Edmund Fitzgerald '97

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
 The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
 Waves broke over the railing
 Every man knew, as the captain did too,
 The witch of November comes slashin'
 Suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin' Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya
 At seven pm a main hatchway gave in, he said
 Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
 The captain wired in he had water comin' in
 the good ship and crew was in peril
 And later that night when his lights went outta sight
 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
 They 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
 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