Sloop John B

Sloop John B

by | Mar 11, 2017

Songs of the Sea & Fo’castle

The Sloop John B

The American Folk Experience

The Sloop John B

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

~Traditional 

We came on the sloop John B
My grandfather and me
‘Round Nassau town we did roam.
Drinking all night,
Had many a fight.
Oh, I feel so broke up, I wanna go home.

So hoist up the John B. sails,
And scrub down all of the rails
Send for the captain ashore, take me back home.
I want to go home,
Oh, take me back home.
I feel so broke up:
I want to go home.

The first mate he got drunk, –
He broke open my trunk
Poor seasick me all over the foam,
Oceans are grand,
Just give me the land
I feel so broke up, I wanna go home. 

Our cook he got the fits –
He ate up all of my grits
Then he took and ate up all of my corn.
A terrible trip –
On a terrible ship, oh yea
I feel so broke up, I wanna go home. 

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share this scholarly research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite sources accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  

Thanks!

 

Source: Wikipedia

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The John B. Sails
Traditional song
Nassau Harbor after 1877, Albert Bierstadt, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco
Other name
  • I Want to Go Home
  • Wreck of the John B.
  • Sloop John B
  • Hoist Up The John B Sails
StyleFolk
LanguageEnglish
Published1916

"Sloop John B" (originally published as "The John B. Sails") is a Bahamian folk song from Nassau. A transcription was published in 1916 by Richard Le Gallienne, and Carl Sandburg included a version in his The American Songbag in 1927. There have been many recordings of the song since the early 1950s, with variant titles including "I Want to Go Home" and "Wreck of the John B".

In 1966, American rock band the Beach Boys recorded a folk rock adaptation that was produced and arranged by Brian Wilson and released as the second single from their album Pet Sounds. The record peaked at number three in the U.S., number two in the UK, and topped the charts in several other countries. It was innovative for containing an elaborate a cappella vocal section not found in other pop music of the era, and it remains one of the group's biggest hits.[1]

In 2011, the Beach Boys' version of "Sloop John B" was ranked number 276 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[2]

Earliest publications

"The John B. Sails" was transcribed by Richard Le Gallienne, with five verses and the chorus published in his article "Coral Islands and Mangrove-Trees" in the December 1916 issue of Harper’s Monthly Magazine.[3] Gallienne published the first two verses and chorus in his 1917 novel Pieces of Eight.[4] The lyrics describe a disastrous voyage on a sloop, with the vessel plagued by drunkenness and arrests and a pig eating the narrator's food.

Carl Sandburg included the first three verses and chorus of "The John B. Sails" in his 1927 collection The American Songbag. He states that he collected it from John T. McCutcheon, a political cartoonist from Chicago. McCutcheon told him:

"The John B. Sails" (3:25)
Banjo/vocal performance of the song.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau. The weathered ribs of the historic craft lie imbedded in the sand at Governor's Harbor, whence an expedition, especially sent up for the purpose in 1926, extracted a knee of horseflesh and a ring-bolt. These relics are now preserved and built into the Watch Tower, designed by Mr. Howard Shaw and built on our southern coast a couple of points east by north of the star Canopus.

The Beach Boys version

"Sloop John B"
U.S. picture sleeve
Single by the Beach Boys
from the album Pet Sounds
B-side"You're So Good to Me"
ReleasedMarch 21, 1966 (US)
April 15, 1966 (UK)
RecordedJuly 12 (12-07) – December 29, 1965 (1965-12-29)
StudioUnited Western Recorders, Hollywood
Genre
Length2:59
LabelCapitol
Songwriter(s)Traditional, arranged by Brian Wilson
Producer(s)Brian Wilson
The Beach Boys singles chronology
"Barbara Ann"
(1965) 		"Sloop John B"
(1966) 		"Wouldn't It Be Nice"
(1966)
Music video
"Sloop John B" on YouTube
Audio sample

Arrangement

The Kingston Trio's 1958 recording of "The John B. Sails" was recorded under the title "The Wreck of the John B."[10] It was the direct influence on the Beach Boys' version. The Beach Boys' Al Jardine was a keen folk music fan, and he suggested to Brian Wilson that the Beach Boys should record the song. As Jardine explains:

Brian was at the piano. I asked him if I could sit down and show him something. I laid out the chord pattern for 'Sloop John B.' I said, 'Remember this song?' I played it. He said, 'I'm not a big fan of the Kingston Trio.' He wasn't into folk music. But I didn't give up on the idea. So what I did was to sit down and play it for him in the Beach Boys idiom. I figured if I gave it to him in the right light, he might end up believing in it. So I modified the chord changes so it would be a little more interesting. The original song is basically a three-chord song, and I knew that wouldn't fly.

