Without the song, 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' may have been largely forgotten

NASHOTAH, Wis. (AP) — Without Gordon Lightfoot's song, the Edmund Fitzgerald could have faded from memory along with the names of the roughly 6,500 other ships that went down in the Great Lakes before it.

Lightfoot was inspired to write his ode to the Fitzgerald and the 29 men who died on board after reading the first Associated Press story about the wreck and a Nov. 24, 1975, article in Newsweek magazine. The song was released in August 1976, less than a year later.