The Titanic's Mr. E. Freeman

For years I've used the phrase "arranging deck chairs on the Titanic" for those folks who deal with trivia while ignoring the big picture disaster going on around them. What did I know? While reading a book of primary sources on the Titanic disaster, I came across Mr. E. Freeman, a ship's steward, whose job included arranging deck chairs. That's exactly what "old" Freeman did as the ship sank. Arranged them, tied them together and threw them overboard to create floats for survivors who couldn't get into the lifeboats. Don't know if he saved any lives, but he tried his hardest. Mr. Freeman was lost with the ship.

The Titanic disaster resonated with all classes of society. African American folk singers were no exception. Perhaps the sinking represented to them the hubris of the entire white race. My ipod has Titanic songs by both Pink Anderson and Blind Willie Johnson.

Blind Willie Johnson was a fabulous gospel singer and slide guitarist. To say he had a hard life is an understatement. He died of a fever at age 48 after living outdoors in the ruins of his fire-destroyed storefront church. He recorded 30 sides between 1927 and 1930 when the market for "race" records dried up in the Depression. Johnson's song on the Titanic alternates lyrics that more or less factually tell the story of the disaster with a religious chorus "God moves, moves, God moves, ah, and the people had to run and pray." The song mentions the famous "woman and children first" command and concludes with this cryptic line:
              A.G. Smith, mighty man, built a boat that he couldn't understand       
              Named it a name of God in a tin, without a "c", Lord, he pulled it in
It's clearly a reference to the hubris theme of naming the ship Titanic. The sister ship that was building at the time had its name changed from Gigantic to Britannic in response to this public feeling. A. G. Smith was probably Edward J. Smith, the captain not the designer of the ship. The last line is hard to understand. The song was recorded in 1929 and Johnson had quite an accent so it's difficult to pick the words out. The line printed here comes from a blues historian. Others hear "myth of the sea" which makes sense if the first part of the line refers to the Titans which were Greek gods. Other people hear "middle of the sea." No one has an idea what "God in a tin" means!

Johnson's guitar work on the song is up to his usual high standard. His eerie, powerful song "Dark was the Night, Cold was the Ground," about the crucifixion was included in the CD included on the Voyager space explorer that was the first man-made object to leave the solar system.

Pink Anderson was an East Coast bluesman and medicine show performer. His song also called "It was sad when that great ship went down" was not original with him as Johnson's was. It's been traced back as a folk song from Alabama to 1915 or 1916. The tune is rather jaunty as performed by Anderson. The song references the power of the Lord versus the builders' claim the ship was unsinkable. The most important difference is this line:
              The rich declared they would not
               Ride with the poor.
               So they put the poor below,
               They were the first who had to go.
This refers to the American reaction that so many first class passengers were saved while those in steerage perished. There was a lot of American criticism that the British class system contributed to the disaster.

The sinking also sparked songs on the other side of the Atlantic, but I had better post this before the power goes out.