The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a song by Gordon Lightfoot. It was written to commemorate the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. The single version hit number 1 in his native Canada on November 20, 1976, barely a year after the disaster.

About The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in brief

Summary The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a song by Gordon Lightfoot. It was written to commemorate the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Lightfoot considers this song to be his finest work. The single version hit number 1 in his native Canada on November 20, 1976, barely a year after the disaster. The song was recorded in December 1975 at Eastern Sound, a recording studio composed of two Victorian houses at 48 Yorkville Avenue in a then-beatnik district of downtown Toronto.

The Rheostatics recorded a version of the song for their 1991 album Melville. In 1995, two decades after Lightfoot’s original song was written, singer-songwriter Camille West recorded a parody song with a similar rhythm about a well-to-do family’s disastrous day at sea. In 2005, American metal band Jag Panzer released a cover of this song on a single released in March 15, 2019.