The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #16290   Message #151356
Posted By: Roger in Baltimore
18-Dec-99 - 08:32 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Titanic (Leadbelly)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Leadbelly song about the Titanic
Gee, it must really be Christmas.

It pleases me to no end to see BSeed and Gargoyle making nice.

Good day and Happy Holidays to both of you.

Nothin' like a good song to bring folks together! And it surely is a good song.

"Look where and what has been done -- 1912, 12th day of May, when the Titanic sink in the sea. When they was getting on board (there) was not no colored folks on. There was not no Negroes died on that ship. But Jack Johnson went to get on board. 'We are not hauling no coal,' (they said). So Jack Johnson didn't like what the Big Boss said. He went and tried to do something about it, but it was so much Jim Crow he could not have no go. And a few hours later Jack Johnson read the papers where the Titanic went down. Then the peoples began to holler about that mighty shock. You might have seen Jack Johnson doing the Eagle Rock so glad that he was not on that ship." -- letter from Lead Belly to Moses Asch. From The Leadbelly Songbook, edited by Moses Asch and Alan Lomax, Oak Publications, 1962.

Roger in Baltimore