Disaster Songs for Stuyguy

I brought in that tape, “Sorrowful Songs,” I’d mentioned—I got it from Radio Yesteryear (Box C, Sandy Hook, CT 06482).

It contains the following toe-tapping classics [mental image, now of couple walking on beach, a la K-Tel commercials): Floyd Collins’ Fate • Now Twenty-One Years • The Pickwick Club Tragedy • Tell Me Why My Daddy Don’t Come Home • Little Marion Parker • A Boy’s Best Friend Is His Mother • The Sinking of the Vestris • The Prison Clock • Flood Song • The Prisoner’s Song [aka If I Had the Wings of an Angel] • Sinking of the Submarine S-51 [particularly poignant this week!] • The Drunkard’s Lone Child • Little Mary Phagan • In the Baggage Coach Ahead [a real gem] • The Wreck of the Southern Old 97 • The Baby on the Doorstep [the most unintentionally funny number] • Jesse James • The Letter Edged in Black • The Airship That Never Returned •

Sing them! Play them on your Victrola! They’re all old recordings (1910s–40), which makes 'em even better, and creepier.

Have to step in and second Eve’s endorsement of “In the Baggage Coach Ahead,” one of the finest moments in 19th Century American Graveyard Music.

Those of you with a taste for this sort of thing, who happen to be proficient on the pianoforte, should check out the following book from Dover Publications:

Favorite Songs of the Nineties : Complete Original Sheet Music for 89 Songs by Robert A. Fremont (Editor)

Warning: the Saturday-night ivory tinklers of 1899 seem to have been substantially more proficient than those of today. I’ve seen Chopin Polonaises that are less complex than some of these piano arrangements; took me a whole afternoon just to get “The Bowery” down pat.

And don’t think “Oh, I’ll just read the chords and comp.” There ain’t no chords. I guess the guitar players of a hundred years ago had to read the goddamn score, too.

Sadly, some of my favorites were missing from this tape, like “Hello, Central, Give me Heaven,” “Mr. Radio Man (Tell My Mammy to Come Back Home,)” “Please, Mr. Conductor (Don’t Put Me Off Of This Train)” and the classic “Father, Dear Father, Come Home with Me Now.”

I choke up just thinking of them . . .

My favourite is

I want my baby back - I don’t remember who it is by

Teen Angel - Mark Dinning is fun too.

There was an old one about the Titanic that we used to chirp away to as kids,

It was sad
It was sad
It was sad when that great ship went down
Husbands and wives,
Many children lost their lives,
It was sad when that great ship went down.

We used to sing

Uncles and Aunts,
Little children lost their pants…

There’s also a wonderfully grisly book, just back in print, called Scalded to Death by the Steam : Authentic Stories of Railroad Disasters and the Ballads That Were Written About Them, by Katie Letcher. This one’s as much fun to read as it is to play, and it’s hardly ever off the music-stand on my parlor harmonium.

Ah, yes, The Wreck of the old 97, a true classic. Bluegrass has more than it’s share of disaster songs and tearjerkers. 'Twould be a good genre to start with if you’re seeking more blight for your collection.

Umm, just bumping this up, as Stuyguy doesn’t seem to have seen it yet . . .

Eve, you sweetheart. Thank you for posting this. Wow. A whole thread directed to me. And it’s not in the Pit, either!

(And sorry about the delay; I was off the board for a couple of days and missed this entirely. I just recently stumbled on it by luck.)

For your trouble (and for Dr. Jackson & Uke Ike, who seem to really like this song…) here’s a bit of trivia regarding “The Wreck of the Old '97”: did you know that the authorship to the song was settled by no less than the U.S. Supreme Court?

David Graves George, a local hillbilly and witness to the wreck, penned the lyrics to “TWOO97” in 1903 (using the music of “The Ship That Never Returned”). It soon became a folk classic.

The song was eventually recorded by the Victor Talking Machine Co. who had paid several other supposed songwriters for the “rights.” In 1927, twenty-four years after he had written the song, George, who was driving a mule team at the time, heard the recording. He sued Victor. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court which ruled in George’s favor; but the court made no determination as for compensation. So, while David George did get the credit, he didn’t get any of the cash.

All this music these days in which nobody dies. I just can’t get used to it. A favorite of mine is “Wasn’t That a Mighty Storm,” about the tidal wave that washed away Galveston back at the turn of the century. Uh, the other turn of the century.

If you enjoy a good murder ballad in an updated, and very gross, setting I recommend (obvious title) Murder Ballads by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Crimes of passion, serial killers, folks going postal–it has them all!

Hey, Stuy, rush out an’ get this tape, you’ll love it.

Always wondered why no Heart-Wrenching Ballads were written about Jon-Benet (“Will Christmas Come Tonight?”), John-John Kennedy (“The Airship That Never Came Back”), Princess Di (“They Needed a Princess in Heaven, So God Called Diana Away”), the Challenger (“The Wreck of the Old Space Shuttle”).

That’s one of those social conventions it’s sad to see end . . .

“Ohhhhh, they were all chopped up to mutton stew
When Christa said ‘What’s this button do?’
There was barely enough left to stuff a knish
When they all went down to feed the fish…”

“Young John-John was at the stick,
His heart was true, but his skull was thick
He could run round the reservoir in Central Park
But he never learned how to fly in the dark…”

“He called young Di his ‘pink-skinned punkin’
And they got in the limo, but the driver was drunken
The papparazzi motorcycles tried to pass
The flashbulbs popped, and he hit the gas.
They should’ve stayed back in their suite at the Ritz
Now Diana’s defunct, ain’t that the shits?”

Oh, Eve, you GOTTA start a thread for these! I’m feeling the creative juices starting to pump!!!

That ain’t creative juice, Ike, that’s RC Cola . . .

[running and ducking]

Uke, do JonBenet! Please do Jon-Benet!

“Uke, do JonBenet! Please do Jon-Benet!”

—And those were the last words she heard . . .

JonBenet?

But…that would be…*tasteless![/]