wreckage found the bow and stern relatively close to each other on the lakebed floor, ruling out that it "might have split up." However this exploration took place a significant amount of time after the writing of the song. In his lyrics Lightfoot employs poetic licence to describe the Mariners' Church of Detroit as "The Maritime Sailors' Cathedral". In a later live recording, Lightfoot recounts that a parishioner of the church informed him that the church is not "musty". From that time, instead of singing "In a musty old hall...", he now sings "In a rustic old hall..." In March 2010, Lightfoot changed a line during live performances to reflect new findings that there had been no crew error involved in the sinking. The line originally read, "At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in; he said..."; Lightfoot now sings it as "At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then he said...". Lightfoot learned about the new research when contacted for permission to use his song for a History Channel documentary that aired on March 31, 2010. Lightfoot stated that he had no intention of changing the original copyrighted lyrics; instead, from then on, he has simply sung the new words during live performances. Chart performance Weekly charts Year-end charts Production The song was recorded in December 1975 at Eastern Sound, a recording studio composed of two Victorian houses at 48 Yorkville Avenue in a then-hippie district of downtown Toronto. The famous studio, which also recorded Rush, Cat Stevens, Bruce Springsteen and Jimi Hendrix, was later torn down and replaced by a parking lot. Pee Wee Charles and Terry Clements came up with "the haunting guitar and steel riffs" on a "second take" during the evening session. Lightfoot cleared the studio and killed all the lights save the one illuminating his parchment of scribbled words when recording his vocal part. Parodies During the 1984 United States presidential election, the comedian troupe Capitol Steps performed a parody of the song changing the ship's name to Walter 'Fritz' Mondale. See also Canadian rock Music of Canada References External links Lyrics from gordonlightfoot.com Column by Mark Steyn—"Of Rain and Wrecks"—Song of the Week #338 1976 singles 1976 songs 1970s ballads Cashbox number-one singles Gordon Lightfoot songs Maritime music Reprise Records singles Rock ballads RPM Top Singles number-one singles Song recordings produced by Lenny Waronker Songs based on American history Songs based on