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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsGordon Lightfoot - The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
I have loved this song since I first heard it few months ago....
Skittles
(153,150 posts)it was very sad indeed
countryjake
(8,554 posts)Bells were tolling everywhere after they finally gave up the search, losing those men took Ohio down hard; most all the Lake states suffered that tragedy right along with the families.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)he was a meteorologist in northern Illinois at the time
weather-releated deaths greatly saddened him - Xenia was the worst
AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)I was an eighth-grader in Dayton, and I remember EVERYTHING about that day as if it happened yesterday. But, given the era and the technology meteorlogists had at the time, they really did the best they could.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)countryjake
(8,554 posts)Some had grief written right on their faces, even if they were reporting calmly. So many people died in so many states, but especially in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio.
I was working down in Cincy that day. One of the tv stations there pointed their camera straight out the window to show the tornadoes skipping across the hills of the city, live.
It was truly a horrific day.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)I remember when people complained about weather forecasts in general dad would say, "YOU go up against Mother Nature - see how YOU do" - indeed
AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)That station was the only one that had radar at the time (very primitive by today's standards but cutting edge back then), and he was calm, but scared to death. The hook echo was absolutely huge. He kept saying, "Take cover now." People had about 10 minutes' warning.
That whole day had a weird, bad feel to it. The sky was greenish all day, really too warm for early April, and the air was absolutely still. I remember looking out the window at school around noon and thinking to myself something bad was going to happen. Never had such a premonition before or since. Later that night some really powerful storms came through. Then, it turned cold and snowed that following weekend. But what still chills me is remembering hearing the sirens coming and going all night on a highway near my house.
One of the worst days ever.
countryjake
(8,554 posts)My cousin in Xenia can sit for hours and talk about that day in April...he only had time to pull a bed over himself and his little son. His family lost everything, but at least they are alive to tell the story. He remembers the constant wail of the emergency vehicles all night, too.
But the study of that outbreak led to quite a few scientific advances as far as warning systems, forecasting, and radar go. Little towns in the devastated areas were later equipped with tornado sirens, which could have saved quite a few lives that day.
I know it got hot where I was further south, and nice. Then the sky just turned ominous. My plant had to let us out early (which they normally never ever did, come hell or high water), and I got home around four and the weather was already on the TV. We lived up on Mt. Airy and one of the tornadoes went right over us without touching down; every one of my neighbors stood out watching the sky, that snake directly above us, and we all could have become a statistic in a second.
I was born and raised in the flat farmland north of Dayton, so not being able to see for miles on the horizon down there in Cincy disturbed me the most that day. Nobody could tell what was coming in those hills, at all.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)So descriptive & touching.
CarrieLynne
(497 posts)I grew up to him....my dad took me to see him when I was 7, and I just sent him to see him in Sept nearly 40 years inbetween
AngryOldDem
(14,061 posts)CrawlingChaos
(1,893 posts)A long time ago I remember hearing Gordon Lightfoot talking about the song - the way the crew had died and how afterwards the newspapers couldn't even be bothered to get their names right. I gathered that was what inspired him to write the song, to find a way to remember them. It really conveys a sense of the mercilessness of nature and the feeling of a lonely, cold, watery death. And yet, it's not at all maudlin. I think it's a great song.
Ron Obvious
(6,261 posts)Great song.
Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)The whole classroom was in rapt attention as I went through the song line by line and compared it with the real, tragic story.
Girls were fighting back tears. Even guys in the class were choking up a little.
I got an A on that speech.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)I think the reason this story resonates with so many people is that right around then, the steel industry collapsed.
I think this video captures the work ethos of the Great Lakes and the how the loss of heavy industry really tore out our hearts.
On edit - my Dad designed a lot of the conveyors used to empty ore carriers and coal carriers. He has a great story about the time some suits showed up to watch the first trial emptying a coal carrier - not realizing the coal is really, really dusty. The suits' suits were a total loss.
Skittles
(153,150 posts)it did indeed feel like the end of an era
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)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.
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 feelin'?
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,
T'was the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind.
When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'.
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.
At seven p.m. a main hatchway caved in, he said
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when his lights went outta 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 searches 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;
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 'Gitche Gumee'.
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early!
Joe Shlabotnik
(5,604 posts)But nobody minded. Its raw and hits a nerve for those who live around the lakes, and have friends and family working on the boats. It was a part of my childhood.
The Gordon Lightfoot song that really gets me though is Sundown; a bitter-sweet reminder of some of the associations that I've had in the past. The kind, that I guess, build character.
Agschmid
(28,749 posts)Paladin
(28,252 posts)Then I heard the late Stan Rogers' "The Mary Ellen Carter." His rendition of it is available online. Goosebump material......
I have always liked Lightfoot. His "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" is probably my favorite of his works.