Even after all these years, those words still bring tears to my eyes.
I was a student at Michigan Tech in those days, and witnessed the passage of the Edmund Fitzgerald through the Portage River (separating Houghton from Hancock) while I was there.
One of the most powerful lines I have ever heard in a song. Lightfoot’s poetry captured the terror and hopelessness those men must have felt on the terrible day.
May God have mercy on their souls. I’ll say a prayer for them tonight.