Ship Song

[Oliver]

There is is song that goes '..........when that great ship went down' What is it?

[eric100]

Not sure of the precise title but it's about the titanic. "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 lord almighty high new that ship would never lie it was sad when that great ship went down" I barely remember the lyrics but at primary school we sang it frequently ( many many years ago )

[ab]

Try this http://www.angelfire.com/yt/anneblair/lyrics1.htm

[Kos]

The earliest recording of a Titanic ballad seems to be the one titled When That Great Ship Went Down that was recorded by William and Versey Smith in Chicago in August of 1927. While the lyrics can be rather difficult to make out, they can still be heard on Harry Smith's (1997) Anthology of American Folk Music. The text supplement provided with the recording claims that the song is similar to one in the Frank C. Brown Collection at Duke, written by a W.O. Smith of Oxford, NC in 1920. The supplement sites this as evidence that William and Versey Smith came from the Carolinas and not from Texas as some had claimed.