Why Did Gordon Lightfoot Write 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald?' We've Got the Tea!

Fans of the late Gordon Lightfoot are wondering why he wrote the 1976 song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." According to USA Today, the musician called the song his finest work.

Gordon was a Canadian folk and country musician known for his hits "Early Morning Rain" and "If You Could Read My Mind." The recording artist died back in 2023, but why did he write the song? Here's what we know

According to The Detroit Free Press, Gordon's song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was an unlikely hit, so why did he write it? Gordon wrote the song as a way to honor the 29 men who died on the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.

The freight ship sank after a shipwreck in Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975, following a storm.

It was the end of 1975, and Gordon and his band were in Toronto working on their album, "Summertime Dram." Pedal steel guitarist Ed Ringwald, who is also known as Pee Wee Charles, said that Gordon meant for the song to be a filler for the album.

"It’s funny," he recalled. "It was meant to be filler. Gord said we’d use it to fill the album up. I mean, it was a really long song. What radio stations were going to play that?"

Bassist Rick Haynes added that "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was supposed to be "just this little ditty" that Gordon and the band played around with while they had extra time in the recording studio.

"The engineer said, ‘You’ve got the time booked. You’ve got the guys here. What about that song about the shipwreck?’ Gordon said, ‘Well, it’s not really finished yet. It still needs to be polished up.'"

Drummer Barry Keane also weighed in on the song's origins in an interview with The Toronto Star.

"He’d start strumming this thing in 6/8 time,” he said of Gordon, adding that lead guitarist Terry Clements and Pee Wee joined in.

"But as soon as Gord heard them play, he’d throw his hands up and say, ‘No, no, no — don’t worry about it. The song’s not finished, it won’t be on the album. We need to focus on the ones that will be on the album.'"

"Very reluctantly, Gord said, ‘All right.' Then he said, ‘Terry, Pee Wee — play those parts that you guys worked out.'"

Within six minutes, the band had the song finished. However, Gordon reportedly used information he read in Newsweek about the shipwreck which was incorrect, such as the freighter being Cleveland-bound when it was actually bound for Detroit.

The song was a major hit, and "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” went to No. 1 on the Canadian music charts and reached No. 2 in the U.S.

Barry also recalled playing the song in Kalamazoo, Mich., for thousands of people, and he noted the emotion that was felt in the stadium.

"I'll never forget a concert we did in Kalamazoo, Michigan, at Wings Stadium, at the height of the record,” he said. "If that arena held 5,000 people, then there were 6,000 people in there. There were wire fences around the stage, and I will never forget seeing faces pressed up against those wire fences, trying to get close to the stage, and people just screaming."

"This was a big hit record, but it really hit home in a place like Kalamazoo, where we’re playing the song and meeting some members of the (sailors’) families," he continued. "We weren’t just playing a hit song — there was a lot more emotionally to it, and that’s a feeling I never had before or since."