Friday, November 10, 2017

When The Gales Of November Came Early




Today marks the 42nd anniversary of the wreck of the freighter,
 Edmund Fitzgerald, which sank during a fierce storm over Lake Superior,
the largest of the Great Lakes of North America on November 10, 1975.



Wind and Sea Astern
A painting by Captain Bud Robinson




The ship's ill-fated final voyage was later immortalized in a popular song,
which was written and composed by Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot.

His haunting ballad, "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
 was released on November 20, 1976 barely a year after the disaster.







The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call "gitche gumme"
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 freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and a 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 feeling?

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 anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers 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
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.



"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald"
(1976)
Written by Gordon Lightfoot
Moose Music Ltd/Early Morning Music Ltd.






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