Tags: 1912 Titanic
Performances
These lyrics are taken from a recording of the song by Bessie Jones, Hobart Smith and Georgia Sea Island Singers. Recorded April 1960 by Alan Lomax on St Simon’s Island, Georgia. Reissued on Velvet Voices: Eastern Shores Choirs, Quartets and Colonial Era Music – Southern Journey, vol 8, Rounder CD 1708.
Lyrics
Chorus
God moves on the waters
April the 14th day
God moves on the water,
Everybody had to run and pray
Titanic left Southampton
With all their sport and game
But when they struck that iceberg
I know their mind was changed
Their mothers told their daughters
On a pleasure trip they may go
But when they struck that iceberg
They haven’t been seen anymore
One man, John Jacob Astor,
A man with pluck and brain
While this great ship was sinkin’
All the women he tried to save
He was warended [sic] by a freight boat
Captain Smith would not take heed
But instead of givin’ a warnin’
He ran with greater speed
He kissed his wife a last time
When the boiler did explode
He helped her in the lifeboat
Sayin’, “I won’t see you anymo'”
The story of the shipwreck
Is almost too sad to tell
One thousand and six hundred
Went down forever to dwell
Well, the 14th day of April
It was in nineteen hundred and twelve
The ship had a wreck by the iceberg
It went down forever to dwell
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