What Song Was Playing When The Titanic Went Down

[Shanta Plansinis]

As you probably know/have heard, this week marks the 100th Anniversary of the RMS Titanic setting sail on April 10, 1912. On April 14th it hit an iceberg and sunk a little after 2:00 a.m. on April 15th.

Bob and I have been recording and watching almost every documentary about the Titanic we can find on TV this week and there are plenty to choose from. We especially enjoyed Titanic with Len Goodman (yes, the head judge on Dancing with the Stars) that aired on PBS last night. My mom had tipped us off that according to an article in the New York Times that it was said to be the best of the bunch. We also watched one earlier this evening with Sean that ran on the National Geographic Channel Save the Titanic with Bob Ballard (he was part of the expedition team that discovered the remains of Titanic in 1985).

When I think back I can usually call the chorus and some of the verses to mind, but when I started writing this post I was not able to remember all of the words. So I Googled the lyrics and was surprised and interested to find all the variations that exist. I had to combine the lyrics from a few different versions to get what I recall being taught and singing at Camp Echo many years ago.

So though of course I find the tragedy of the Titanic to be very sad, I also appreciate being able to find comic relief in the midst of sorrow. I hope no one takes offense to the lyrics of this song and sees the good fun that I believe they were intended to be when they were written.

I sang a version at vacation binle school.
Oh they built the ship titanic, to sail the ocean blue and they thought they had a ship that the water would never go through
But the good lord raised his hand and the ship would never land
It went down to the bottom of the sea

Origins: The final moments of the Titanic produced many stirring tales of bravery and heroism: officers who stayed on deck to load and launch lifeboats until all the boats were safely away, engine room crew who worked away well below decks to keep power and

lights running as long as possible, wireless operators who remained at their posts even after the captain released them from duty, and passengers who stood aside so that others might have their seats in the too-few lifeboats. All these people gallantly risked their lives so that others might have a better chance of survival; not because they had to, but because they felt it was their duty.

One of most compelling of these tales of self-sacrifice is that of the Titanic's band. They weren't part of the ship's crew (although they nominally signed ship's orders, they were carried as passengers), and they weren't needed to keep the power running or to load the lifeboats; likely no one would have protested if they had sought places in lifeboats. Instead, of their own volition, they stayed with the ship until the very end, steadfastly playing light, airy music to help keep passengers calm while the available lifeboats were loaded.

of the gallant band members survived the sinking, but their memories are sure to survive as long as the Titanic is a subject of interest, for one of the endlessly debated pieces of Titanic minutiae concerns the identity of the final song played by the band just before the ship began its final plunge beneath the waves. Part of the fascination with this subject undoubtedly stems from the fact that the question is ultimately unanswerable, since none of the band members lived to talk, and accounts from surviving passengers and crew members are unreliable and contradictory. With no other evidence available to us, the identity of that final song will remain an eternal mystery.

Many different tunes have been put forth as the final song, but for now we'll focus on the only two that have any real weight of evidence behind them: "Nearer, My God, to Thee" and "Autumn." The primary (and only) evidence for latter comes from an interview given to The New York Times by Harold Bride, the Titanic's junior wireless operator, immediately upon his arrival in New York aboard the rescue ship Carpathia:

Our captain had left us at this time, and Phillips told me to run and tell him what the Carpathia had answered. I did so, and I went through an awful mass of people to his cabin. The decks were full of scrambling men and women.

I went to the place I had seen the collapsible boat on the boat deck, and to my surprise I saw the boat and the men still trying to push it off. I guess there wasn't a sailor in the crowd. They couldn't do it. I went up to them and was just lending a hand when a large wave came awash of the deck.

The way the band kept playing was a noble thing. I heard it first while still we were working wireless, when there was a ragtime tune for us, and the last I saw of the band, when I was floating out in the sea with my lifebeltt on, it was still on deck playing "Autumn." How they ever did it I cannot imagine.

