Lyr Req: Albion's Ship (Religious Song)

Subject: Lyr Req: Albion's Ship (Religious Song)
From: cnd
Date: 27 May 22 - 09:04 AM

I recently acquired a CD of NC fiddler Marcus Martin field recordings (When I Get My New House Done, UNC Southern Folklife Collection SFC-CD 100), which has some very well-written liner notes which accompany it. At one point, the notes state:

Martin told Alan Lomax in 1941 that his father [Rowan Martin] fiddled breakdowns, such as "Calico" and "Citico," even though he did not play for dances. Sacred songs such as "Albion's Ship," "Amazing Grace," and "How Firm A Foundation" were also part of Rowan Martin's repertory.

But I am not aware of a religious song by that name. As such, I have four theories about what this song could be.

The first is that there is a religious song about the wreck of a ship by that name. There are a few different ships this song could be referring to, but the most logical in my mind would be the packet ship, Albion (more info), which wrecked in 1822, killing all but 9 of its 54 passengers. While there are a few songs or poems related to the wreck (there's even one in the Digital Tradition), some of which unsurprisingly have religious elements, none are overtly religious, or even remotely common enough to be mentioned in the same breath as such stalwart tunes as "Amazing Grace" or "How Firm a Foundation." It is possible, though, that there could have been a song about the ship popular in Western North Carolina at one time but which has since faded from memory,

My second theory is that the writer meant to refer to the popular Sacred Harp/shapenote song "Albion" ("Come we that love the Lord, And let our joys be known"). Written in 1816 by Robert Boyd and Isaac Watts, the song was one of the 80 most popular tunes in pre-Civil War tune books (source). The only problem with this theory is that it mentions neither the title (Sacred Harp songs are often named for the location which the song was written or provided inspiration for the tune) or a ship; this makes it unlikely to have been given the misnomer of "Albion's Ship" -- most likely, if Martin learned it orally, he would have called it by the first line. While Martin was noted for his level of education compared to most of his contemporaries (he could read and write, and finished high school), this was his father's singing, and not his, and as such was almost certainly learned orally.

My third guess about what song this could be is that the source of the song name (it's implied that the title came from an interview) simply either misunderstood or misheard Martin saying a more common song name, probably an alternately-titled "The Old Ship Of Zion", or possibly the Sacred Harp song "Zion's Ship" ("Oh, to grace how great a debtor, Daily I'm constrained to be") [click]. This is currently my favorite theory from a logical standpoint, however several of the recordings have snippets of Martin's talking, and he speaks fairly clearly. It is possible Martin misheard his dad stating the name, or maybe is misremembering it, but I still have some doubts.

The fourth possibility: does anyone out there know of a song I've missed or simply never heard?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Albion's Ship (Religious Song)
From: GUEST,Wm
Date: 27 May 22 - 12:10 PM

Depending on accent and such, I can sort of see how "Old Zion's ship" or "Oh, Zion's ship" might become "Albion's ship," but I think that's a stretch.

I'm not an expert on the geographic spread of 19c oblong tunebooks, but I believe that William Walker's Christian Harmony saw more use in western North Carolina than the Sacred Harp. Of course, there's a lot of overlap between them, including ALBION, but not any Old Ship of Zion variant as far as I can tell.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Albion's Ship (Religious Song)
From: cnd
Date: 30 May 22 - 10:53 AM

Thanks for the insight on the tunebooks, you sound more knowledgeable about them than I.

I may try contacting the UNC special collections in the coming days and seeing if they can help provide any more insight. I think it's unlikely, but never hurts to ask.