There are many stories from the sinking of the Titanic, of which many were depicted in James Cameron’s movie, including that the band kept playing while the ship was sinking – and here’s the true story behind that famous scene. James Cameron has brought a variety of big-budget productions to the big screen, mostly from the sci-fi genre, and one of his most ambitious and successful projects is the disaster-drama Titanic, released in 1997, which was the most expensive movie ever made at the time and held the spot of the highest-grossing movie of all time for many years.
Cameron took the real-life sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912 as the basis to tell the story of two fictional passengers: Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) and Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio). Over the course of four days, Rose and Jack met, got to know each other quite well, and fell in love, but as they were from opposite social classes, their romance was heavily criticized, mostly by Rose’s fiancé, Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), and her mother, Ruth (Frances Fisher). Through Jack and Rose, Titanic introduced various characters based on real-life passengers of the infamous ship, and while some of them left a mark on the story, there are some who stole a couple of scenes without even being secondary characters, as was the case of the musicians.
The Titanic had eight musicians on board who traveled as second-class passengers and played during teatime, Sunday services, after-dinner concerts, and more. The band can be seen in different moments throughout Titanic, although briefly or in the background, but they were at the front and center of a couple of scenes during the sinking of the ship. The band was shown playing as passengers ran all over the place trying to get in one of the lifeboats, and this is one of a couple of historically accurate scenes in Titanic, though it’s unclear which was the last song they played.
The Titanic’s band, led by Wallace Hartley, started playing music to help calm the passengers after the ship hit an iceberg. The eight-member band assembled in the first-class lounge to play and later moved to the forward half of the boat deck, and they continued playing even after it became clear the ship was going to sink. However, it’s unclear which was their final song as there are different testimonies from surviving passengers. Many said that the band’s final song was “Nearer, My God, to Thee”, and this is further supported by Hartley reportedly saying to a friend that he would play that song if he was on a sinking ship. Other songs said to have been the band’s last are “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “In The Shadows”, and “Song d’Automne”, and to further complicate all this, there are different versions of some of these songs. One of the survivors, amateur historian Colonel Archibald Gracie, said the band played “cheerful” music but didn’t recognize any of the songs, but he would have noticed if they had played “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as he would have “regarded it as a tactless warning of immediate death” and “one likely to create panic”.
Unfortunately, all eight musicians died in the sinking of the Titanic, and only three bodies were recovered weeks later, among those Hartley’s. The Titanic’s band members were recognized for their heroism, with many survivors calling them brave and their music serving “alike as their own immortal requiem and their right to be recalled on the scrolls of undying fame”. James Cameron went with the stories that claim “Nearer, My God, to Thee” was the band’s final song, and used the Bethany version of it in Titanic. The band playing while the passengers tried to save themselves is one of the bravest stories from the tragedy of the Titanic, and it had to be added to Cameron’s movie.