1912: The Year the Titanic Sank

 

They say she was a beaut

Dancing through the waves in a steel-coated salsa dress

Making music with every nautical mile

Her hulls leaped and her helm swayed

Until her moment was over and she went down

 

But even though her dance was done

The music went on

 

The story has been told of a band

Made up of five brave souls

Who continued to play as the ship sank

Comforting the passengers as they took their last breaths

 

Isn't it poetic?

We come into this world with the music of our own tears streaming down our face

And some die the same way

With water all around them

But at least those tears might have been of joy

A Symphonic Stream of Musical Memories

Provided curetsy of the rooftop band

 

The history books were kind to those who chose to stay

Writing of their bravery and committment to their post

But what remains a mystery 

Is the song that was played

As the Titanic did its last Tango

 

Some insist it was a hymn

Others a popular melody

Which is to say music is what you make it

And although you may hear something different

It's really about what it makes you feel

 

Because to those who stayed

Music was worth dying for

And for those on the lifeboats

It was something they never knew

They needed

 

Although the Titanic sank in 1912

The story of the band floated on to be heard decades later

Because it takes an expert it name the parts of her design

But we can all

Sing

 

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1912: The Year my Heart Sank

 

They say a captain always goes down with his ship

But is the captain the person steering the ship

Or the person steering the people

Towards comfort and stablility and music

Away from the real danger of never learning how to dance

 

My name is Wallace Hartley

I played violin on the Titanic the day she went down

I'm writing this from the grave to let you know

That while your body may fade away

The music it made never will

 

I made the decision to stay

So that those last passengers would hear the sounds of Heaven

Before

They arrived at the gates

Trumpets playing forte 

 

Even decades later I remember the sound of the ship

Dancing in her steel-coated salsa dress

Waltzing with the waves

Like we used to do on her dance floor

 

The history books were kind to me

To tell my story as the man who stayed

But the history books do not remember what it was I played

I do

 

It wasn't a hymn

And it wasn't a popular melody

It was simply just

Music

 

Because although she sank

Her song is still sung

And the legacy of the Band who Stayed

My Legacy

Remains what you make it