241. Just Remember Pearl Harbor

 

241
Just Remember Pearl Harbor

One of several songs sent in September 1944 to Professor A. P.
Hudson, Chapel Hill, by Mrs. Katherine Thomas, a teacher in the
Durham High School for Negroes, who had been a member of one
of Professor Hudson's classes in the North Carolina College for
Negroes in the spring of 1943. Regarding the songs, Mrs. Thomas
stated: "I secured most of them from my students." Mrs. Thomas's
typewritten copy of the song looks as if it may be a copy of a
manuscript copy made by a pupil from memory. The representa-
tion of the word "tragedy" ("tra-gedy"), in 1. 10, suggests that the
original copyist may have remembered the representation of the
word in some sort of sheet music or broadside printing. The rest,
however, looks like transcription of a song that the writer knew bv

 

554 NORTH CAROLINA FOLKLORE

heart. The style of the song is reminiscent of 'The Titanic' (B
and C) and 'Strange Things Wuz Happening,' both of which may
have originated in Durham.

Wasn't that an awful time at Pearl Harbor?

What a time, what a time !

Wasn't that an awful time at Pearl Harbor?

What a time, what a time !

When the Japs came passing by.

Three thousand lost their lives.

Wasn't that an awful time at Pearl Harbor?

What a time, what a time !

Well, stop, great God, and listen to me,

I'm going to tell you about a tra-gedy.

Read your papers and read them well ;

You know the story that Pm going to tell.

One Sunday morning about seven o'clock.

They tell me Pearl Harbor did wheeled and rock.

The bombers came over and filled the sky ;

The nation got angry somebody had to die.

The enemies came in and had a feast,

And left so many hearts didn't agree.

The men didn't have time to repent ;

Their souls went rushing to judgment.

Just remember Pearl Harbor all the time, all the time.

When the Japs came passing by

Three thousand heroes lost their lives.

Just remember Pearl Harbor all the time, all the time.

Well, the ship was struck but they didn't blame.

Tell me the men called on God's name.

Crying, 'Oh, Saviour, don't pass me by !

Oh, Lord!' I heard him crying.

'Oh, Lord some [Son?] of David.'

Well, they call on God and they called Him loud.

Said, 'Lord, have mercy, don't let me by.'

They got in the Heaven, had a man to pass,

Like McArthur, chief of the staflf ;

Like old Moses in the days of old.

His heels start to galloping and stop him cold.

They got in the history, say we must win.

We ain't go'n' stop fighting until the end.