A Mighty Storm

As we all have heard by now another killer storm is in the Gulf of Mexico ready to destroy more former beachfront property. This one is headed towards Texas and Galveston in particular. This got me to thinking about folk music. Let me be the first to tell you about the big one that hit Galveston in 1900. It didn't have a name - it was too big and scary (Actually they just didn't name storms back then- but it was big)
Along with many train wrecks, mining disasters and senseless murders, the 1900 storm spawned a great folk song. It is so old that no one is sure who wrote it - its just noted as "Traditional". Tom Rush made it famous I gather, but Nanci Griffith made it famous to me. It's on her second album of folk songs "Other Voices, Too". If you don't know Nanci Griffith go out and buy her entire catalog immediately. Anyway think of this when you watch the inevitable scenes unfold over the next few days and don't say you weren't warned:

Wasn't that a Mighty Storm

Wasn't that a mighty storm

Wasn't that a mighty storm in the morning, well

Wasn't that a mighty storm

That blew all the people all away

You know the year of 1900

Children, many years ago

Death came howling on the ocean

Death calls, you got to go

Now Galveston had a seawall

To keep the water down,

and aHigh tide from the ocean

Spread the water over the town

You know the trumpets give them warning

You'd better leave this place

Now, no one thought of leaving'

til death stared them in the face

And the trains they all were loaded

The people were all leaving town

The trestle gave way to the water

And the trains they went on down

Rain it was a' falling

Thunder began to roll

Lightning flashed like hell fire

The wind began to blow

Death the cruel master

When the wind began to blow

Rode in on a team of horses

I cried, "Death, won't you let me go".

Hey, now trees fell on the island

And the houses give away

Some they strained and drowned

Some died in most every way

And the sea began to rolling

And the ships they could not stand

And I heard a captain crying

"God save a drowning man".

Death your hands are clammy

You got them on my knee

You come and took my mother

Won't you come back after me

And the flood it took my neighbor

Took my brother too

I thought I heard my father calling

And I watched my mother go

You know the year of 1900

Children, many years ago

Death came howling on the ocean

Death calls, you got to go