The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Words & Music:

Gordon Lightfoot

 

[capo 2]

 

Asus2   A11   Dsus4   D   Asus2   A11   D   Asus2  [play between each verse]

 

    Asus2                    Em                      G             D             Asus2

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call "Gitchee 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 true 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 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 the breakfast had to wait when the gales of November came slashing.

When 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, it's too rough to feed you."

At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said,  "Fellas, it's been good to know you."

The captain wired in he had water coming in and the good ship and crew was in peril.

And later that night when his lights went out of 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 searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay if they'd put 15 more miles behind her.

They might have split up or they might have capsized; she 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 "Gitchee Gumee".

Superior, they said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early.

 

Asus2   A11   Dsus4   D   Asus2   A11   D   Asus2  [2x]