Songs about ships wrecks in the Great Lakes in the 1970s

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by bvb1123, Mar 23, 2018.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    ...which would be hiLARious...if you hadn't telegraphed the gag.
     
    bvb1123, Davmoco and fluffskul like this.
  2. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    The one about the carefree highlway, right...?
     
    bvb1123 likes this.
  3. Thievius

    Thievius Blue Oyster Cult-ist

    Location:
    Syracuse, NY
    Man, I can't think of any!




    [​IMG]
     
    wrappedinsky and bvb1123 like this.
  4. DmitriKaramazov

    DmitriKaramazov Senior Member

    Anybody else ever heard “The Wreck Of The Boaty McBoatface”?
     
  5. Farmer Mike

    Farmer Mike Forum Resident

    I've got another,
    Wreck of the Ann Maria was 111 yrs ago



    I've been to Kincardine a couple of times and one foggy-as-all-get-out summer night there was a gathering on the beach near the wreck and all of a sudden,a bag piper started to play. It might've been on a anniversary of the wreck as it was summer.There was a fair amount of weeping on the beach, though that could've been about the piper. He was a little pitchy.
     
    bvb1123 likes this.
  6. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    None but Edmond Fitzgerald listed on Wiki for wrecks in the 1970s.

    A more detailed list is archived alphabetically below. Perhaps the OP can cross-reference dates and ship names with a song database. I sure it won't take long.... :)

    temp
     
  7. telepicker97

    telepicker97 Got Any Gum?

    Location:
    Midwest
    'All Ships Must Pass'?
     
  8. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    As for a good comp on the Great Lakes, see Songs of the Great Lakes by various artist available on Tidal and at Amazon (ASIN: B00242VR0Y)
     
    Benno123 likes this.
  9. telepicker97

    telepicker97 Got Any Gum?

    Location:
    Midwest
    "She's holding her own..."
     
  10. detroit muscle

    detroit muscle MIA

    Location:
    UK
    I fell off a boat into Lake St Claire once. Didn't write a song about it though.
     
    wrappedinsky, TonyR and telepicker97 like this.
  11. Benno123

    Benno123 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio
    Besides Pat Dailey, the regional artists like Alex Bevan, Mike “Mad Dog” Adams, Westside Steve Simmons, Bob Gatewood, Ray Fogg, etc. here in the western basin of Lake Erie (and Cleveland area) have a lot of songs not just about shipwrecks but life on the Lake and the partying and fun (and the island history) at South Bass Island/Put-in-Bay, Ohio. I believe there is a guy named Lee Murdoch from around Chicago who would also fit within that group, though I believe he may be more traditional folk whereas the ones above are combo traditional and barroom singers. It’s an interesting niche carved out by Pat starting in the late ‘70s.
     
  12. 500Homeruns

    500Homeruns Peaceful Punk

    Location:
    Lehigh Valley, PA
    Well, John Prine wrote a song called "The Bottomless Lake". It wasn't about a ship. It was about a family who "rented a car at the Erie Canal" for a vacation. With the name of the song, you can guess where they ended up. My guess is it was one of the Great Lakes.
     
  13. blehman

    blehman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI. USA
    Just as a correction point, the Lake Monona you indicate is actually in Madison, WI. The attached picture you can see the Wisconsin State Capitol dome. There is also a well circulated picture of Mr. Redding's lifeless body being brought out of said lake, but I figured that to be to macabre for this forum. Unfortunately my blessed state of Wisconsin can claim two of the greats; Otis and Stevie Ray Vaughan who died in East Troy, WI. in 1990

    [​IMG]
     
    Bruno Primas likes this.
  14. I believe its sister ship the Gerald Fitzedmund also went down.
     
    wrappedinsky and Rose River Bear like this.
  15. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    Beatles...
     
    carlwm and Aftermath like this.
  16. Blue Gecko

    Blue Gecko Peace

    Location:
    Wisconsin
    Fire on the Water by Charlie Maguire, also covered by Lee Murdock.

