Cold water

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald; Gordon Lightfoot, guitar and vocals

On a warm sunny day last week, I took off my shoes and waded into the clear blue waters of Lake Superior on the north shore. I could only stand it for about three minutes. My feet had never been so cold in my entire life. I cannot fathom the trip to the watery grave encountered by the valiant crew of the famous SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

Any personal story I have to tell about this song pales in comparison to the story behind the song itself.

Records kept of Great Lakes nautical history claim that at least two-hundred-forty ships, between 1816 and 1975, have been lost in the Whitefish Point area, the place where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down. It also tells of nearly six thousand shipwrecks on all of the Great Lakes between 1878 and 1897 with a loss of one thousand, one-hundred sixty-six lives. The gravest number of all represents the estimated loss of life over the course of three hundred years of navigation on the Great Lakes: Twenty-five thousand. Woof.

The Edmund Fitzgerald is the most famous of them all, more than likely by virtue of this amazing song. Composed in B Major, with a melody roughly twenty-one notes long and repeated twenty-eight times. Without even knowing what this song was about when it came out thirty-four years ago this month, the music, itself, has haunted me over the years.

My friend Eric S. corrects people who use the term “very unique”, claiming, rightly so, that, by definition, something or someone can only be unique; there are no varying levels of uniqueness. If, however, I were given license, I would apply the term “very unique” to this song. I have heard none other like it.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes

When the waves turn the minutes to hours?

Wow.

Credits: To Gordon Lightfoot, for an epic song.