How 'Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' became an unlikely hit

On paper, it should never have been a hit record.

But despite the odds stacked against it — the 6-minute length, the somber subject matter, the last-minute recording session — “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” went on to become one of the defining singles of the 1970s.

Canadian songwriter Gordon Lightfoot was a week from his 36th birthday when the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, the biggest Great Lakes freight ship of its era, gave way to Lake Superior amid a daunting storm on Nov. 10, 1975 .