This week we acknowledged the 49th anniversary of the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking – the doomed freighter that met the November gales early and sank in Lake Superior in 1975. Gordon Lightfoot’s hit song “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” (which many of you are mentally humming as we speak) is filled with haunting lyrics and vivid imagery, as it memorializes the tragic event and the 29 lives lost. The song made the wreck into a widely recognized symbol of maritime disaster in the Great Lakes region.
Lightfoot wasn’t the only artist to put The Great Lakes and Great Lakes states in the pop culture realm – references to Lake Superior can be found in the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald chose the shores of Little Girl Bay on Lake Superior as the location
for the transformation of James Gatz into Jay Gatsby in the iconic classic novel.
Many would confirm that Lake Michigan and the Great Lakes are an incredibly transformative place. In The Surface, which takes place entirely in the middle of Lake Michigan, for two strangers who find themselves in weathering an unexpected storm that threatens everything they love. What’s more transformative than that?
Lake Michigan and Lake Superior are the two biggest Great Lakes (by volume) and have served as the inspiration for so many good records includingThe Accidentals’ hit single, “Michigan and Again,” “Lake Michigan” by Rogue Wave, and Sufan Stevens’ album, Michigan. But neither have had a band named after them. That honor goes to the third-largest Great Lake, which inspired the band Lord Huron. Best known for the hit single, “The Night We Met,” Lord Huron founding member and Michigan native Ben Schneider spent summers on Lake Huron’s eastern shoreline.
It goes without saying that the Great Lakes have shaped pop culture and transformed the lives of everyone who touches Great Lakes water in some way.
Could Ferris Buehler have had the best day off of school if Lake Michigan didn’t serve as the backdrop on top of that ferris wheel at Navy Pier in Chicago? Doubtful.
It’s more important now than ever that we continue to protect and preserve the waters of the Great Lakes Basin for generations to come, so that they, too, can enjoy more stories around the Great Lakes.
Looking for more records about Michigan and the Great Lakes?
Save this playlist for your next gathering to share with others!
