Music: Tragedy Songs

A grim part of the U. S. songwriting industry has long been the swift jump to record great tragedies and the eager wait for the profits therefrom. A catalog of such news songs would include: The Wreck of the Old 97, The Death of Floyd Collins, The Hall-Mills Case, Little Marion Parker, The Wreck of the Shenandoah, The Sinking of the Vestris. Last month, day after Will Rogers and Wiley Post crashed in Alaska, Songwriter Freddie Rose (Red Hot Mamma) whipped out pieces on that disaster, passed them on to Ray Whitley, a onetime rancher who has a nasal voice, plays his own guitar accompaniments, affects a ten-gallon hat and spurs. Whitley sang the tragic songs for Decca Records. Inc., which last week reported a sale of over 5,000 copies. On one side of the disk was The Last Flight of Wiley Post. Excerpts:

A plane flew o’er Alaska
Above the ice and snow;
The engine started missing
The fog was hanging low.
It lit upon the water
With a mighty splash
And when it tried to rise again
There was an awful crash.

The natives saw what happened
And flashed the news ahead.
It was a sad, sad story;
That Wiley Post was dead.
He left this world a hero In search of greater things
To fly around that happy land
With a pair of wings.

On the other side was Will Rogers—Your Friend and My Friend. Excerpts:

The boys on the ranch are downhearted
‘Cause one of their pals passed away
And when I asked who had departed I heard a cowboy say:
Will Rogers was your friend and my friend;
I know he’ll be missed by us all.
He’s gone on a round-up to Heaven
To answer his Maker’s call.