SINK THE BISMARCK
“Sink the Bismarck” is a march song by country music singer Johnny Horton and songwriter Tillman Franks, based on the pursuit and eventual sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941, during World War II. Horton released this song in 1960, when it reached #3 on the charts. It was inspired by the 1960 movie Sink the Bismarck! and was in fact commissioned from Johnny Horton by 20th Century Fox who were worried about the subject’s relative obscurity. While the song was used in U.S. theater trailers for the film, it was not used in the film itself. (More from Wikipedia)
Country music and rockabilly artist Johnny Horton had a good streak of his own going with several “historical ballads”, beginning with “The Battle of New Orleans” in 1959; the song won the 1960 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. Horton continuing the following year with two more hits, “Sink the Bismarck” and “North to Alaska” (the latter being the theme song for the John Wayne movie called North to Alaska). There is no telling how much further Horton might have been able to take this craze had it not been for his tragic death in November 1960.
(March 2013)
