Posted on 11/10/2020 6:38:17 PM PST by Ciaphas Cain
It was forty-five years ago tonight that the Edmund Fitzgerald, the largest ship plying the Great Lakes, sank and took 29 good men to the bottom of Lake Superior.
"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Gordon Lightfoot. With photos of the vessel and her crew.
I believe that is the most likely reason she sank.
Although I believe the wave on the bow and a wave on the stern may have also been a cause. Clearly the ship was weakened structurally when she was cut in half and lengthed.
As an aside, I met a retired Coast Guard Officer who was part of an accreditation team at the maritime college in Maine.
He was one of the lead investigators in the investigation.
He said we will never know for sure but he thinks she ran around and torn her bottom out.
I think his most profound lyric in that song is...
Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?..
I think that question is known as a theodicy...i.e if God is so good, why is there evil in the world?
No one writes popular songs like that anymore AFAIK.
Yes I was remembering this today too. It is very windy here in Wisconsin tonight.
Thanks for posting. Always loved the song, but first time seeing the wreckage. So sad.
Amazing he is still with us, considering the crowd he ran with back in the day. You do know the song Sundowner was written about a woman he loved that cheated on him, and said woman is supposedly the same one that hot-dosed John Belushi with the 8-ball that killed him?
XLNT
Ex Navy and I've lived through a hurricane on a FF. That lyric is so true.
Nice idea but no one would believe you actually thought it was good to know Joe.
I wasn't a kid then, so I understood a lot of it. There is good music in every decade. You just have to find and appreciate it.
Heard it somewhere, thank you for your post.
That’s not the original recording, which is much cleaner and shows Lightfoot in better form. I think this one is from some years later. I do like what the youtuber did with this video.
For me, young Lightfoot can’t be beat — a wonderful voice and a brilliant songwriter. Another great one is “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.”
Got to be kidding....listen to “softly” from his Gords Gold album..or “Too late for praying”
I cant remember what tonnage she had on anymore. But the Capt on the Anderson had warned him to NOT get to close to that reef.
All she had to do was break her back-or a little crack, and the wave action would have done the rest. The weight on the way down broke her up.
I have been on that GD lake in a 21 foot fishing boat and got caught in a storm on the Big Reef 28 miles north of the bay out of Munising Michigan. That and one time on a fish tug where I got so dam sea sick I wished I would die.
I have seen three freighters brought in by fish tugs to harbor when they got caught in a gale on that lake. And not a one had any antennas left on the wheel houses. Matter of fact, one had half the deck railings and survival boats gone. It isnt that the waves are that high on there-its the frequency of the waves. Then, around November, the spray freezes on the deck and all.
Kathy Smith. His song “Daylight Katy” supposedly about her also.
That was an excellent video. Thank you.
I guess there is a restaurant along there and one ran aground right in front of that restaurant. They said the patrons headed for the exits when it headed right for them.
....when afternoon came it was freezing rain...one of the lyrics of the song...
Thanks ... and the same to you ...
Not everyone likes every style of music
Some genres just resonate more, some don’t
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