It always has been.”

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Associated Press writer Isabella Volmert contributed to this report from Lansing, Michigan.