And here's what it says in the Washington Post:

Edmund Fitzgerald tribute song lyrics changed by Gordon Lightfoot


By Melissa Bell
November 10, 2011

It’s remembered in part thanks to the evocative song “The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald,” by singer Gordon Lightfoot. Lightfoot once said it was his most important work.

Last month, though, 35 years after penning the tune, Lightfoot announced he would be changing the lyrics. Before performing the song at the Michigan theater, he told AnnArbor.com he tweaked a section he had taken poetic license with and altered it to honor the mother and the daughter of two of the deckhands who went down with the ship. The women, he said, “have always cringed every time they’ve heard the line. ... And they know about it and they’re very happy about it.”

The offending line went from “At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in, he said, ‘Fellas, it’s been good to know ya’” to “At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then he said, ‘Fellas it’s been good to know ya.””

The men would have been responsible for the hatchway and he did not want it to sound as if they had been to blame for the disaster.

Here’s a tribute video of the song. Although it has the original lyrics intact, it does have footage of the original Edmund Fitzgerald, well as radio transmissions made the night of the rescue effort:

but then the article stops.



So, let's try thestar.com



Gordon Lightfoot changes Edmund Fitzgerald lyrics

A new documentary on the Edmund Fitzgerald has convinced Gordon Lightfoot to alter his legendary folk song.


GQ
By GREG QUILLENTERTAINMENT COLUMNIST (Toronto Star)
Thu., March 25, 2010

Convinced by the evidence presented in an episode of the new Canadian made-for-TV documentary series Dive Detectives, airing on History Television Mar. 31, Gordon Lightfoot has changed the lyric of his 1976 hit, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”, to remove the implication that human error played a part in the 1975 Lake Superior shipping tragedy in which 29 lives were lost.

“He’s not re-recording the song, but he has already changed a line for live performances,” a spokesperson for Lightfoot said Thursday. “He was pretty impressed by what he saw in the film, new evidence that unsecured hatch covers didn’t cause the ship to sink.”

The traditional verse goes: “When supper time came the old cook came on deck /Saying ‘Fellows it’s too rough to feed ya’ /At 7 p.m. a main hatchway caved in /He said, ‘Fellas it's been good to know ya.”

Lightfoot’s lyrics have now been changed to: “When supper time came the old cook came on deck /Saying ‘Fellows it’s too rough to feed ya’ /At 7 p.m. it grew dark, it was then/He said, ‘Fellas it's been good to know ya’,” Lightfoot’s spokesperson said.

“He may change it again, but this is the version that he’s doing in his concerts right now,” she said.

Lightfoot, currently on the road, was unavailable for comment.

A long-disputed marine casualty report conducted after the tragedy by the U.S. Coast Guard concluded that “improperly serviced” cargo hatches caused the giant ore carrier’s holds to flood.

In the Dive Detectives documentary, Mike and Warren Fletcher, a father-and-son diving team from Port Dover, Ont., present evidence that a 50-foot rogue wave was the real cause of the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.