The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald Lyrics - All Live - Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down 

Of the big lake they called 'gitche gumee' 

The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead 

When the skies of November turn gloomy 

With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand 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 

The ship was the pride of the American side 

Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin 

As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most 

With a crew and good captain well seasoned 

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms 

When they left fully loaded for Cleveland 

And later that night when the ship's bell rang 

Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'? 

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound 

And a wave broke over the railing 

And every man knew, as the captain did too, 

T'was the witch of November come stealin' 

The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait 

When the gales of November came slashin' 

When afternoon came it was freezin' rain 

In the face of a hurricane west wind 

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin' 

Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya 

At seven pm a main hatchway caved in, he said 

Fellas, it's been good t'know ya 

The captain wired in he had water comin' in 

And the good ship and crew was in peril 

And later that night when his lights went outta sight 

Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald 

Does any one know where the love of God goes 

When the waves turn the minutes to hours? 

The searches all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay 

If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her 

They might have split up or they might have capsized 

They may have broke deep and took water 

And all that remains is the faces and the names 

Of the wives and the sons and the daughters 

Lake Huron rolls, superior sings 

In the rooms of her ice-water mansion 

Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams 

The islands and bays are for sportsmen 

And farther below Lake Ontario 

Takes in what Lake Erie can send her 

And the iron boats go as the mariners all know 

With the gales of November remembered 

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed, 

In the maritime sailors' cathedral 

The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times 

For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald 

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down 

Of the big lake they call 'gitche gumee' 

Superior, they said, never gives up her dead 

When the gales of November come early