Jardine updated the chord progression by having the subdominant (D♭ major) move to its relative minor (B♭ minor) before returning to the tonic (A♭ major), thus altering a portion of the song's progression from IV — I to IV — ii — I. This device is heard immediately after the lyric "into a fight" and "leave me alone".

So I put some minor changes in there, and it stretched out the possibilities from a vocal point of view. Anyway, I played it, walked away from the piano and we went back to work. The very next day, I got a phone call to come down to the studio. Brian played the song for me, and I was blown away. The idea stage to the completed track took less than 24 hours.[11]

Wilson elected to change some lyrics: "this is the worst trip since I've been born" to "this is the worst trip I've ever been on", "I feel so break up" to "I feel so broke up", and "broke up the people's trunk" to "broke in the captain's trunk". The first lyric change has been suggested by some to be a subtle nod to the 1960s psychedelia subculture.[2][12][13]

Recording

The instrumental section of the song was recorded on July 12, 1965, at United Western Recorders, Hollywood, California, the session being engineered by Chuck Britz and produced by Brian Wilson. The master take of the instrumental backing took fourteen takes to achieve. Wilson's arrangement blended rock and marching band instrumentation with the use of flutes, glockenspiel, bass saxophone, bass, guitar, and drums.[14]

The vocal tracks were recorded over two sessions. The first was recorded on December 22, 1965, at Western Recorders, produced by Wilson. The second, on December 29, added a new lead vocal and Billy Strange's 12-string electric guitar part. Jardine explained that Wilson "lined us up one at a time to try out for the lead vocal. I had naturally assumed I would sing the lead, since I had brought in the arrangement. It was like interviewing for a job. Pretty funny. He didn't like any of us. My vocal had a much more mellow approach because I was bringing it from the folk idiom. For the radio, we needed a more rock approach. Wilson and Mike [Love] ended up singing it."[15] On the final recording, Brian Wilson sang the first and third verses and Mike Love sang the second.

Kent Hartman, in his book The Wrecking Crew, described Billy Strange's contribution to the song. Brian Wilson called Strange into the studio one Sunday, played him the rough recording, and told him he needed an electric twelve-string guitar solo in the middle of the track. When Strange replied that he did not own a twelve string, Wilson responded by calling Glenn Wallichs, the head of Capitol Records and owner of Wallichs Music City. A Fender Electric XII and Twin Reverb amplifier were quickly delivered (despite the shop they were ordered from being closed on Sundays), and Strange recorded the guitar part in one take. Wilson then gave Strange $2,000 to cover the cost of the equipment.[16]

Single release

A music video set to "Sloop John B" was filmed for the UK's Top of the Pops, directed by newly employed band publicist Derek Taylor. It was filmed at Brian's Laurel Way home with Dennis Wilson acting as cameraman.[17]

The single, backed with the song "You're So Good to Me", was released on March 21, 1966. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on April 2, and peaked at No. 3 on May 7, remaining on the chart, in total, for 11 weeks. It charted highly throughout the world, remaining as one of the Beach Boys' most popular and memorable hits. It was No. 1 in Germany, Austria, and Norway—all for five weeks each—as well as Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, South Africa, and New Zealand. It placed No. 2 in the UK, Ireland (where it was the group's highest charting single), Canada, and in Record World. It was the fastest Beach Boys seller to date, moving more than half a million copies in less than two weeks after release.[18] It had a three-week stay at number 1 in the Netherlands, making it the "Hit of the Year".[19]

Cash Box described the single as a "topflight adaptation" that treats "the folk oldie in a rhythmic, effectively-building warm-hearted rousing style."[20] Record World said that "The Beach Boys have taken a tune from the folk books and given it an intriguing rock backing."[21]

Other releases

In 1968, the recording's instrumental was released on Stack-O-Tracks. Along with sessions highlights, the box set The Pet Sounds Sessions includes two alternate takes, one with Carl Wilson singing lead on the first verse, and one with Brian singing all parts.[citation needed]

In 2011, the song was sung by Fisherman's Friends at Cambridge Folk Festival.[22] and released on Suck'em and Sea.[23] It was featured in the compilation album Cambridge Folk Festival 2011 [24] In 2016, to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Pet Sounds, Brian Wilson and his touring band (including Al Jardine) performed Sloop John B live at Capitol Studios.[25]

