The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #2759   Message #11953
Posted By: Nathan Sarvis (nsarvis@tenet.edu)
07-Sep-97 - 10:36 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: the sinking of the reuben james
Subject: RE: LYR ADD: the sinking of the reuben james
A bit of trivia: Woody's original draft of the song was an attempt to list the names of all of the men who were killed. This proved too unweildy, so he revised it to the lyrics printed above. There is, I recall, another verse that incudes the lines "When that good ship went down, only 44 (?) were saved, Twas on the 14th of October that we saved the fortyfour. . ." If no one else does, I'll try to find it and post it.