Reluctant as I am to say anything on point and thereby break the mood, I have for a long time understood that one motive behind the Black compositions on the sinking was that Jack Johnson, a top-ranking heavyweight boxer, was refused first class passage on the ship because he was African, and that the songs that came out of the Black community were "I told you so's."

Hudie Leadbetter recorded "Ship Titanic" (They were nine days out of Liverpool and almost to the shore,/ When the rich refused to associate with the poor,/ So they put them down below where they were first to go,/And it was sad when the great ship went down.)

Mance Lipscombe ("The Texas Songster"--Alhoolie label, several CD's) did "Titanic," in a very old-fashioned setting with lots of drone. (Fourteen day of April,/ Year nineteen and twelve,/ Titanee were a-sinking (Lord!)/ Mos' too sad to tell--God knows, all the people had to run and pray.)

Living on the Faultline has a verse on it--"Remember Titanic, long and tall, big enough to blot out the moonlight, knifing through the North Atlantic with the keenest edge ever honed on an ocean liner ...." etc.

All of which you probably have alread, but just in case.

Spaw: Actually Jack the Ripper sank the Titanic; that's a little known chapter in the annals of conspiracy. Or should I say anals ....

CC