In 2021, another UK based group, Isle 'Ave A Shanty sang the song at the 2021 Harwich Sea Shanty Festival and included the song on their 2022 debut album Swinging the Lamp.[26][27]

Personnel

Per band archivist Craig Slowinski.[28]

The Beach Boys

Additional musicians and production staff

In popular culture

  • In many Jewish communities, the Shabbat table song "D'ror Yikra" is sometimes sung to the tune of "Sloop John B" because of its similar meter.[29]

English football

It has been popular amongst English football fans since the mid-2000s when Liverpool adapted the song to sing about their 2005 Champions League final triumph in Istanbul.[citation needed] It was subsequently adopted by the supporters of English non-league team F.C. United of Manchester as a club anthem in 2007.[30][31]

Since then more high-profile teams have followed suit, usually with different lyrics for their own teams, including Watford, with Newcastle, Blackpool, Middlesbrough and Hull also adopting the song as their own. It was sung by Phil Brown, the manager of Hull City FC, shortly after Hull had avoided relegation from the Premier League in 2009.[citation needed]

Scottish football

The melody of "Sloop John B" has been used as the basis for the "Famine Song", a sectarian anti-Irish Catholic song which refers to Irish migration to Great Britain in the context of the Great Irish Famine and contains the line "the famine's over, why don't you go home?". The song has been sung by fans of Rangers F.C. in reference to rival club Celtic F.C., which was established by Irish Catholic migrants in Glasgow and retains a large Irish supporter base.[32][33] The song was first sung publicly by Rangers fans at a match at Celtic Park in April 2008.[34] Rangers have repeatedly asked their fans not to sing the song. In 2009 Scotland's Justiciary Appeal Court ruled that the song was racist, with judge Lord Carloway stating that its lyrics "are racist in calling upon people native to Scotland to leave the country because of their racial origins".[33]

List of recordings

All versions titled "Sloop John B", except where noted.

1950s

1960s

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s

  • 2022 - Isle 'Ave a Shanty - Swinging the Lamp album.[42]

