The islands and bays are for sportsmen
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
When the skies of November turn gloomy
Lake Huron rolls, superior sings
Takes in what lake Erie can send her
Does any one know where the love of God goes
They may have broke deep and took water
When a wave broke over the railing
And farther below lake Ontario
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
And later that night when the ship's bell rang
When supper time came, the old cook came on deck sayin'
In the face of a hurricane west wind
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
The ship was the pride of the American side
In the maritime sailors' cathedral
With the gales of November remembered
Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya
Of the big lake they call 'Gitche Gumee'
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
The searches all say they'd have made whitefish bay
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
At seven pm a main hatchway caved in, he said
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
When the gales of November came slashin'
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
Concluding some terms with a couple steel firms
And every man knew, as the captain did too
T'was the witch of November come stealin'
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
They might have split up or they might have capsized
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
And all that remains is the faces and the names
The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
When the gales of November came early
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
The iron boats go as the mariners all know
