The old ship, tried and true, set sail on a routine voyage. Nothing seemed amiss that November day. But no one could have imagined the horror that was to come. The ship went down, and the events leading up to its demise still remain a mystery. The press covered the sinking with its usual zeal.
Canadian folk singer Gordon Lightfoot read about the sinking. Inspired by the tragedy, he picked up his guitar and wrote a haunting song about the old ship’s final voyage. It remains a testament to the disaster.
Lightfoot’s song was, of course, “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle.”
The Yarmouth Castle caught fire and sank on November 13, 1965 while sailing to Nassau, the Bahamas. A total of 90 people perished. Almost exactly a decade later, however, the Great Lakes freighter Edmund Fitzgerald was lost with all 29 crewmembers in a storm on Lake Superior. It was November 10, 1975.
Gordon Lightfoot read about the Fitzgerald sinking and wrote “The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald” as a result. It remains one of his most popular songs of all time.
“Ballad of Yarmouth Castle”
The first song, “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle,” is a bit of a deep cut. It was only recorded once and appears on Lightfoot’s 1969 Sunday Concert (Live) album. It’s an acoustic song that, while it lacks the intensely mournful melody of “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” is still melancholy and haunting in its own right.
The lyrics accurately tell the story of what happened to the Yarmouth Castle on its last voyage. The disaster unfolds with each new verse that Lightfoot sings.
Well, it’s four o’clock in the afternoon
And the anchors have been weighed
From Miami to Nassau
She’s bound across the waves
She’ll be headin’ south through Biscayne Bay
Into the open sea
Yarmouth Castle, she’s a-dyin’ and don’t know it
Now the many years she’s been to sea
She’s seen the better times
She gives a groan of protest
As they cast away her lines
And the grumble of her engines
And the rust along her spine
Tells the Castle she’s too old to be sailin’
But the sands run out within her heart
A tiny spark glows red
It smoulders through the evening
There’s laughter overhead
Now the men are served, and the cards are dealt
And the drinks are passed around
Deep within the fire starts a-burnin’
Now it’s midnight on the open sea
And the moon is shinin’ bright
Some people join the party
And others say goodnight
There’s many who are sleepin’ now
It’s been a busy day
And a tiny wisp of smoke is a-risin’
“Oh Lord,” she groans, “I’m burning”
“Let someone understand”
But her silent plea is wasted
In the playin’ of the band
Everybody’s dancin’ on her deck
And they’re havin’ such a time
Then a voice says, “Shut up and deal, I’m losin’”
Deep within the Yarmouth Castle
The fire begins to glow
It leaps into the hallways
And climbs and twists and grows
And the paint she wore to keep her young
Oh Lord, how well it burns
And soon that old fire is a-ragin’
Up beneath the bridge it’s climbin’ fast
The captain stands aloft
He calls up to the boatswain, ‘n’ says
“Boatswain, we are lost”
For the ragged hoses in the racks
No pressure do they hold
And the people down below will soon be dyin’
All amidships, oh she’s blazin’ now
It’s spreadin’ fore and aft
The people are a-scramblin’
As the fire blocks their path
The evil smoke surrounds them
And they’re fallin’ in their tracks
And the captain in his lifeboat is a-leavin’
Oh then the ship, Bahama Star
Comes steamin’ through the night
She sees the Castle blazin’
And ’tis a terrible sight
“Jump down, jump down!” the captain cries
“We’ll save you if we can”
Then the paint on his funnels is a-fryin’
“God help the ones who sleep below
And cannot find the way
Thank God for those we rescued
Upon this awful day”
Now the heroes, they are many
But the times are growin’ slim
For now from stern to bow she’s a-blazin’
Oh the Yarmouth Castle’s moanin’
She’s cryin’ like a child
You can hear her if you listen
Above the roar so wild
Is she cryin’ for the ones who lie
Within her molten sides?
Or cryin’ for herself, I’m a-wonderin’
But the livin’ soon were rescued
The ones who lived to tell
And from the Star they watched her
As she died there in the swells
Like a toy ship on a mill pond
She burned all through the night
Then slipped ‘neath the waves in the mornin’
That this song is so unknown within the context of Lightfoot’s larger catalog is beyond me. But then, there are songs like that in any artist’s body of work. It can’t be denied that with his next shipwreck song, the Canadian singer would take the “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle” concept and take it to a whole new level a few years later.
“The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
In 1976, Gordon Lightfoot released his Summertime Dream album. While there isn’t a bad song on the album (is there really anything such as a bad Lightfoot song, though?) the standout is definitely “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” With its haunting melody and tragic lyrics, it remains incredibly popular to this day. When you hear this song for the first time, most people remember where they were when they heard it (I was eight and in a McDonald’s in Whittier, California with my mom).
As with “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle,” the lyrics tell the compelling story of an unfolding disaster. It was written using the information available at the time. As more facts about the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking became known, however, Lightfoot famously changed a few of the lyrics in live performances to reflect this new information (for example, “At 7 p.m. it grew dark and then he said ‘Fellas, it’s been good to know ya’”).
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they call ‘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
Then 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
When the wave broke over the railin’
And every man knew, as the captain did too
‘Twas 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 freezing 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 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in
He said, “Fellas, it’s been good to 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 out of 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
Through this song, Gordon Lightfoot became close with the families of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s lost crew over the years and kept in touch. When he died on May 1, 2023, the bell at the Mariner’s Church of Detroit rang out 30 times — honoring Lightfoot along with the 29 men on the Fitzgerald.
Final Thoughts
Here we have two songs about two different shipwrecks by one astonishing artist. Yet one of the ships is far better remembered than the other. “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” is probably more popular today than it was in 1976 (if the internet is anything to judge by). “Ballad of Yarmouth Castle” remains about as obscure as the Yarmouth Castle herself.
I couldn’t tell you why one song is more popular than the other. But I maintain that both are among Gordon Lightfoot’s finest work and pay tribute to these two ships that went down — under very different conditions — on one day in mid-November.
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