"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" has a lot of raw energy to compensate for the occasional clumsy wording. It's the closest thing to a traditional-sounding song that Lightfoot ever wrote, and to me came as a welcome surprise at that point in his career, when he'd discovered what a "Gordon Lightfoot" song sounded like and started writing the same song over and over. The "Fitzgerald" was a refreshing departure.