{title: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald}
{artist: Gordon Lightfoot}
{album: Summertime Dream (1976)}
{key: Am}
{tempo: 95}
{difficulty: advanced}
{phase: 4}
{strand: CR}
{feel: ballad}
{lead_voice: mid}
{lead_mode: solo}
{lead_demand: showpiece}
{harmony: M}
{a_cappella: no}
{kit: gtr,conc,fdl}
{set_role: showcase}
{lang: en}
{country_tags: CA}
{copyright: copyrighted}
{tags: 70s,a-cappella-friendly,ballad,canadiana,chorus,copyrighted,disaster-ballad,gordon-lightfoot,great-lakes,hush,maritime,shanty,story-song}
{credit: Gordon Lightfoot — 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' from 'Summertime Dream' (1976, Reprise). Words and music by Gordon Lightfoot. (c) Moose Music 1976. Written about the actual sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior on 10 November 1975 — all 29 hands lost. Lightfoot (1938-2023) died in May 2023; the song now also reads as part of his legacy and is sung in his memory across the Great Lakes ports.}

{c: TODO: verify and add {video: youtube:<id>} — recommended: Gordon Lightfoot's official channel, the studio version. Live versions vary widely in tempo and verse selection.}

{c: Lightfoot's most-covered song. About a real shipwreck on Lake Superior — the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore freighter, sank in a November gale on 10 November 1975 killing all 29 crew. The song was on radio by August 1976. It's the most-played folk-disaster-ballad of the post-war North American canon.}
{c: Lyrics copyright Moose Music / Gordon Lightfoot. Chord skeleton below; learn the words from the 1976 recording — Lightfoot's revised some verses over the decades (notably after the National Transportation Safety Board ruled out crew error in 2010).}

{c: ===== STRUCTURE =====}
{c: Six verses in the studio version, no chorus. Each verse builds the narrative — the launch, the journey, the storm, the loss, the aftermath, the memorial.}
{c: Total ~6:30. Don't shorten it; the length is the point. The song is a watch over the dead.}

{c: ===== VERSE PROGRESSION (in Am) =====}
{c: The signature progression. Each verse uses the same eight-bar pattern, sung twice through.}
[Am]________ [C]________ [G]________ [Am]________
[Am]________ [F]________ [C]________ [Em]________
[Am]________ [C]________ [G]________ [Am]________
[F]________ [C]________ [G]________ [Am]________

{c: ===== FIDDLE / MANDOLIN PART =====}
{c: The original uses a 12-string acoustic, electric guitar lead, and an organ pad. NOT a fiddle song in the original arrangement.}
{c: For a roots-folk arrangement: fiddle plays the lead line through verse 3 and 4 (the storm verses) — long bowed minor-key wails, no double-stops, just held notes.}
{c: Key Am for fiddle: open A and E strings ring through naturally; the melody sits in the first position.}
{c: Mandolin: tremolo on the held chords through the storm verses only. Otherwise rest — this is a solo-voice song with sparse accompaniment.}

{c: ===== STRUM / FEEL =====}
{c: Slow march, ~95 bpm. 4/4, but feels like 2/4 because of the strong beats on 1 and 3.}
{c: Strum: down-down on 1 and 3, ghost-strums on 2 and 4. Picture footsteps on a steel deck.}
{c: Capo 0 in Am. Lower voices: capo 0 in G (drop everything down a step). Higher voices: capo 2 puts it in Bm — but most people don't push this song up; it lives in Am for a reason.}

{c: ===== HOW IT'S DONE AT A SESSION =====}
{c: 1. One voice carries the whole song. The room does NOT sing along — this is a recitation, a watch, not a chorus-folk piece.}
{c: 2. Between verses 3 and 4 (the moment the ship goes down): an instrumental break. Fiddle takes the verse melody. Eight bars. Then back to the voice.}
{c: 3. Final verse: drop everything except the voice. The line about "the cathedral" lands in silence. Hold the last Am for a full beat after the vocal stops.}

{c: ===== PERFORMANCE NOTES =====}
{c: This is the "hush" song in any maritime-roots set. Programs after the loud Stan Rogers material — Barrett's, Mary Ellen Carter — to drop the room's volume before a closer.}
{c: If you have anyone in the room with Great Lakes ties (Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Duluth-Superior, the Lakehead), they'll know this song before you start it. November 10 services in those ports still play it.}
{c: A few covers worth knowing: The Dandy Warhols' very different take; Sara K's quiet acoustic; the Canadian Brass instrumental. Lightfoot's own 2010 re-recording with revised lyrics is the latest authoritative version.}

{c: ===== WHY IT'S IN THE BOOK =====}
{c: Canon. There's no Canadian maritime-roots set that doesn't reckon with this song. If your audience is over 40 and Canadian, they expect it. If your audience is under 40, this is how you teach them what Canadian story-songs sound like.}
{c: Sits in the CR strand (Canadian roots & folk), Phase 4 — the showpiece tier. Pairs in a set with 'Make and Break Harbour' and 'White Squall' — three CR ballads about loss, demanding narrative discipline and earned slowness. Don't program more than one of these per set.}

{c: ===== COPYRIGHT NOTE =====}
{c: Composition under copyright; lyrics belong to the Lightfoot estate and Moose Music. Don't reprint full lyrics in public-facing materials without rights clearance. The Am–C–G–F progression is unprotected; Lightfoot's specific lyric and the melodic phrasing of each verse are protected.}
{c: For the 2010 revision: Lightfoot rewrote the line implying crew error after the National Transportation Safety Board reversed the original 1977 finding. He used the revised lyric in every performance after 2010. If you're going to sing this song, sing the post-2010 version — it's the version Lightfoot himself stood behind.}