Tom Rowe 1985
The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston killed 21 and injured 150. Molasses was made into alcohol but also munitions, and was sent from this harbor storage tank to a processing plant in Cambridge by a pipeline. The company may have been racing against Prohibition, which was passed the following day and effective one year later. The 50ft tall tank had leaked since being built 4 yrs earlier, and multiple components were too weak even by the standards of the time. Fermentation in the tank may have increased the pressure, as did a rapid increase in temperature caused by warm January weather and by a new shipment filling up the tank. 13,000 tons of molasses burst from a storage tank and flowed at 35 mph through the streets.
Oh, the African man cuts the sugar cane Oh, molasses! He works in the sun and he works in the rain Oh, molasses rum! Then he loads it up on a wooden ship and he sends it off on a northern trip Chorus Singing, oh molasses, oh molasses rum Oh, molasses Old New England tea It killed my grandpa, killed my pa And it sure as Hell is killing me Singing, oh molasses, oh molasses rum When they fought the war for the colonies? They fought it over New England tea? When Old King George put a tax on it the colonies nearly took a fit? In the time of the 1917 war Molasses sitting on the Boston shore When they pumped it in it was twelve degrees, a long cold night in a Boston freeze In the morning it was 42 Molasses vat split clean in two Two million gallons covered the bay, 26 people drowned in the flood that day My grandpa he died cutting cane My pa went down in the great brown rain But I won’t go in a pool of blood, no I won’t drown in a black-strap flood Still, I’ll go down to molasses, oh molasses rum