A side note.
My friend John and I both tried to get jobs on "tramp steamers" in 1973, as summer work, to help pay for college (we'd grown up together on a US military base in Germany, and both went to Carroll College in Wisconsin)
Went to the third coast and settled in to await the arrival of a suitable boat. When the Fitzgerald arrived John (being the more agressive of the two of us) tracked down their disbursing officer, who told him that in fact there was a job on board- doing menial task, chipping and grinding and painting, etc. So we went out, John and I, and got sloppy drunk that night, tossed a coin to see which of us would take the job. Next morning, John applied, and was accepted. Never did come back to college, he loved the lakefaring life so well. A year or so later, I remember watching the news on a Milwaukee station- they were showing stock footage of a ship foundering on Lake Michigan- of course, there was no actual footage of the Fitz., but that's the story they were covering. John was still onboard, a regular crewman by then. It took me almost a decade to get my sealegs
(joined the Navy in 84) but I always think of John when I sing "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald")
As I said, this is a side note, and I don't know the origin of the tune. Always thought that someone should write a song for the folks who died on the Challenger and set it to the "W.E.F." melody, but never did it myself.