American Folk Song (c.1915)

                                The Great Titanic

One of the most popular children's summer camp songs in the United States is based on the Titanic disaster. The lyrics to this modern version (often titled Titanic (Husbands and Wives) or It Was Sad When That Great Ship Went Down) can be found in many camp songbooks, on many web pages, and even on some recordings. Instead of daring to select a definitive version from the various regional variations of the modern camp song, this page attempts to trace this particular Titanic song back as close as possible to its origins. The earliest version I was able to find is given below. There are a variety of distinctly different Titanic folk songs that are not discussed here, but are mentioned in the references given at the bottom.

Folk songs about the Titanic disaster seemed to appear almost immediately after it occured. Within a decade, information on these songs began to appear in the literature. In a 1922 article in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, A.E. Perkins noted:

The 'Titanic' sank on Sunday, April 14, 1912. The following Sunday I saw on a train a blind preacher selling a ballad he had composed on the disaster. The title was "Didn't that ship go down?" I remember one stanza:—

"God Almighty talked like a natural man, Spoke so the people could understand."

The earliest recording of a Titanic ballad seems to be the one titled When That Great Ship Went Down that was recorded by William and Versey Smith in Chicago in August of 1927. While the lyrics can be rather difficult to make out, they can still be heard on Harry Smith's (1997) Anthology of American Folk Music. The text supplement provided with the recording claims that the song is similar to one in the Frank C. Brown Collection at Duke, written by a W.O. Smith of Oxford, NC in 1920. The supplement sites this as evidence that William and Versey Smith came from the Carolinas and not from Texas as some had claimed.

Examining the Frank C. Brown Collection (Newman, Belden, and Hudson, 1952) it seems that the W.O. Smith version is less like the William and Versey Smith recording than is another version from 1920. This 'version D' was titled The Great Titanic and is listed as having been contributed by a Miss Fanny Grogan on Nov. 30, 1920 from Zionville, NC. This version is listed by Laws (1964) as "D 24, The Titanic I", and is very similar to several other versions in Frank C. Brown Collection, as well as to one obtained in Gatlinburg Tennessee in 1929 from a Miss Lara Ogle and transcribed by Mellinger E. Henry (1931).

An earlier version from Alabama is reported by Newman I. White in his 1928 book American Negro Folk-Songs. The song is listed as having been heard in 1915 or 1916 as "Sung by Negro on streets of Hackleburg in Northwest Ala." (The tune is given in the appendix of that book.)

                  The Great Titanic

  It was on one Monday morning just about one o'clock
  When that great Titanic began to reel and rock;
  People began to scream and cry,
  Saying, "Lord, am I going to die?"

                         Chorus

  It was sad when that great ship went down,
  It was sad when that great ship went down,
  Husbands and wives and little children lost their lives,
  It was sad when that great ship went down.

  When that ship left England it was making for the shore,
  The rich had declared that they would not ride with the poor,
  So they put the poor below,
  They were the first to go.

  While they were building they said what they would do,
  We will build a ship that water can't go through;
  But God with power in hand
  Showed the world that it could not stand.

  Those people on that ship were a long ways from home,
  With friends all around they did n't know that the time had come;
  Death came riding by,
  Sixteen hundred had to die.

  While Paul was sailing his men around,
  God told him that not a man should drown;
  If you trust and obey,
  I will save you all to-day.

  You know it must have been awful with those people on the sea,
  They say that they were singing, "Nearer My God to Thee."
  While some were homeward bound,
  Sixteen hundred had to drown.

The North Carolina version D has a similar chorus to the above Alabama version:

Oh it was sad when that great ship went down.
Their were husbands and their wives,
Little children lost their lives.
It was sad when that great ship went down.

with each verse ending in "It was sad when the great ship went down." as well. Beyond this, the principal difference is the order in which the verses occur:

	Order of Verses
1915/1916 Alabama	1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1920 North Carolina D	1, 3, 2, 6, 4, 5
1927 Smith Recording	1, 2, 2, 4, 4, first half of 3

 

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