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  1. #1
    Excitable Boy
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    The Legend Lives On From the Chippewa On Down...

    ...Of the big lake they call 'Gitchee Gumee'

    November 10th was the 38th anniversary of 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald', which spawned a song that is both emotionally moving and an annoying dirge- don't play it unless you want it to get stuck in your head:

    There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
    HST

  2. #2
    Thailand Expat

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    Brilliant emotional song, soon as i saw the thread head i thought Gordon Lightfoot.

  3. #3
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    25 ft. waves sounds small in your living room, get out amongst it and it is scary.
    You're right mate this song gets in your head and rightly so, it is class..

  4. #4
    Excitable Boy
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    I like how he fit in some very awkward lyrics:

    The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
    Of the big lake they called 'Gitche Gumee'
    The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
    When the skies of November turn gloomy
    With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
    Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty.
    That good ship and crew was a bone to be chewed
    When the gales of November came early.

    The ship was the pride of the American side
    Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
    As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
    With a crew and good captain well seasoned
    Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
    When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
    And later that night when the ship's bell rang
    Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

    The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
    And a wave broke over the railing
    And every man knew, as the captain did too,
    T'was the witch of November come stealin'.
    The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
    When the Gales of November came slashin'.
    When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
    In the face of a hurricane west wind.

    When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'.
    Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya.
    At Seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said
    Fellas, it's been good t'know ya
    The captain wired in he had water comin' in
    And the good ship and crew was in peril.
    And later that night when his lights went outta sight
    Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

    Does any one know where the love of God goes
    When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
    The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
    If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her.
    They might have split up or they might have capsized;
    May have broke deep and took water.
    And all that remains is the faces and the names
    Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.

    Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
    In the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
    Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
    The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
    And farther below Lake Ontario
    Takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
    And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
    With the Gales of November remembered.

    In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
    In the Maritime Sailors' Cathedral.
    The church bell chimed till it rang twenty-nine times
    For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
    The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
    Of the big lake they call 'Gitche Gumee'.
    Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
    When the gales of November come early!

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