Gordon Lightfoot changed one lyric in “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” in live performances in 2010, after learning the line distressed the families of two deckhands who died when the ship went down.
His 1976 ballad described the ship’s main hatchway caving in at 7 p.m. That lyric suggested the two deckhands responsible for its hatch covers might have failed to secure them, though Lightfoot later acknowledged the verse was conjecture.
The freighter left Superior, Wisconsin, on November 9, 1975, carrying taconite pellets to Zug Island near Detroit. It sank in a severe Lake Superior storm on November 10, killing all 29 officers and crew.
Lightfoot had stayed in contact with the deckhands’ families for years, and relatives told him they cringed at the line.
The song kept the crew’s story in public memory. In a 2002 interview, Lightfoot called it his greatest achievement and said, “You can’t walk away from the people either.”
A 2010 documentary suggested the ship was more likely broken apart in the storm than sunk mainly by water entering through unsecured hatches. That year, Lightfoot changed the 7 p.m. lyric in live performances to describe darkness falling instead; the studio recording remained unchanged. He said the families would be pleased.
Today, November 10, 2026, marks 51 years since the sinking. The Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society has scheduled a private family memorial for 7 p.m., with a public livestream.
At its museum, the crew is memorialized by the ship’s recovered bell, which is preserved there.