Well, I thought I had gotten rid of my sea legs after my last post but today on the Weather Channel they were talking about storms blowing in off the Great Lakes (they should be called the Great Seas really) and before I could change the station I heard (in my head) that lonesome lead guitar part and it was all over.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down/ of the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee
It’s not so much that guitar part that makes this a repetune, but more the rhythm guitar part. It has a rocking and swaying motion to it that just sweeps you off to sea. Combined with the story of Edmund Fitzgerald and you have a classic repetune. Notice I said ’story’, not ‘lyrics’? I mean, the story writing is good, but it is that tragic story that keeps your ears to the radio the first time you hear
The ship was the pride of the American side/ Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
It reads almost like a news report and indeed it almost is. It is very true to the event that happened that night.
As big freighters go she was bigger than most/ with a crew and a captain well seasoned
Lightfoot takes you right there. You have to wonder what the crew was thinking when the first chilling winds of that Nor’easter that had arrived early.
And every man knew as the captain did too/ twas the witch of November come stealing
Lightfoot keeps you there through the whole storm. I can’t imaging the thoughts going through their heads as the situation grew more desperate but I think he sums it up when he writes
Does anyone know where the love of God goes/ when the words turn the minutes to hours.
Now for those of you that know the song know she never made Whitefish Bay. Just a few more mile and she could have escaped the worst of the wind and swells.
Thirty years later they have a best guess as to what finally happened. Going perpendicular to the swells, the fore and aft both crested at the same the same time, causing her to split in half. Her and the 52 million pounds of ore when right down. No bodies were ever recovered.
Superior, it’s been said, never gives up her dead/ the the gales of November come early
