Wreck Of Edmund Fitzgerald

by Gordon Lightfoot

	Asus2	Em	G	D	Asus2
Th	e legend lives on from the	chippewa on down of the	Big lake they	called "Gitche	Gumee"

	Em
The lake, it is said, never g	ives up her dead

	G	D	Asus2
When the	skies of No	vember turn	gloomy.

	Em
With a load of iron ore twenty-six	thousand tons more

	G	D	Asus2
Than the	Edmund Fitz	gerald weighed	empty.

	Em
That good ship and true was a	bone to be chewed

	G	D	Asus2
When the	"Gales of No	vember" 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 ships 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, twas the witch of

November come stealing, the dawn came late and breakfast had to wait, when

the gales of November came slashing, when the afternoon came it was freezing

rain, in the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck, saying fellas its too rough

to feed you, at seven p.m. a main hatch way caved in, he said fellas its

been good to know you. the captain wired in, he had water coming in, and the

good ship and crew were in peril, and later that night when his lights went

of 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 names of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

Lake Huron rolls, Superior swings, in the rooms of her ice water mansions,

old Michigan steams like a young mans 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, the lake it is said never gives up

its dead when the gales of November come early.

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