It's amazing how one song can transcend time & space.
As I'm sure you've heard, Gordon Lightfoot died Monday night. While he was known for many songs (including my personal favorite, the number one “Sundown”), the song with which I'm sure he's most associated is “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”. While I'm not surprised it's insanely popular around these parts (named, among other things, as “Upper Michigan's Favorite Song of the Past 50 Years” by our astute listeners), in many of the articles I read on his passing “Fitzgerald” is the tune that's mentioned the most.
Go figure. A folk song about a ship sinking on Lake Superior transcends all else. But, I guess, that's the power of that one tune.
The New York Times actually had a great article about the song and how it shouldn't have been a hit. And they were absolutely right—in the middle of the seventies, when both rock and disco reigned supreme—a six minute folk song—a six minute historically accurate folk song, no less—hit number 2 on Billboard's Hot 100
Who knew?
I have to wonder about something else, too. Had the Fitz went down in 1975, and had not Lightfoot sung about it, would anyone outside of the Great Lakes even remember the sinking these days? But he did sing about it, making it perhaps the most famous shipwreck since that other big boat hit an iceberg and sunk in the north Atlantic back in 1912. In those six minutes, he immortalized not only the accident itself, but also thrust the memories of the 29 people who died into our pop culture consciousness forever.
Not many songs do that. But this one did.
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