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 true 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 feeling?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound and a wave broke over the railing
And ev'ry man knew, as the captain did too 't was the witch of November come stealing
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait when the Gales of November came slashing
When afternoon came it was freezing rain in the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck saying: "Fellas, it's too rough to feed you."
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in, he said: "Fellas, it's been good to know you"
The captain wired in he had water coming in and the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone 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, they 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 'til 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"