Diamond and Edmund Fitzgerald

The Bonny Ship the Diamond (Traditional)

Oh the Diamond is a ship me lads, for the Davis strait she's bound
And the keys they are all garnished wae bonnie lassies round
Captain Thompson gees the orders, to sail the ocean wide
Where the sun it never sets me lads, and darkness dims the sky

And it's cheer up me lads
May your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship the Diamond
Goes a fishing for a whale

All along the key at Peterhead, the lassies stand around
Wae their shawls aw poo'd aboot them, and their sawt tears runnin' doon
Oh don't you weep my bonnie lass though you be left behind
For the rose will grow on Greenland's ice before we change our mind

And it's cheer up me lads
May your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship the Diamond
Goes a fishing for a whale

Here's a health to the Resolution and likewise the Eliza Swan
Here's a health to the Battler o' Montrose and the Diamond ship o'fame
We wear the troosers o' the white and the jackets o' the blue
When we return tae Peterhead we'll hae sweethearts anew

And it's cheer up me lads
May your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship the Diamond
Goes a fishing for a whale

It'll be bricht both the day and nicht when the Greenland lads come hame
Wae a ship that's full of oil me lads and money tae oor name
We'll mak the cradles for tae rock and the blankets for tae tear
And every lass in Peterhead sing 'hushabye my dear'

And it's cheer up me lads
May your hearts never fail
While the bonnie ship the Diamond
Goes a fishing for a whale



The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called 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 crew were 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.
And 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
and a wave broke over the railing.
And ev'ry 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 freezin' rain
in the face of a hurricane west wind.

When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin'.
"Fellas, it's too rough t'feed ya."
At seven P.M. a main hatchway caved in; he said,
"Fellas, it's bin good t'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 'is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Does any one 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 'er.
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!"