Monday Music: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Last Saturday, November  10, marked the anniversary of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a freighter ship full of cargo on Lake Superior in 1975. The sinking of the huge vessel led to changes in shipping regulations on the Great Lakes.

Gordon Lightfoot had made his mark on folk music with songs like, “In the Early Morning Rain” and “For Loving Me.” He would later help to define the folk-rock sound with such songs as “Sundown,” Carefree Highway,” and ‘If You Could Read My Mind.” In 1976 he helped to immortalize the SS Edmund Fitzgerald and her fate when he wrote and recorded, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”  You’ll see that the video below uses Lightfoot’s song to memorialize the 29 crewmen who lost their lives on that fateful night.