The Edmund Fitzgerald: With the Gales of November Remembered

MOTUS A.D. ^ | 11-11-17 | MOTUS

[phormer phrog phlyer]

26 tons?

[foreverfree]

bump

[MNDude]

I’m curious, is that song known in areas outside the Great Lakes areas?

[Jane Long]

Only 15 miles from safe harbor.

Gordon Lightfoot’s song was always quite haunting.

[ClearCase_guy]

As big ships go, she was bigger than most.

[Campion]

26,000 tons more than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed,
when the gales of November came early ...

[CMailBag]

I think there is a typo on the load. 26 tons is 52,000 #, pretty sure it was much more than that.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Yes! That song was a major hit.

https://youtu.be/9vST6hVRj2A

[Duchess47]

I played it a lot in California.

[Blurb2350]

Of course that song is known outside the Great Lakes! And anyone who bought K-Tel’s definitive collection, “Gordon Lightfoot Sings Every Song Ever Written,” knows it well.

[jagusafr]

Lightfoot’s lyrics in this tune are amazing poetry.

[Hot Tabasco]

I also remember that my best friend’s father died that day too........

[P.O.E.]

Let’s see, what rhymes with “gloomy”. shrooomy, roomy, doomy, bill mumy, oh wait, I got it!

[MNDude]

Thanks. Whenever I drive up to Lake Superior during November I listen to the song and wonder how well-known it is elsewhere.

[miss marmelstein]

Yes, it may have made #1 on AM stations when it was first released. I know I heard it so relentlessly to my brother’s many shouts of “Turn that off!” I still like the song, especially the beautiful, poetic lyrics.

[SES1066]

As infamously memorialized in song, it never arrived.

Very bad use of 'infamous' here, as that implies bad connotations like 'infamous criminal'. Gordon Lightfoot's FAMOUS ballad, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, has assured that this disaster will live long after he and we have passed.

[traderrob6]

I was 18 and going to college in Kalamazoo at the time. Huge news in that part of the country.

Had several frat mates that lived on or around Superior.

[Carriage Hill]

The song says 26,000 - 26 THOUSAND tons - or 52 MILLION pounds. My old TI calculator is maxed-out on digits.

[RipSawyer]

Yeah, it should be 26 THOUSAND tons. If you know anything at all about ships that error jumps out at you, 26 tons is peanuts to a ship. Tennessee Ernie Ford sang about 16 tons being loaded by one man in one shift in the coal mine. I’m an old man and I moved several tons in one little light weight workout in the gym already today. I weigh almost one eighth of a ton.