Listening to the song years ago made me want to go to the north shore of the UP in Nov. in hopes of experiencing the power of one of those storms, from the safety of shore of course. That and seeing the Aurora Borealis are still on my to-do-list.
Come on up...I live there!! I took my nephews up to Whitefish Point in Sept to see the shipwreck museum. The Fitz's bell is on display there. By the way, I was in the Soo last week for groceries and saw the Arthur M. Anderson going through the Soo Locks. (she was right behind the Fitz on the night she was lost).
I spent my time on an Aircraft Carrier (JFK mostly) and back in 1976 we were up above the Arctic circle in the North Atlantic...
It was the roughest ocean I had ever seen...there was a Knox class frigate about 100 yards away off the starboard beam, and that thing was moving in all 3 axes-pitching, rolling, and yawing simultaneously. First, the whole bow to almost the superstructure or missle mount would be in the air, then it would plow into the ocean, water completely covering the forward deck and running back along the superstructure. While this was happening, the screw would come clear of the water and you could see the thing spinning. All the while, yawing from side to side and rolling to and fro. I felt pity for those guys...I don't care how well conditioned you are, that HAD to be causing sea sickness there...
I saw all this from the opening to the catwalk on the flight deck where my line shack was. Nobody was allowed on deck except for a group that checked the integrity of the tiedowns, and all the aircraft had been in a 24 point tiedown since before we hit that water.
Me and two of my buddies wanted to see what the ocean looked like, so we creeped out the door onto the catwalk, where you could look directly down to the water far below. The surface of the water had been whipped up to a frothy white nearly uniform appearance. The three of us got into the catwalk far enough to see the bow, but not far enough that we could be seen by the bridge.
Dumbfounded, we watched the entire bulbous bow of the carrier slowly lift out of the water, tons and tons of white water cascading off of it, higher and higher, until it reached as far as it would go, then it just hung there not moving (or so it seemed). For an infinite slice of time it seemed motionless, then almost imperceptibly began to go back down...
Faster and faster it rushed to the water...when it hit, tons of water went in every direction. The only thing in my life I have ever seen that might give you an idea of what it looked like was the famous picture of the lighthouse in the North Sea with a guy looking out the door while an enormous wave crashes into the light house. That pretty well is what this looked like.
Well, the bow went into the water, deeper and deeper, and all three of us became certain the entire bow of this aircraft carrier was going to burrow into the water up to where we were, and we immediately scrambled over the top of each other trying to get back in the hatch.
Of course, no such thing was going to happen...it just FELT like it was going to go in that far...but our hearts were pounding for sure!
To me, the most haunting part of the song is the pounding of the toms just prior to the phrase "The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound..." along with the very subtle guitar riff that he does as he sings this line.