Galveston Flood

Poststructural Pub
1

Now that Galveston’s safe from Rita I thought I’d share with you the lyrics to a song I love about the 1900 hurricane. I’ll give you two versions. Here’s one attributed to Tony Rice but substantially the same as the first I heard by Tom Rush about 40 years ago.

Galveston Flood

It was the year of 1900 that was 80 years ago
Death come’d a howling on the ocean and when death calls you’ve got to go
Galveston had a sea wall just to keep the water down
But a high tide from the ocean blew the water all over the town.

Wasn’t that a mighty storm
Wasn’t that a mighty storm in the morning
Wasn’t that a mighty storm
It blew all the people away.

The sea began to rolling the ships they could not land
I heard a captain crying Oh God save a drowning man
The rain it was a falling and the thunder began to roll
The lightning flashed like Hell-fire and the wind began to blow
The trees fell on the island and the houses gave away
Some they strived and drownded others died every way.

The trains at the station were loaded with the people all leaving town
But the trestle gave way with the water and the trains they went on down
Old death the cruel master when the winds began to blow
Rode in on a team of horses and cried death won’t you let me go.

The flood it took my mother it took my brother too
I thought I heard my father cry as I watched my mother go
Old death your hands are clammy when you’ve got them on my knee
You come and took my mother won’t you come back after me?

www.bluegrasslyrics.com/ bluegrass_song.cfm-recordID=sp490.htm

Here’s another version.



GALVESTON FLOOD

It was a September evening when the sky was dark and grey
Raging wind and water battled Hell in its sway
The rich folk in the mansions and the poor ones in the dell
Were swept into eternity the story left to tell

Wasn’t that a mighty time
Wasn’t that a mighty time that evening
Wasn’t that a mighty time
When the storm winds struck our town

The men left home that morning with hearts cheerful and bright
With hopes of home returning, but their hopes weren’t raised that
night
They kissed their wives that morning ands their little ones so
dear
And the skies were cloudy that morning, but no other grief or
care
It was a September evening when the storm clouds struck our town
It seemed like God up in the Heavens above looked down at us and
frowned
The town was all in a motion, the men with hearts so brave
Prayed to God to have mercy their helpless lives to save

There’s an engineer and a fireman, engineer had a heart so brave
He thought about his wife and his little child
and their helpless lives to save
Says Jack, the tide is rising and we must get across
So they drove the train on over and both those men were lost

It was a September evening when the storm was a raging wild
I saw a woman clinging, Lord, to her husband and her child
The man he battled faithful their helpless lives to save
But they soon were beneath that rolling tide
They had met a watery grave

Well they had a sea wall at Galveston to hold those waters down
But the high tide from the ocean, Lord, put water onto the town
The trumpets gave them warning, they had better quit that place
But they weren’t meant to leave their homes till death stared
them in the face

Now the year was nineteen and hundred, just sixteen years ago
Death throwed a stone at my mother, Lord, and with death she had
to go
The cruel sea was a raging and the ships they could not land
I heard a captain crying, Lord, won’t you save this dying man

Now death, the cruel master, when the winds began to blow
Came down on a train of horses, I cried, Death won’t you let me
go
The town was all in a motion and the houses gave away
And the people they strived and drowned, Lord, they died most
every way

Now the storm was over next morning and when the waters backward
rolled
A thousand souls were drowned, Lord, What a sight it was to
behold
You can talk about your Brazos and your Johnstown flood of old
But the story of the Galveston flood will never, ever be told

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/unknown-galveston-flood-lyrics.html

2

Here’s one a little closer to the version I recall from the Great Folk Scare:

Mighty Day

I remember one September,
When storm winds swept the town;
The high tide from the ocean, Lord,
Put water all around.

cho: Wasn’t that a mighty day,
A mighty day
A mighty day,
Great God, that morning
When the storm winds swept the town!

There was a sea-wall there in Galveston
To keep the waters down,
But the high tide from the ocean, Lord,
Put water in the town.

The trumpets warned the people,
“You’d better leave this place!”
But they never meant to leave their homes
Till death was in their face.

The trains they all were loaded
With people leaving town;
The tracks gave way to the ocean, Lord,
And the trains they went on down.

The seas began to rolling,
The ships they could not land;
I heard a Captain crying,
“God, please save a drowning man!”

The waters, like some river,
Came a-rushing to and fro;
I saw my father drowning, God,
And I watched my mother go!

Now death, your hands are icy;
You’ve got them on my knee.
You took away my mother,
Now you’re coming after me!


The chorus seems to have been borrowed from this:

Wasn’t that a mighty day,
Wasn’t that a mighty day,
Wasn’t that a mighty day,
When Jesus Christ was born.


Here are a couple more about water-related disasters in the Southern US:

Mighty Mississippi
(by Kelly Harrell)

Way out in the Mississippi valley
Just among the plains so grand,
Flows the flooded Mississippi River
Destroying the works of man.

With her waters at the highest
That all man has ever known,
She came sweeping through the valley
And destroying land and homes.

