According to Billboard, the song topped the Rock Digital Song Sales chart for the week ending Nov. 13, 2025 — a first for the classic. It drew 3.7 million U.S. streams and sold 5,000 downloads, up 140 percent and 328 percent week over week, as the 50th anniversary of the ship’s sinking renewed global interest.
RELATED: Gordon Lightfoot’s Poignant Tribute: How ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’ Became His Finest Work
In the song, he recounts the loss of the 730-foot freighter that vanished in a storm on Lake Superior, taking all 29 crewmen. Lines such as “The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead” and “Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?” turned tragedy into poetry — and cemented the story in popular memory.
Streaming Surge Across Generations
Billboard reports that Lightfoot’s entire catalog saw 9.1 million on-demand streams during the week of Nov. 7–13, a 67 percent gain. Both “If You Could Read My Mind” and “Sundown” returned to the Rock Digital Song Sales chart at Nos. 10 and 6, showing renewed interest from listeners born decades after the wreck.
RELATED: 'The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald' — What a New Book Adds 50 Years On
The Legacy Lives On
When Lightfoot died in 2023, the Mariners’ Church of Detroit tolled its bell 30 times — once for each of the 29 crewmen and a final time for Lightfoot himself. The church had already been immortalized in his lyric as “the Maritime Sailor’s Cathedral.”
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