Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the Edmund Fitzgerald. This is what the song got wrong.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Gordon Lightfoot’s "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was released less than a year after the ship sank and became an instant hit. The lyrics secured the ship’s place in history despite several inaccuracies.

What we know:

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" was released in August 1976. It peaked at No. 2 on the Hot 100 Chart that November, shortly after the one-year anniversary of the ship’s sinking.

The song has endured for nearly 50 years and is credited with preserving the memory of the ship’s lost crew. 

Historians believe Lightfoot’s song has kept people interested in the Edmund Fitzgerald for half a century.

"Other wrecks don't have songs," said Wes Oleszewski, a Great Lakes author and historian.

The backstory:

The Fitzgerald sank in Canadian waters on Nov. 10, 1975. It disappeared during a storm and went down without issuing a call for help.

Ric Mixter, a shipwreck historian, said the enduring mystery of how and why the ship helped make the song a hit.

"That was the big impetus…for Gordon Lightfoot to write a song about it and that's why it's become just so famous," Mixter said.

The song helped generate interest in the wreck decades later when film crews dove to the bottom of Lake Superior.

"(The song) made the Fitzgerald and the wreck of the Fitzgerald such a worldwide fascination," said Larry Elliott, who dove to the wreck in 1994 and 1995. 

Elliott spoke to FOX 9 as part of a documentary called "Gales of November: Diving the Edmund Fitzgerald." It premieres Nov. 5 on FOX 9 and FOX LOCAL.

Elliott said he received interview requests from as far away as Australia after the expedition.

"And that just blows your mind when you think of literally worldwide interest in the shipwreck," Elliott said.

Dig deeper:

But historians wouldn't recommend using the song as reference material. The lyrics contain several historical inaccuracies.

"Gordon Lightfoot had the song wrong," Mixter said.

One lyric said the ship was coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.

While the ship was loaded in Superior, the cargo of taconite was from a mill in Minnesota.

Mixter also said the ship was not technically fully loaded, as the song says.

"They weren't fully loaded because it was fall, they had to carry less cargo," Mixter said. "And even less cargo because they were going into the Detroit River where they would run aground, unfortunately, if they had a belly full of iron ore."

Finally, the ship was not heading to Cleveland.

The ship was known as the "Toledo Express" for making regular runs to Ohio.

But in November 1975, Fitzgerald was headed for Michigan.

"They were carrying 26,000 tons heading for Detroit," Mixter said. "Not Cleveland. Another mistake."

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