There were children clinging in the treetops
Who had spent those sleepless nights,
And without a bit of shelter
Or even a spark of light.

With their prayers going up to their Father
For the break of day to come,
That they might see some rescue party
Who would provide for them a home.

There were some of them on the housetops
With no way to give an alarm,
There were mothers wading in the water
With their babies in their arms.

Let us all get right with our Maker
As He doth make all things well,
And be ready to meet in judgment
When we bid this earth farewell.


Then, from the Stanley Brothers:

“In February of 1957 heavy rains caused disastrous floods in southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and southern West Virginia. A dozen people died in the region, and thousands lost their homes. President Dwight Eisenhower declared 28 Appalachian counties disaster areas, and the National Guard was called in to help.”

The Flood of '57
(by Carter Stanley)

Come listen good people, wherever you are,
And hear the sad story you’ve been waiting for,
About the flood of ’57, as it happened to be,
In Kentucky, old Virginia, and east Tennessee.

How the rain came down, as we often had seen,
To swell the broad river or some little stream,
But this one was different, and we soon realized
That the floods were raging, and we fought for our lives.

Many were afraid, as never before,
As the high, muddy waters came into their door.
Some were left homeless, their life savings gone,
But their lives had been spared, and the cold rains came on.

Little babies were crying, and others were sad,
For in all our lives, we’d seen nothing so bad.
But the brave and the strong were there by the score,
To help the sick and needy to safety on the shore.

How we all escaped it, I never will know.
It must have been God’s will; it was not time to go,
And by his heavenly mercy, some managed to smile,
And face the disaster while the waters run wild.

3

Galveston did not have a seawall in 1900. The seawall was built later.

4

It’s true. It was built in response to the 1900 hurricane. Just goes to show you shouldn’t get your history facts from folk songs.

5

So what we have here is a fictional folk song with exaggerations based on a true event in history. I live in Galveston county and have never heard about that train in the folk song. But then this is the first I have knowen about the song. If it has a good tempo it might sell though.

6

I was living in Houston when I first heard it. It was a pretty rousing song, as I recall it.

Now I’m wondering about the historical accuracy of Leadbelly’s version of the Titanic story. What was the band really playing, and did Jack Johnson really have that reaction?

Titanic

It was midnight on the sea,
Band playin’ “Nearer My God to Thee”
Cryin Fare thee, Titanic fare the well
(Repeat each half-verse twice)

Titanic when it got its load,
Captail hollered, "All aboard:
Cryin’ Fare thee, Titanic fare thee well.

Jack Johnson went to get on board,
Captain said, “I ain’t hauling no coal,”
Cryin’ Fare thee, Titanic fare thee well.

Titanic was comin ‘round the curve,
When she ran in to a big iceberg,
Cryin’ Fare thee, Titanic fare thee well.

Titanic was sinkin’ down,
Had lifeboats all around
Cryin’ Fare thee, Titanic fare thee well.

Had them lifeboats all around,
Savin the women and children, lettin’ men go down,
Cryin’ Fare thee, Titanic fare thee well.

Jack Johnson heard the mighty shock
Might ‘a seen him doin’ the Eagle Rock
Cryin’ Fare thee, Titanic fare thee well.

When the women and children got to land,
Crying “Lord have mercy on my man,”
Cryin’ Fare thee, Titanic fare thee well.

7

Calling these songs fiction is like calling fiction lies. In a sense that’s right but it misses the point of good fiction completely.

A folk song isn’t a government report. Literal accuracy isn’t important. What’s important is to convey something of what it would have been like to have been, in this case, helpless before the storm and to nail that down with enough details of time and place for people to realise it happened somewhere near you. Even with the earliest version we have here, 1916, we’ve lost any knowledge of who composed it. It could easily have been a person who wasn’t on the spot but who heard from people who were. And not all the inaccuracies are exaggerations. That early version has a thousand people dying but the estimates I’ve seen range for six thousand to twelve thousand. What matters for the folk singer is that it was a lot of people but the specifics give it a sense being nailed down to that event. As for the exaggerations, they could have been introduced by a performer or by an eyewitness who got carried away.

8

Here’s another one that seems to have incorporated borrowings from the Galveston song. John Lee Hooker’s Tupelo

Did you read about the flood?
It happened long time ago, in a little country town, way back in Mississippi
It rained and it rained, it rained both night and day
The people got worried, they began to cry,
“Lord have mercy, where can we go now?”
There were women and there was children, screaming and crying,
“Lord have mercy and a great disaster, who can we turn to now, but you?”
The great flood of
Tupelo, Mississippi
It happened one evenin’, one Friday evenin’, a long time ago,
it rained and it started rainin’
The people of Tupelo, out on the farm gathering their harvest,
a dark cloud rolled, way back in Tupelo, Mississippi, hmm, hmm)
Wasn’t that a mighty time,
wasn’t that a mighty time?
Wasn’t that a mighty time,
a mighty time, that evenin’?
It rained, both night and day
The poor people that had no place to go, hmm,hmm
A little town, called Tupelo, Mississippi
I never forget it and I know you won’t either


http://www.harptab.com/lyrics/ly3951.shtml

Any criticisms, complaints about historical inaccuracy, aesthetic judgments about the dark cloud or claims to copywrite should be addressed to John Lee Hooker directly.

