(WXYZ) — The now-famous guitar chords lead into the opening lyrics: “The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down, of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee.”
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Gordon Lightfoot tells the story of the famed ship and of the 29 men who died on it.
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The ship sank on Nov. 10, 1975, and we’re learning more about Lightfoot’s process writing the song in a new book being released on Oct. 7.
“The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by Michigan author John U. Bacon honors the 50th anniversary of the ship’s sinking, the men who were on the ship, and as Lightfoot sang about, “the wives and the sons and the daughters.”
“I got a lot of lucky breaks in this research process,” Bacon said. “The bass player and the drummer for the Gordon Lightfoot band are still alive and recalled the recording session.”
Watch our full interview with John U. Bacon in the video below
Bacon dedicates several chapters near the end of the book to the song and songwriting process, with recollections from bassist Rick Haynes and drummer Barry Keane.
Haynes said that when rehearsing the album at the end of 1975, Lightfoot would strum the new song at the end of each day after practicing.
“But before they ever got going on it, Gord would always stop and say, ‘No no. It’s not ready yet. Don’t worry about it. Look, this is a song about a shipwreck – a real one,” Haynes told Bacon in the book.
Bacon writes that a few months later in 1976, Lightfoot brought the band to Toronto for a five-day recording session, where Lightfoot began doing the same thing – playing a few notes before stopping, insisting that the song “isn’t ready” and “not going to be on the album.”
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The band had finished recording the album, and Keane told Bacon that as they were packing up, it was studio engineer Kenny Friesen who asked about what was known then as the “shipwreck song.”
“There was a long pause. Then Gord said, ‘All right.’” Keane told Bacon.
In the book, Keane describes how they played the song the first time, and he wasn’t sure when he should jump in. He told Bacon that Lightfoot would give him a nod, and that came right before the third verse.
“None of us had heard the whole song. So we all just played what we felt,” Keane told Bacon.
“Keane had provided the perfect transition to the storm itself. It’s impossible to imagine the song without it,” Bacon wrote in the book.
In the book, Bacon said they played the song around three times that night and several times the next day, but Keane told him, “we never got it as good. The first time we played it the day before, there was that creative tension. Gord was putting his heart and soul into it. You can hear it.”
In the next chapter about the song, Bacon describes how everyone who was attached to the Edmund Fitzgerald remembers the first time they heard the song.
Bacon also writes about the invitation Lightfoot received to play the song at the Mariners’ Church in Detroit, where the bell tolled 29 times in honor of the men who were lost.
“Just us, and a small amplifier playing at the front. As simple and pure as it gets,” Haynes told Bacon.
“Lightfoot, after the unexpected success of ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,’ pulled out of his tailspin, got clean and sober, and embarked on thousands of concerts over the next four decades,” Bacon wrote in the book.
Bacon said that the song is one of the reasons that the Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck still resonates with people 50 years later.
“Without the song, there is no book, and Gordon Lightfoot did such a good job in that song. It’s still on the radio. You still hear it, and it still resonates,” Bacon said.
“The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald” will be released on Tuesday, Oct. 7. Bacon is also hosting a book tour event with Schuler Books in Ann Arbor on Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. He’ll also have book tour events in Grand Rapids, Traverse City and Marquette in November.
