Great Ship Went Down, The (Titanic #16)
DESCRIPTION: "Titanic was a ship... Oh, it was a pleasure trip." "Titanic was her name, Atlantic was her fame, she sank about five hundred miles from shore, 1600 were at sea... went down an angry wave to rise no more." 1600 die in the "angry wave."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Cofer Brothers)
KEYWORDS: sea wreck family disaster death
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Cowboy Loye and Just Plain John, Old Time Ballads & Cowboy Songs (no date but internal evidence dates it after 1932), pp 43-44, "Titanic"
RECORDINGS:
Cofer Brothers, "The Great Ship Went Down" (OKeh 45137, 1927)
NOTES [111 words]: The Cofer Brothers version of this is so generic that it might almost be a rewrite of one of the other songs, but the Cowboy Loye version has the interesting feature of mentioning Mr. and Mrs. Isidore Strauss -- the second richest couple on the ship after John Jacob Astor. I haven't met this in any other Titanic song. It is also unusual in that it doesn't shove a moral down your throat.
Thanks to John Garst for help with the Loye text.
For an extensive history of the Titanic, with detailed examination of the truth (or lack thereof) of quotes in the Titanic songs, see the notes to "The Titanic (XV)" ("On the tenth day of April 1912") (Titanic #15) - RBW
File: RcGSWD
Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List
Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography
The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.