Ever since I was in grammar school, I've known the version that goes "It Was Sad When the Great Ship Went Down." My rather irreverent neighbors, the ones who were Unitarians, would sing it when they got tipsy (and my Catholic parents would join in if THEY were tipsy). I didn't hear it sung again until I was a parent with kids at Scout camp. In both situations, it was sung as a rousing song, which I suppose is contrary to the meaning of the lyrics. I started singing it in rousing fashion at our song circle, and I got shushed. Has anybody ever heard this song in anything other than rousing fashion?
I suppose there is a moral dilemna here, singing for fun about a tragedy, but it happened so long ago. I also got shushed when I started to sing Peter and Lou Berryman's "Squalor"- somebody complained that it treated the topic of incest irreverently. Am I a cad for singing these songs?
-Joe Offer-