31 years ago today, the * Edmund Fitzgerald* was lost with all hands. I would have just turned 10 years old a few days before it happened. Don't remember much about it from the time, as I didn't pay much attention to the news back then. Later, when the song came out, my mother bought a copy, and I've been hooked ever since. Masterful story telling, beautiful lyrics. Talk about painting pictures with words...this is how it's done.
[ copyrighted material removed ]
Probably the best ballad ever written/performed, IMO. The story is so compelling that the lack of consistent rhyming verse nearly goes unnoticed.
Any person who can make peril/Firtgerald sound like a rhyme is a genius.
The Great Lakes are treacherous. Pops Mercotan used to Scuba dive on the wrecks, and he never lacked for dive sites.
All due respect to the crew of the Edmund Fitz. I’ve visited the ship’s bell at Whitefish Point myself.
Don’t forget this coming November 18th, the plight of the SS Carl Bradley, which went down in Lake Michigan, taking 33 souls with her, in 1958. Amazingly, two survived.
“the Iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the gales of November remembered”
What a beautiful haunting song. I need to listen to it tonight.
Did they never find the wreck? Or they did and it can’t be raised?
I thought I remembered reading long ago that the bell had been recovered.
The shipwreck was found in 1976. The ship’s bell was recovered in 1995, and a memorial bell substituted on the ship. The original bell may be seen at the Whitefish Point shipwreck museum.
Lots of info here. http://www.ssefo.com/
A nice site: Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum
BTW, I do have a large old schoolbell along Lake Michigan’s shoreline in my yard. I’ll be ringing it 29 times today.
As a sailor I cringe when I think of any ship going down.
29 bells Aye.
A lovely, lovely song. It’s one of my favourites. Spine-chilling stuff.
What’s the policy on copyrights?
Do not do this again, Kythereia. You’ve been here long enough to know better.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB
[QUOTE=Cajun
Do not do this again, Kythereia. You’ve been here long enough to know better.
Cajun Man
for the SDMB[/QUOTE]
I’m sorry–I thought it was okay to post small snippets of the poem. Sorry about that.
Am I the only one who cringes at the line “The church bell chimed 'til it rang 29 times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald”?
By my reckoning, that’s 841 chimes.
An online friend of mine from the old alt.callahans Usenet board was a novice reporter out of Sault Ste Marie the night the Fitzgerald went down. She wrote about it here. It is both fascinating and poignant.
(People are welcome to share the link to the story but copyright remains hers.)
I’ve thought of changing my location to Icewater Mansion on several occasions.
“The Mercotan steams like a young man’s dreams!”
Actually, you did. Unless your dead. Since then I mean.
Oh, never mind.