9

Excellent. One of my favorites.

And Wombat those are cool. I’d never heard them before.

I’m trying to recall some other flood/water disaster songs I’ve heard.

Wreck of the Julie Plant by W. Henry Drummond.

One dark black night on Lac St. Pierre,
De win’ she blow, blow, blow,
An’ de crew of de wood scow “Julie Plante”
Got scar’t an’ run below,
For de win’ she blow lak hurricane,
Bimeby she blow some more,
An de scow bus’ up on Lac St. Pierre
Wan arpent from de shore.


De captinne walk on de front deck,
An’ walk de hin’ deck, too.
He call de crew from up de hole,
He call the cook also.
De cook she’s name was Rosie,
She come from Montreal,
Was chambre maid on lumber barge,
On de Grande Lachine Canal.


De win’ she blow from nor’ eas’ wes’,
De sout’ win’ she blow too,
W’en Rosie cry, “Mon cher captinne,
Mon cher, w’at I shall do?”
Den de captinne t’row de beeg ankerre,
But still de scow she dreef,
De crew he can’t pass on de shore,
Becos’ he los’ hees skeef.


De night was dark lak wan black cat,
De wave run high an’ fas’,
W’en de captinne tak’ de Rosie girl
An’ tie her to de mas’.
Den he also tak’ de life preserve,
An’ jomp off on de lak’,
An’ say, “Goodbye, ma Rosie dear,
I go drown for your sak’.”


Nex’ morning very early
‘Bout ha’f pas’ two, t’ree, four,
De cap-tinne, scow and de poor Rosie
Was corpses on de shore,
For de win’ she blow lak hurricane,
Bimeby she blow some more,
An de scow bus’ up on Lak St. Pierre,
Wan arpent from de shore.


Now all good wood scow sailor man
Tak’ warning by dat storm
An’ go marry some nice French girl
An’ leev on wan beeg farm.
De win’ she blow lak hurricane
An s’pose she blow some more,
You can’t get drown on Lak St. Pierre
So long you stay on shore

10

Back in the hootenanny days in Atlanta we used to do the song Mighty Day that Darwin posted the words for. Another disaster/water song was Run Come See, Jerusalem. Here’s a link for it. It has the tune as well as the words.
http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiRUNCOME;ttRUNCOME.html

11

Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald- Gordon Lightfoot


Tom

12

I thank you and the others for sharing these songs.
They are written very well.
I apologize if my comment about fiction was misunderstood. This is a great thread about music and I will help keep it at that.

13

The first version I ever heard of that one was on Odetta’s “Tin Angel” album. You can hear a bit at http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?userid=vO2ulieBF0&EAN=25218056526&ITM=6. The Weavers did it, too.

I found the following on the Web:

"The Andros Lighthouse was built in 1892 to mark the southern entrance to the Fresh Creek Channel. In 1952, three old canons were added in front of the Lighthouse and a tower built on the top. The cannons came from the “Cottsac” Schooner which wrecked on Stanyard Rock in the 1800’s.

Late Bahamian singing artist, Blind Blake immortalized the Lighthouse through a tragic tale expressed in the song, ‘Run Come See Jerusalem,’ and it has become part of Bahamian Culture and Folklore. The song tells of four sloops sinking at the mouth of the Creek, trying to make it to the safety of the Fresh Creek Harbor during the 1929 Hurricane. The entire community stood on the shoreline and watched as 20 plus locals drowned under the glow of the Lighthouse, as the seas swallowed the sloops and passengers."

Does this remind anyone of “Do You Remember That Night?” and “Enach Dhúin”?

14

Thanks Tommy. I’m sorry too if I was a bit rough on you, especially after what you folks have just gone through.

I think that sharing these songs, inaccuracies and all, is a good way of coming as close as we can to appreciating what the really unlucky folk just went through. It’s interesting how many songs borrow lines and ideas from others, although ostensively about different events. It wouldn’t surprise me if ‘Galveston Flood’ or one of it’s offshoots emerged soon as ‘New Orleans Flood.’ That would just be the folk tradition going its way again.

15

Darwin,

Thanks for posting that info about Run Come See Jerusalem. I never knew what the song was about.

16

Back when I was a boy growing up in Duluth Minnesota, this song was played every half hour by all the radio stations in town… at times one couldn’t switch from one station to the next without running into it. Eventually, we began calling it “The Wreck of the Gordon Lightfoot”. :laughing:

A good song, and a mighty singer/songwriter.

17

was a bit popular on the lakes…

I got a book from my grandfather, “Lore of the Lakes” many tales of early shipping incidents on the lakes.

18

That sounds about like down here when they played Glen Campbells song
(Galveston oh Galveston) every half hour. I think it was written by Jimmy Webb?