Roll Carpathia
Jake Nelson
This is sung to the tune of The Dreadnoughts' Roll Northumbria, and is about the RMS Carpathia, the first ship to respond to the Titanic's distress calls on the night of April 14, 1912. If you want to know more, check out this possibly-somewhat-embellished Tumblr post.
LYRICS
CHORUS
When she heard of Titanic's distress
None aboard her could bear to do less
Through the dark and the mist and the ice she did go
Roll on Carpathia
Roll Carpathia roll
‘Twas 1912 on the Atlantic's dark waves
Titanic was bound for an icy black grave
She called on the wireless, her souls for to save
Roll Carpathia roll
When Carpathia of the disaster heard tell
Her crew, they all knew they had no time to dwell
So they turned her north into the cold jaws of Hell
Roll Carpathia roll, me boys
Roll Carpathia roll
CHORUS
Well, good Captain Rostron, he called down below
Said “Push those damn engines as hard as they'll go
Let's stoke ‘em so hot that the Devil will know”
Roll Carpathia roll
She could do fourteen knots with a full head of steam
Any more and her boilers might split down the seam
But as she blazed through the night, boys, she cleared seventeen
Roll Carpathia roll, me boys
Roll Carpathia roll
CHORUS
‘Twas fifty-eight miles ‘cross the merciless sea
Dodging icebergs and floes, to the wreck she did flee
Four hours, they'd thought, but she made it in three
Roll Carpathia roll
Of mighty Titanic, she found there no sign
The great liner had long slipped away ‘neath the brine
But a few tiny lifeboats, their lights could divine
Roll Carpathia roll, me boys
Roll Carpathia roll
CHORUS
So Carpathia’s crew and her passengers all
They worked for the frigid black waters to trawl
And the shivering survivors aboard her to haul
Roll Carpathia roll
And when the dawn broke the full tally did stand
As they turned her about and set course for the land
Seven hundred and five snatched from Davy Jones’ hand
Roll Carpathia roll, me boys
Roll Carpathia roll
CHORUS
Then in 1918 her debt came due to pay
For all the doomed souls that she'd saved on that day
When three U-boat torpedoes did blow her away
Roll Carpathia roll
As she slipped far below in the ocean to sleep
Old Davy Jones finally took her to reap
She joined the Titanic way down in the deep
Roll Carpathia roll, me boys
Roll Carpathia roll
CHORUS x2