About The Song
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a 1976 hit song written, composed and performed by the Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot to memorialize the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975.
The song chronicles the final voyage of the Edmund Fitzgerald as it succumbed to a massive late-season storm and sank in Lake Superior with the loss of all 29 crewmen. Lightfoot drew inspiration from news reports he gathered in the immediate aftermatQh, particularly “The Cruelest Month”, published in Newsweek magazine’s November 24, 1975 issue. Lightfoot’s passion for recreational sailing on the Great Lakes informs his ballad’s verses throughout.
Lightfoot’s single version hit number 1 in his native Canada (in the RPM national singles survey) on November 20, 1976, barely a year after the disaster. In the United States, it reached number 1 in Cashbox and number 2 for two weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 (behind Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night”), making it Lightfoot’s second-most successful single. Lightfoot considered this song to be his finest work.