Yesterday, I was rereading Alan Lomax's excellent book, 'The Land Where the Blues Began', and I came across the following excerpt of a piece that Lomax says was popular in Coahoma County, Mississippi. Surely this Po Shine must have been a cousin to the Travelin Man. Whatever, as Lomax notes, Po Shine 'ain't sheddin' no salty tears' when 'the rich folks who could afford the luxurious passage pay for their past sins of greed and pride'.

It was on the fifth of May
When the great Titanic went down
Po Shine was on the bottom deck
The captain and his mate was havin' a little chat
Po Shine ran up to the top of the deck
Say, 'Captain, captain, the water is now
Comin' in the boiler room door'
He say, 'Go back, Po Shine, and pump the water back'
Po Shine dashed his black ass overboard and began to swim
The captain say, 'Come back, Po Shine, and save po me
I'll make you just as rich as any son-of-a-bitch can be'
Po Shine looked back over his shoulder and said,
'What good is money to me, in the middle of the sea?'
Went right ahead
Just then a millionaire girl walked from the bottom of the deck
She say, 'Come back, Po Shine, and save po me
I might turn your wife it's true'
He looked back over his shoulder and said,
'Honey, you're purty-lookin' jelly roll, it's true'
He said, 'There are a thousand
In New York as good as you'

He swim right ahead
Just then a whale, he jumped up and grinned
Po Shine looked back
Over his shoulder and again at him –
Jumped up and walked the water
Like Christ did in Galilee

When the Titanic went down
Po Shine was down in Harlem
Almost damn drunk
The Devil was laying across his bed
He got up and walked to the door
And he looked out and he said
'They been a long time comin',
But they welcome to Hell'

Quoted in Alan Lomax 'The Land Where the Blues Began' Minerva 1995 pp 53-54.

Cheers, Stewie.