• He was not an excited, wild-eyed passenger, but a professional whose job required intense concentration and attention to detail and who remained at his post (at the risk of his life) even after being released from duty by the captain.

• He was isolated during the trip to New York aboard the rescue ship, spending the first ten hours in the hospital and the rest of the voyage in the wireless room assisting the Carpathia's telegraph operator, and thus had little chance to be influenced by stories and rumors related by other passengers.

• Neither the hymn nor the waltz "Autumn" was included in the White Star book of music that all the musicians were expected to know by heart, and the last moments on board a sinking ship would be an unusual time to improvise (although some writers have reported that a few passengers claimed to recall hearing the band play "Autumn," the waltz, earlier in the voyage.)

The tune that by far the most Titanic survivors reported as the band's final piece of music was, of course, "Nearer, My God, to Thee," a hymn manifestly appropriate in sentiment for the last moments of a doomed ship. A few facets of the available evidence are cause for consternation in accepting this claim, however:

• The hymn we refer to as "Nearer, My God, to Thee" is a set of lyrics, not the integrated unit of melody and lyrics we typically think of as a "song." The hymn "Nearer, My God, to Thee" was played to several different melodies, each of which had its own name. Most British would recognize the hymn by the melody known as "Horbury," while the setting familiar to most Americans would be the melody called "Bethany." Nonetheless, both British and American survivors reported hearing the band play "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Although certainly some of them would have recognized both melodies, once again we have to conclude (outside of the unlikely event that the band played multiple versions) that many passengers reported what others told them rather than what they actually heard.

We have a good deal of evidence to ponder, but it's insufficient to base a definitive conclusion on, so any answers must remain the product of informed guesswork and speculation. If there's a tie-breaker to be had here, perhaps it's that a former colleague of the Titanic's bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, reported that years earlier he had asked Hartley what he would do if he found himself on the deck of a sinking ship. Hartley responded that he would gather the band together to play "O God, Our Help in Ages Past" or "Nearer, My God, to Thee." The latter was reportedly Hartley's favorite hymn, and it was regularly played at the funerals of members of the Musicians' Union.

One irrefutable fact, however, remains: the musicians stayed until all hope of rescue was gone. Who can say how many lives their efforts saved? The final moments of how many were cheered or ennobled by their music? 'Songe d'Automne' or 'Autumn.' 'Horbury' or 'Bethany'. What difference? The memory of the bandsmen and their courageous music will never die.

I agree with Maria 100%, including the Banks of the Ohio being an absolute favorite childhood song, especially when sung by the whole family in our car as we crossed the Ohio river. Leave sanitization for cleaning the bathrooms!

I sing what I can remember (from Girl Scout camp) of the Titanic song to my kids. I would have no problem with them listening to it on a Bill Harley album, death and whiskey included. You could always stick a little silly dialogue into the middle of the song, too, explaining some of the potentially sticky parts in a funny way.

Bill,
I am glad you are considering this song. I actually just wrote a chapter for a book on how I used the story of the Titanic to have teenagers become engineers and explore what it sank from the vantage point of being one of the specialists on the ship.
It was moving and involving. This song is definitely family fare, it is about the community that was established because of the event. It is about having a voice.
Plus, my great uncle George West died on the boat.

Oh they built the ship Titanic to sail the ocean blue.
And they built it so no water would go through.
But the good Lord raised His hand, said the ship would never land.
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Mrs. Johnson turned around, just to see her husband drown.
As the great Titanic made a gurgling sound.
So she wrapped herself in mink as the ship began to sink
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Now the moral of this story, as you can plainly see,
Is to wear a life preserver when you go out to sea.
Uncles and aunts, little children wet their pants.
It was sad when the great ship went down.

You can enter only once. In comments, simply give me one cool fact about the Titanic, but make it cool. Ordinary facts that everyone knows are worth one entry. Incredibly cool facts are worth three entries, and the rest are in the middle for two entries.

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