Gordon Lightfoot and the Greatest Song Ever Written
How to make writing about a sinking ship compelling.
Calling Gordon Lightfoot a “great songwriter” is like calling the Mariana Trench “a bit steep”. Correct, sure, but a bit of an understatement. Born in Canada in 1938, Lightfoot entered the folk music scene at its golden age in the mid 1960’s. A lyricist as much enamored withhis own emotions as as he was with relationships and loneliness, his work is reminiscent of that of Bob Dylan (coincidentally a lifelong fan of his) and remains striking to this day for many of the same reasons; his mastery of language, his elegant word choice, and a talent for telling a story that remains unmatched. To understand this, we need to look at what many, myself (and Gordon) included consider his masterpiece, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
i.
On the evening of November 10th, 1975, the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald met a howling gale on Lake Superior, carrying a load of iron ore from Wisconsin to Zug Island, Michigan. The storm claimed both the ship and all twenty nine members of its crew. Taking inspiration from the Newsweek article written about the event, Lightfoot set out to write the tale in his own words. By this time, he had already established himself as perhaps the finest songwriter in Canada, but the specific topic would be difficult for anyone.
After all, he’s writing about a cargo ship full of iron ore sinking.
There’s little romance in that. No gallant heroes, no romantic epic. No battle won or struggle overcome. Just twenty nine good men, a plain ship, and the blank space they both used to occupy.
The beauty of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” isn’t in the meaning making of it. Lightfoot doesn’t try to weave the narrative into a larger patchwork of life and death, nor does he make it more than it was. What makes this song so enduring is its simple poetry, how he visualizes moments that some might consider insignificant in a way that emphasizes that yes, even the small things matter. Every moment is prelude to the next.
Every brush stroke matters.
ii.
So, nothing about this song should work.
When the album cut was pared down to be sold as a single, it was a few seconds shy of six minutes long, a full minute longer than the average charting pop song of the era. The instrumentation is as bare as it can be without it just being Lightfoot and his acoustic guitar on a stool in the studio room; there’s only one riff, a haunting guitar track that echoes in time with a steel guitar, emulating the brisk and disquieting nature of the ocean. An acoustic guitar provides support underneath. There is no soloing, no bombast, no additional arrangements. Lightfoot is a one man show, a bard in some crusty seaside pub playing to a crowd of aching, tired men by the dying light of a wax candle.
A six minute song with a basic guitar riff about a sinking cargo ship.
And yet:
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche 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 crew was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early
When I say that Lightfoot’s poetic voice is what makes this song such a beauty to listen to, despite its relatively simple instrumentation, this is what I mean. In eight lines the scene is set, with both information about the ship and it’s fate in tow. The word choice, and the implications of it, are fascinating; “bone to be chewed”. Visceral, sure, but more than that it sets the tone for the story; no, this is not a romantic journey. This isn’t a tale of heroism. The gale kills, and it kills because that’s what it does. The wind rips across the lake, thunder roars. Nature, cruel to us, acts as it always does.
I think these next lines, however, are my favorite. Not just in this song, but in almost any song.
The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
When a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too,
T’was the witch of November come stealin’
Why? Two words: tattletale sound. Where the instrumentation lay sparse and minimalist, Lightfoot’s voice and words pull the rest of the weight. This is a fairly small moment in the grand scheme of the story, the storm has just begun to pick up. But it isn’t so much in the events we’re shown, rather how it’s being shown. The tattletale sound itself reflects more than just the clanging of wires off the mast, but a signal of the things to come. The “witch of November”, specifically. It resonates so vividly because of the strange nature of the description. Strange, yet so deadly specific that one couldn’t imagine it being done any other way.
We praise Dylan and others like him for their poetry, but Lightfoot transcends poetry here; he creeps closer toward sea shanty or oral history, something sung and shared between friends. For example:
Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
If you wanted to dismantle the rest of this song, to isolate two lines that would best encapsulate just what Lightfoot meant to do when he wrote it, these may be the lines you end up with. It’s a lament in a way, sadness at lives lost, but it bubbles with the complexity of emotion spread throughout the rest of the verses. The power of the water to take the ship and its crew aside, to some it suggests an abandonment. But perhaps for Lightfoot, an avid sailor before coming to this song, it means more than that. The song wants to ask, beyond the tragedy, if nature could be controlled, if this event was fated to happen.
But when all is said and done, there’s nothing the men on board could do but succumb. No trace remains.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
…And farther below, Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
(Loving description aside, I need to stop for a moment: I don’t think there’ll ever be an image more fascinating than calling the bottom of a lake an “ice-water mansion” in any song, ever).
This is the essence of the brush strokes that compose this song. It isn’t solely about the ship, or the crew; half of the song follows what happens after the boat’s demise. The lakes themselves, given life and action, take what they’re given as any person would. It’s these smaller moments too, that humanize both the forces of nature and the lives lost that build such a complete picture. Less of a ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is a painting done in language, an earnest portrait of both the surface and what lay beneath it.
iii.
How hard is it to tell a story? The answer is anywhere from “very” to “exceptionally”. What separates a good story from a mediocre one? Or a mediocre one from a bad one? For that matter, what separates a good song from a mediocre one? “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” came out the same year as some of the most explosive funk, R&B, disco and pop music of that era; “Dancing Queen” by ABBA, “The Rubberband Man” by the Spinners, “Golden Years” by David Bowie and “Love Hangover” by Donna Summer. Infectious grooves, strict and disciplined guitar work, syncopation and soulful vocals redefined dance music in the mid 70’s and yet, here we are; a six minute long song about a cargo ship sinking.
But to understand what truly makes this song, and in a grander way Lightfoot’s career so special, we come back again to that notion of the brush stroke. A small, insignificant thing when you see it on a blank canvas, something that you build upon, something that coalesces into a more complete image. At a hefty six minutes, Lightfoot succeeds because he knows how to make something uncomplicated deeply dramatic. The energy in this piece stems from the subtlety of the writing, the ease at which he crafts descriptions that sound both odd and irreplaceable at the same time.
Far beyond a radio classic, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is among the finest written songs of that decade, perhaps of all time. While today we see Lightfoot as maybe the greatest songwriter born in Canada, there’s always time to talk about why his brand of folk music is both so important and so touching.