2910: The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

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The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald
You know that asteroid that almost destroyed Earth in the 90s? Turns out the whole thing was secretly created by Michael Bay, who then PAID Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to look heroic while blowing it up!
Title text: You know that asteroid that almost destroyed Earth in the 90s? Turns out the whole thing was secretly created by Michael Bay, who then PAID Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck to look heroic while blowing it up!

Explanation

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If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

The comic features a character identifiable as a minstrel, bard or folk singer, performing a narrative song on a jetty. It parodies Gordon Lightfoot's song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, recounting the fate of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, a famously wrecked vessel and thus an ideal subject for a musical retelling.

The words begin with some of the original lyrics of Gordon Lightfoot's song, but soon become a direct reference to the art of songwriting itself. Rather than describing in song how a disaster occured, it turns out to be a description of how a disaster occured for the sake of the song.

In real life, the reason for sinking is still unknown, but it's speculated that her hull broke up in the rough waters of the Great Lakes. This xkcd is implying that the real reason for her sinking is that the songwriter bribed a mechanic to intentionally engineer her sinking and give him sufficient material for a new song.

As a punchline, the verse goes on to reveal that another even greater maritime disaster had already occured for the sake of a film. The title text continues this particular cycle by suggesting that an even bigger potential disaster was orchestrated in space, as the 'real life' basis for yet another film.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.
[Cueball is holding a guitar and singing on a pier.]
The ship was the pride
of the American side
It was due to set
sail for Cleveland
As the big freighters go,
it was bigger than most
With a crew and good
captain well seasoned
But taking a walk on
the shore by the dock
Was a songwriter named
Gordon Lightfoot
He was humming a tune
but it didn't have words
For it's challenging
trying to write good
Poor Gordon sought glory
but needed a story
His career in folk
music imperiled
He mulled over this as
he watched them do work
On the hull of the
Edmund Fitzgerald
Perhaps it was wrong,
what he did for a song
He should never have
bribed that mechanic
But his maritime crimes
are no worse than the time
Young James Cameron
sank the Titanic


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Discussion

well that was early. youtu.be/miLcaqq2Zpk 11:47, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

This singer is a bit fast and loose with the rhyme-scheme; aAbCd(?D)eC with the "dD", especially, being Go+Most, Tune+Words(!), ¿This/As?+Words and Crimes+Time. And scansion is potentially off (mid-line endings definitely are). I would hope that another shipwreck wouldn't happen until this new guy has tightened up his own art a little. (But once he gets good enough, fair enough!) 172.71.242.161 12:57, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

"For it's challenging trying to write good" -boB (talk) 14:00, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
"This singer is a bit fast and loose..." This is Gordon and his First Draft. Just strumming to see if the song has legs (fins?). We know Gordon could fiddle the rhyme and line-breaks as good as anybody. But prolly not on a dock on Lake Superior in November. (OTOH Sittin' on The Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding wrote in August on a rented houseboat in Sausalito, California; a much nicer workplace.) --PRR (talk) 23:05, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
Lightfoot was a bit fast and loose with the rhyme scheme; the version of the first verse shown is arguably closer to rhyming than the corresponding verse in the song itself (the rhyme chosen there for "seasoned" is "Wisconsin" rather than "Cleveland"; "Cleveland" does appear as a rhyming word in the song, but it's rhymed with "feelin'"). The worst rhymes here are no more "off" than the worst ones in the canonical song. 162.158.186.95 19:14, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Is the Cameron accusation also suggesting that he has actual time travel technology, as shown in his Terminator movies? Barmar (talk) 14:19, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

How long should we wait before using peoples' deaths as entertainment? Relatives and friends of the crew are still alive. Are the terrorist attacks of 2001 open yet for parody? ...or wait another decade or two? Please consider others. 172.69.214.108 14:26, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Given that the original song turned it into entertainment less than a year after, and it's been widely parodied pretty much ever since, I think you may, if you'll pardon the phrase, have missed the boat on that one.141.101.98.53 14:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
Although it was performed as entertainment, the song was written as a kind of memorial or tribute. That's quite different from using the accident as fodder for a joke. Barmar (talk) 18:38, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
It's important to consider sides. Like, deaths of Russian soldiers in Ukraine are open to parody immediately because they are enemies. -- Hkmaly (talk) 18:39, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
Ukraine, itself, has issued postage stamps mocking Russian losses.These Are Not The Comments You Are Looking For (talk) 21:56, 24 March 2024 (UTC)
I have some bad news for you about the prevalence of 9/11 jokes. Within xkcd itself, no less! Esogalt (talk) 09:28, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

What if Cueball bribed Gordon Lightfoot to bribe the mechanic so he could write a song about Lightfoot bribing the mechanic to write a song? AoPS is superior (talk) 00:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Was it rammed by the Cat Stevens? 172.70.211.144 04:57, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

The flags on the upside down eighth notes are backwards 172.71.146.211 06:21, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Must be an inverted chord.172.70.160.172 17:22, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

My first reaction was, "this is not funny" because of the seriousness of the Edmund Fitgerald tragedy and the gravity of the song as tribute to the lost lives. My second reaction was that Randall is a really awful songwriter. My conclusion is that the only funny thing about this comic is the comically bad fake song. Rtanenbaum (talk) 11:47, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I full agree with that. Yet, we can look at it another way: we need to have some "lesser" xkcd comics to better appreciate the "better" ones. Ralfoide (talk) 18:05, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Concerning the “Too Soon?” discussion, we might consider Les Barker’s “Have You Got Any News of the Iceberg”: https://youtu.be/iKDakrjmwJc?si=v3cdDBP75T5gOc2H

Reminded me of American Pie for some reason when I first read this. Beautiful song that is. bye, bye, miss American pie... DollarStoreBa'al (talk) 15:51, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. --The Daleks (talk) 19:33, 27 March 2024 (UTC)
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