Eighty-five years after the fateful voyage of the Titanic and a month before James Cameron’s epic period drama cruises into megaplexes around the world, one vexing question remains unresolved.
What was the last song played by the White Star Orchestra while passengers prepared to meet their maker?
Legend has it the band stoically played the hymn “Nearer My God to Thee,” as the Titanic’s damaged hold filled with frigid sea water. Newspapers of the time reported the eight brave musicians held on until the bitter end, and Hollywood–which has told the tale several times already, with varying degrees of accuracy–has seen no good reason to dispute these accounts.
Noted musician, historian and writer Ian Whitcomb begs to differ.
While agreeing that the going-down-with-the-ship angle makes an irresistible story, the British-born musicologist believes the musicians played their last encore well before the Titanic sank. The damaged vessel, he argues, would have been vertical for some period of time and, by then, the players would have concluded their concert with a different, if equally haunting melody.
“A woman on board one of the first lifeboats out said they were playing `Nearer My God to Thee’ and, of course, the newspapers picked up on that,” explained Whitcomb, sitting in the lushly planted backyard of his foothills home. “Well, I’m saying she was mistaken. Harold Bride, a Marconi wire operator on board the ship, came to New York a few days after being rescued and said they were playing `Autumn,’ and others have said that, too.
“We’re pretty certain that Bride was referring to a popular waltz of the time, `Songe d’Automne,’ by Archibald Joyce. Indeed, historian Walter Lord also says this in his book `The Night Lives On: New Thoughts and Revelations About the Titanic.’ “
White Star bandmaster Wallace Hartley knew the hymn, but, when asked earlier what he would play in the event of a calamity, he reportedly said, “Lively stuff, of course. None of your hymns, although I love them. My favorite is `Nearer My God to Thee’–but I’m keeping that one reserved for my funeral.”
In fact, all of the band members perished in the disaster. Hartley’s body was recovered with his violin case strapped to his chest.
Nonetheless, audiences for the $200-million “Titanic” will witness the time-honored version of the tragedy.
“Our position is that the last song was `Nearer My God to Thee,’ ” declared Randy Gerston, music supervisor for the movie. “We understand what Ian’s saying–that it was `Songe d’Automne (Dream of Autumn)’–but the controversy has always been there. Our research led us to believe `Nearer My God to Thee’ was one of Hartley’s favorite songs. We feel it would be the one he played.
“Our story says that the musicians didn’t panic like everybody else. They considered this to be their unfortunate fate and they were going to do what they do until they couldn’t do it anymore.”
This “Titanic” is no stranger to controversy.
Originally scheduled to launch by July 4, the fabulously ambitious project was forced to change course after filmmakers missed the deadline to complete intricate special-effects work. Rather than rush `Titanic’ into release upon completion, it made more sense to hold the movie until the Christmas blockbuster season.
By this time, however, Whitcomb and Rhino records had set sail on their own Titanic project, and it was too late to turn back to port. Already in stores when “Titanic” was postponed was a 24-song CD, “Titanic: Music as Heard on the Fateful Voyage”–as performed by Whitcomb’s L.A.-based White Star Orchestra–and a print companion of sheet music and other memorabilia, “The Titanic Songbook” (Mel Bay, $19.95).
“Originally, we wanted our release to coincide with the feature film,” reports Julie D’Angelo, coordinator for the project at Rhino. “But it’s been released in 11 countries and is doing well, considering Titanic fever hasn’t really struck yet.”
Maybe not, but already this year we’ve been treated to a popular Broadway musical based on the tragedy, as well as a TV movie-of-the-week and a cookbook that describes the last meals served to passengers.
Whitcomb’s name might be familiar as the author of the foot-tapping ’60s hit “You Turn Me On,” as well as the less-known “This Sporting Life” and “Where Did Robinson Crusoe Go With Friday on Saturday Night?” Since moving to these shores after the British invasion–he toured with the Rolling Stones, among other groups–the amiable 56-year-old musicologist has hosted NPR’s “The Ian Whitcomb Show,” written books about vintage music and pop culture, and produced albums of film-noir themes, Al Jolson songs and ukulele music for Rhino.
He says he’s been fascinated by the disaster, ever since he was told his grandfather had booked passage–then canceled his ticket–on the Titanic. But, even as a lad, he was drawn more to the music than the hubris that played out on April 14, 1912, when “the unsinkable collided with the unthinkable,” providing the “first lesson” of the 20th Century.
“More and more, as I’d gotten out of rock ‘n’ roll and began recording older music, I became intrigued by this Titanic band and what they were playing,” explained Whitcomb, who started a kazoo band in boarding school and introduced American R&B to students of Ireland’s Trinity College in the early ’60s. “The year, 1912, also intrigued me, because it’s right at the end of the Edwardian era and you had a terrific mixture of music in England–from wonderful European operatic tunes to American ragtime.”
Recently, Whitcomb played a BBC news anchor in “Contact” and did voices in a Disney cartoon based on “A Christmas Carol.” After hearing about Cameron’s “Titanic,” he auditioned twice for the role of bandmaster.
He didn’t get the part, but was asked to share his knowledge on period music with Gerston and Cameron, who returned the favor by giving Whitcomb a White Star songbook.
“We wanted an authentic period movie and, two years ago, we started doing research on what songs could have really been played that night,” Gerston said, in a phone interview. “We located the original playlist–over 350 songs approved by the cruise company–which was given to all the White Star ships’ orchestras that year.”
A soundtrack album, which highlights the James Horner score and a new Celine Dion song, will be released by Sony prior to the movie’s debut. A collection of 35 period songs–performed by the Swiss string sextette, I Salonisti–will coincide with the release of “Titanic” on video.
Meanwhile, Whitcomb’s project continues to take advantage of the hype surrounding the picture. The Rhino package includes historic photos, anecdotes and a touching personal essay.
“Most of those pictures come from the Huntington Library, where I’ve worked since the ’70s and have a desk,” said Whitcomb. “They have everything in that place, and the first thing I found was the postcard that’s on the cover, which was postmarked on April 15, 1912. I also found sheet music, newspaper articles and books.”
The songbook he received from Gerston contained a list of tunes that was given out to first- and second-class passengers. They could request songs already memorized by the musicians by number, which is how songs became known as “numbers.”
The selections included such enduring hits as “Glow-Worm,” “Oh, You Beautiful Doll,” “The Merry Widow Waltz,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “Shine on Harvest Moon” and “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee,” as well as “Songe d’Automne.”
“With all these titles, the songbook and the testimony of survivors, I had enough material for first and second class,” Whitcomb said. “The next question was, `What did they play in third class?’ Most of the 1,500 casualties were in the steerage class. We know they had two pianos there, and I just suppose they had some sort of sing-along.
“The only fanciful thing on the record is that I made up a group called the Musical Murrays and pretended they were an American vaudeville group that had scraped up enough money to go back to America in steerage.”
Whitcomb’s White Star Orchestra already has performed to a packed house at the Huntington Library and in a San Francisco nightclub, which recreated the Titanic’s first-class lounge and last meal served on the ship.
Whitcomb feels the musicians were heroic and deserve more than a footnote in history. Their families were never compensated, and, in fact, were billed for lost uniforms.
“Their whole job was to play very quietly–hidden behind the palm trees–so people could talk and eat,” he said. “They would split off in groups and stroll around the ship. They never played all together, except at the end when the ship was sinking.
“We think, from the evidence of survivors, that the band left about an hour before the ship went down. It took about 2 1/2 hours for the ship to go down, so they played for 1 1/2 hours.”
