FIFTY YEARS ON.

The Gales of November brought lake effect snow to the west shore of Lake Michigan, including a snow day for Kenosha students.  Sometimes, the clashing of polar and maritime tropical air masses this time of year turns catastrophic.  "Edmund Fitzgerald foundered on November 10, 1975, in an intense storm involving one large low pressure system."

Paul Michaels photograph.

In "The Gales of November Remembered," Law and Liberty contributor John Grove offers a musical and literary analysis of Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" laying out the composer's techniques in a song that he suggests  "memorialized the wreck and made it part of American cultural consciousness."  This is how scholarly analysis of ballad is done, dear reader. 

Shipwreck is, for good reason, a perennial artistic motif, and the prospect of death at sea naturally summons up the emotions appropriate to the sublime. The sea is a restless, boundless, and untamable power, and its seeming infinitude means there is likely no relief to be found should disaster strike. Lightfoot’s ballad makes use of several elements that Burke identified with the sublime: conveying a sense of vastness and infinity; describing great strength and power laid low; and utilizing a “judicious obscurity” in describing the disaster. All of these leave the listener to wonder in awe at what the 29 sailors on board experienced that evening, and to feel our own smallness in the cosmos.

By all means, read it, understand it, and grasp the composer's humility.

As John U. Bacon recounts in his new book, Lightfoot hesitated even to record it out of fear that he would be seen as an opportunist making money off of tragedy. He had direct contact with many family members, and he refused to ever perform it in a way that might appear flippant.

He knew he hadn’t written just another ditty. He had penned a chapter in the timeless story of man facing his helplessness and mortality. As a remembrance of former things, it was deeply personal to some, and as a remembrance of things to come, it is needful for all.

Indeed, the "musty old hall in Detroit" became, after pushback from congregants of the Mariner's Church, a "rustic old hall."  And yes, the congregants gather and ring the bells, now thirty times, for each man on Edmund Fitzgerald with one more in memory of all sailors lost on the Lakes.  "Many of the bell-ringers were family members of the crew members of the ship, and pastor of the Mariners’ Church Rev. Todd A. Meyer noted that many of the families are passing the practice of ringing the bell onto the next generation — families in attendance ranged from older adults to toddlers."

Wisconsin Natural Resources offer their retrospective.  Much of the article brings readers up to date on what researchers have been able to work out about the catastrophic loss of boat and life in such a hurry.  Toward the end, though, comes a reminder that every procedure in transportation likely was learned in the blood of people.

These days, freighters larger than the Edmund Fitzgerald regularly sail the Great Lakes, [shipwreck historian Corey] Adkins noted, but improved weather forecasting helps keep them safer on the seas.

“Now, ships are 1,000-feet plus. If storms come, they’ll go to anchor,” he said, hanging closer to the shoreline or taking cover near Great Lakes islands.

“With better weather predicting, they’ll hide, hug the shore when they know a storm is coming.”

Our 2015 post on the loss of Edmund Fitzgerald includes a roundup of previous posts and tributes, including Gordon Lightfoot's song.