50 years ago today, although I don't think the album came out until a few years later. But Gordon Lightfoot never saw a royalty from this song-- they all went straight to the families of the men lost on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
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The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975, during a severe storm, resulting in the loss of all 29 crew members. At 729 feet long and 13,632 gross tons, she was the largest ship on the Great Lakes at the time of her launch in 1958 and remained a record-holder for years.
