Gordon Lightfoot’s Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald tune was from an Irish dirge

Yesterday, on Beltane, Gordon Lightfoot died. When I was writing an blogpost about Bobby Sand’s songs Back Home in Derry, I took a lot of flack for saying that he did not steal or copy Gordon Lightfoot’s melody, Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, because that old Irish tune already existed. Bobby Sands was in solitary confinement during the time he wrote that song, he would not have had access to Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad, but he certainly would have been familiar with the County Clare slide, most often used as a fiddle tune jig, The Road to Lisdoonvarna.

In several recent articles, I found that Lightfoot had acknowledged his use of the Irish tune. “I already had a melody in my mind and it was from an old Irish dirge that I heard when I was about three and a half years old.” Why couldn’t I find that information back in 2013 when I was writing the Bobby Sands story?

Finally, I found a quote from Gordon that supports my theory. I wish I had found this quote when I was writing my blog post, Old Tunes, New Licks. It would’ve saved me a lot of grief. I wrote:

The melody of Canadian folksinger Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, recorded in December 1975, seems to suggest a similar pattern. What came first, Lightfoot's melody of The Wreck of the Edmund FG, or the Irish melody associated with Bobby Sands' Back Home in Derry?
I think what happened is that the melody itself (not Gordon's fabulous song lyrics) was based on an older Irish dirge—after all the ship had an Irish name, Fitzgerald, so an Irish melody was fitting. Also, many Canadian folksongs are from the Irish and Scottish folksong repetoire.
During the 1960s and 70s folksingers were raiding traditional music wholesale—Irish music was the hardest hit—most North American singer-songwriters did not credit their sources. At least two of my folk heroes Judy Collins and Joan Baez noted their folksongs as "traditional," but as Behan noted, Bob Dylan was among the most arrogant of songthieves.

The Lightfoot obituary went on to say: 

“The biggest came in 1976 after he [Lightfoot] read an article in Newsweek about the the sinking of the bulk carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. He called the epic maritime disaster song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

“It was quite an undertaking to do that. I went and bought all of the old newspapers, got everything in chronological order, and went ahead and did it because I already had a melody in my mind and it was from an old Irish dirge that I heard when I was about three and a half years old….I think it was one of the first pieces of music that registered to me as being a piece of music.” From Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian Folk-Rock Troubadour, Dead at 84 , Yahoo

After I wrote this piece, I found out from Mudcat the name of the Irish fiddle jig was The Road to Lisdoonvarna. Old melody. Full circle. Someone else said that Christy Moore set the poem to music, not Bobby Sands. Now that is ann angle I have not thought of as I understood it to be Bobby Sands’ melody as well. All the Google links suggest that Christy Moore borrowed Gordon Lightfoot’s tune. Egad! Circular file. Either way, it was an Irish tune shared across the sea. RIP Gordon Lightfoot. Safe passage.

Old Tunes, New Licks

Because my partner, Neil O'Neill is a Celtic folksinger, my ad-hoc job is to sleuth out the provenance of traditional Scottish and Irish folksongs, collect variants, and to write the liner notes. What I've learned is that new song lyrics are often set to old tunes or melodies, and updated every generation, and that the song is a compilation of melody or tune, and lyrics (words). 

The ballad our family traditionally sings at every funeral, Danny Boy, is a melody from an old Irish air "discovered" by a sister-in-law in the goldmines of Colorado [what was she doing in the mines?], Londonderry Air (AKA "Air from County Derry" or "Derry Air"), with words written by a London barrister and lyricist in 1910—a prime example of melodic borrowing.

Frederic Weatherly gave the ancient Irish tune, updated with his new lyrics to Elsie Griffin, who made it one of the most popular songs in the new century (first record was made in 1915). So we tend to think of him as the author and composer of Danny Boy. But he didn't compose the melody of the song, just the lyrics. 

The story goes that the original air was collected from a blind fiddler by Jane Ross of Limavady in Northern Ireland, and published by musicologist and antiquarian, George Petrie in 1855, The Ancient Music of Ireland, by the Society for the Preservation and Publication of the Melodies of Ireland.

World famous song Danny Boy is taken from a melody composed by O’Cahan bard Rory Dall O’Cahan. The original version concerns the passing of the Chief Cooey-na-Gall whose death brought an end to a long line of O’Cahan chiefs in Northern Ireland. —Wiki

Folksingers have been swapping tunes and lyrics for eons—sometimes, in their travels, the bits get separated from each other—a muffled line becomes a mondegreen, oftentimes new songs arise from the ashes of the old.

Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl O' Moray
And Lady Mondegreen.

So much for laying the poor old dead Earl of Moray down on the green. And what about Lady Mondegreen? She had some melons. A Cuban favorite: José can you see by the dawn's early light? Imagine a rainbow Hendrix: 'S'cuse me while I kiss this guy. Who knew that Kumbaya is really Come by Here—oh Lord.

Our family simply slaughters the lyrics to Háva Nagíla at weddings. Gawd only know what we're boisterously singing while mangling the Grapevine. (Mondegreens in Hebrew are called watermelons.) Malachy McCourt thought The Hail Mary rosary phrase "amongst women" was "a monk swimming", which became the title of his book. Neil, who was an altar boy in Scotland, thought the Latin mea culpea was "Mexican cowboy." OK, so maybe he was stretching it a bit.

Many Irish songs and melodies that traveled to the New World morphed into what we think of as American songs—sometimes with watermelon mondegreens intact.