    See:
    CARTIERCLIFFE HALL

    Other names : built as RUHR ORE this name in 1976. Renamed WINNIPEG in 1988, currently sailing as ALGONTARIO

    Official no. : C 372490

    Type at loss : propeller, steel, bulk freight

    Build info : 1960, Germany rebuilt & lengthened in 1976

    Specs : 716x76x36, 18531gc 12617nc

    Date of loss : 1979, Jun 5

    Place of loss : off Copper Harbor, MI

    Lake : Superior

    Type of loss : fire

    Loss of life : 6 or 7

    Carrying : corn

    Detail : a blaze in her superstructure caused $4.5 million damages to the vessel and her cargo as well as the loss of several of the crew, who were unble to abandon ship with the rest.. Her survivors were picked up by the freighters LOUIS R. DESMARAIS and THOMAS W. LAMONT. She was later rebuilt at Collingwood.
     
  17. 131east23

    131east23 Person of Interest

    Location:
    gone
    DJ's were creative back then... maybe somebody was mixing them together. I heard this DJ one afternoon take The Beatles "A Day In The Life" and just as it is rising towards that last final note, somewhere in there, he mixed in the instrumental part of "Whole Lotta Love", let it play then perfectly returned us ADITL so we could here that final note.
     
  18. Ted Dinard

    Ted Dinard Forum Resident

    Location:
    Boston suburb
    Dunno but my Duluth MN grandma used to say "I feel like the wreck of the Hesperus" when she was hung over. Longfellow reference.

    So instead of a 1970s song about a wrecked ship on the Great Lakes, it's a poem referred to by a wrecked 1970s grandma at the edge of the Great Lakes. I think it should count.
     
    wrappedinsky and 500Homeruns like this.
  19. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Yeah, I thought there was a "glitch" there...because I've been there to see the plaque. It was me, a program director and his morning guy from Florida, a consultant, and my software tychoon who came up through radio engineering. We traveled a lot in those days, looking for rock & roll landmarks, and exploring the stories behind the crashes. All those years in Oldies radio, and never knew about half the Bar-Kay's going down with Otis. Never mentioned to listeners how ironic it was that Otis's only hit song was about sitting next to a body of water...and it only became a hit after he went into one. Or shared whatever happened to the Bar-Kays. It makes me so sad to realize I'd been complicit in telling audiences only half the story, and failing to give youger listeners some background on how some of the bigger stars got into their face onto a playlist 50 years later.

    And it's not just stoking the coals on old tragendies; the people in these small towns and unsung areas have stories to tell, too; some maybe hadn't had their chance to share since the headlines. Their memories are the real reasons we've done these trips for all those summers. The officer who let us see the files on Jim Croce; the guy who was jogging one day, and came accross a burst of flame through Rick Nelson's plane; the feild in Minnesota (right next to "800th St" - in the middle of farmland! :wtf: ), where there used to be an airport the day Bill Chase and half his band took off. The eerie feeling you get, stepping into the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa.

    And yes, blehman, we met the boss of Alpine Valley, who showed us around the slopes - including the one Stevie Ray's helicopter crashed into...which should have been known best for inventing those snow-making machines for skiiers...but instead, for a foggy night so thick a pilot couldn't tell whether he was going up...or sideways.
     
  20. Farmer Mike

    Farmer Mike Forum Resident

    This one is on Vimeo


    ...it does sound a little sped up or bright.

    I want to say I heard something like this around the time of the first anniversary of the wreck, after the song was released, on WJR here in Detroit, but it could be that my memory likes the idea of that version.
     
    Morton LaBongo and Dudley Morris like this.
  21. Beattles

    Beattles Senior Member

    Location:
    Florence, SC
    Odessa
    Bee Gees
    Fourteenth of February, eighteen ninety-nine,
    The British ship Veronica was lost without a sign.
     
  22. Ditto. I'd assumed it was a song about an old-timey disaster when I first heard it - in the standard folk song sort of tradition - and was a bit surprised to find out a few years later that it was about a contemporary event.
     
  23. Morton LaBongo

    Morton LaBongo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manchester NH
    Wow, that could be it! Closest I have ever heard to it anyways. Haven't heard this in decades, thanks!
     
  24. carlwm

    carlwm Forum Resident

    Location:
    wales
    Bobby Sands was an Irish republican who died in prison after being on hunger strike for more than two months, He'd been convicted for firearms possession.

    Not sure how accurate this is but I've been told that he wrote the words as a poem while in prison and used Gord's tune because he wa a big Gord fan.

    On the 1983 album The Spirit Of Irish Freedom, the song is credited to Lightfoot/Sands but this is the only time I've seen Gord get a credit.
     
    Veni Vidi Vici likes this.
  25. And Lightfoot was OK with this? He strikes me as the sort of guy who'd sue anyone who messed with his material.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.

Share This Page

molar-endocrine