Chart history

References

  1. ^ Moskowitz 2015, p. 43.
  2. ^ a b "Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time". Rolling Stone. April 7, 2011.
  3. ^ Richard Le Gallienne (December 1916). "Coral Islands and Mangrove-Trees". Harper's Monthly Magazine. 134 (799): 82–83.
  4. ^ Le Gallienne, Pieces of Eight, p. 30
  5. ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Great Moments in Folk Rock: Lists of Aunthor Favorites". www.richieunterberger.com. Retrieved 2011-01-26.
  6. ^ Scullati, Gene (September 1968). "Villains and Heroes: In Defense of the Beach Boys". Jazz & Pop. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 10 July 2014.
  7. ^ Perlmutter, Adam (May 9, 2016). "'Sloop John B' Has Seen a Sea Change Throughout the Years". Acoustic Guitar.
  8. ^ Breihan, Tom (November 15, 2022). "The Beach Boys - "Good Vibrations". The Number Ones: Twenty Chart-Topping Hits That Reveal the History of Pop Music. New York: Hachette Book Group. p. 90.
  9. ^ "Before TikTok Inspired a Rising Tide for Sea Shanties, the Beach Boys Charted One of Their Own". 16 January 2021.
  10. ^ Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 18 - Blowin' in the Wind: Pop discovers folk music. [Part 1]" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries.
  11. ^ The Pet Sounds Sessions: "The Making Of Pet Sounds" booklet, pg. 25-26
  12. ^ Matthew, Jacobs (April 16, 2013). "LSD's 70th Anniversary: 10 Rock Lyrics From The 1960s That Pay Homage To Acid". Huffington Post.
  13. ^ Mojo Staff (April 24, 2015). "The Beach Boys' 50 Greatest Songs". MOJO.
  14. ^ Granata, Charles L. (2003). Wouldn't it Be Nice: Brian Wilson and the Making of the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds. Chicago Review Press. p. 149. ISBN 978-1-55652-507-0.
  15. ^ The Pet Sounds Sessions: "The Making Of Pet Sounds" booklet, pg. 26
  16. ^ Hartman, Kent (2012). The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll's Best Kept Secret. Thomas Dunne. pp. 149–151. ISBN 9780312619749. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  17. ^ *Badman, Keith (2004). The Beach Boys: The Definitive Diary of America's Greatest Band, on Stage and in the Studio. Backbeat Books. pp. 130–31. ISBN 978-0-87930-818-6.
  18. ^ Murrels, Joseph (1978). The Book of Golden Disks. Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 978-0214205125.
  19. ^ "The Beach Boys – Sloop John B". Single Top 100. Retrieved July 29, 2017.
  20. ^ "CashBox Record Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. March 26, 1966. p. 18. Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  21. ^ "Single Picks of the Week" (PDF). Record World. March 26, 1966. p. 1. Retrieved 2023-07-17.
  22. ^ "Fisherman's Friends". www.setlist.fm. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  23. ^ "Sloop John B". www.last.fm. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  24. ^ "Cambridge Folk Festival". www.propermusic.com. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  25. ^ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "Brian Wilson & Al Jardine - Sloop John B (Official Video)". YouTube.
  26. ^ Monger, Garry (2022). "The Port of Wisbech". The Fens (51): 20.
  27. ^ "Swinging the Lamp". www.isleaveashanty. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
  28. ^ Slowinski, Craig. "Pet Sounds LP". beachboysarchives.com. Endless Summer Quarterly. Retrieved September 24, 2018.
  29. ^ Alt Miller, Yvette (2011). Angels at the Table: A Practical Guide to Celebrating Shabbat. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 274. ISBN 978-1441-12397-8. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
  30. ^ Conn, David (May 9, 2007). "FC United rise and shine on a sense of community". The Guardian. London.
  31. ^ FC United of Manchester - Sloop John B Retrieved 09-21-11
  32. ^ Gray, Lisa (17 October 2008). "Reid refers 'racist' Rangers song to police". independent.co.uk. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
  33. ^ a b Williams, Martin (30 August 2021). "Charities condemn 'racist anti-Irish' march before Rangers v Celtic game". HeraldScotland.com. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
  34. ^ Bradley, Joseph M. (2013). "When the Past Meets the Present: The Great Irish Famine and Scottish Football". Éire-Ireland. 48 (1–2): 230–245. doi:10.1353/eir.2013.0002. S2CID 162271495. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
  35. ^ "Original versions of (The Wreck of the) John B by the Weavers | SecondHandSongs". SecondHandSongs.
  36. ^ "Lonnie Donegan". The Official Charts Company.
  37. ^ "Jimmie Rodgers". Billboard.
  38. ^ "CHUM Hit Parade - September 12, 1960".
  39. ^ "RPM Magazine - May 16, 1966 - page 5" (PDF).
  40. ^ "History of the Original Boy Band". www.londonwelshmvc.org. Retrieved 24 October 2023.
  41. ^ "Suck'em and Sea". www.last.fm. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  42. ^ "Isle 'Ave a Shanty". www.elyfolkfestival.co.uk. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  43. ^ "The Beach Boys – Sloop John B" (in German). Ö3 Austria Top 40.
  44. ^ "The Beach Boys – Sloop John B" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50.
  45. ^ "The Beach Boys – Sloop John B" (in French). Ultratop 50.
  46. ^ "RPM Top 100 Singles - May 16, 1966" (PDF).
  47. ^ Nyman, Jake (2005). Suomi soi 4: Suuri suomalainen listakirja (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Tammi. p. 96. ISBN 951-31-2503-3.
  48. ^ "The Beach Boys – Sloop John B" (in German). GfK Entertainment charts.
  49. ^ "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Sloop John B". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved July 11, 2017.
  50. ^ "The Beach Boys – Sloop John B" (in Dutch). Single Top 100.
  51. ^ "The Beach Boys – Sloop John B". VG-lista.
  52. ^ "SA Charts 1965–March 1989". Retrieved 5 September 2018.
  53. ^ "The Official Charts Company - God Only Knows by The Beach Boys Search". The Official Charts Company. 4 April 2014.
  54. ^ "The Beach Boys Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard.
  55. ^ "Cash Box Top 100 Singles, May 14, 1966". Archived from the original on May 30, 2015. Retrieved December 29, 2018.
  56. ^ The 100 Best-Selling Singles of 1966
  57. ^ Musicoutfitters.com
  58. ^ "Cash Box Year-End Charts: Top 100 Pop Singles, December 24, 1966". Archived from the original on February 17, 2017. Retrieved December 29, 2018.

External links

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_John_B._Sails

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Johnny Cash sings The Sloop John B…

The now classic version by The Beach Boys…

 

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The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

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by | February 11, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Do not mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself~BuddhaLast night you were so lucky. You didn't have to worry about your grumpy, tired teacher going through hours of journals ands doling out poor grades for what I am sure qualifies for good efforts...
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No Dad To Come Home To

by | August 12, 2014 | Dawghouse, Songs | 0 Comments

Rain’s falling outside of Boston—
Thank God I’m not working tonight.
I’ve got six of my own,
And a stepdaughter at home,
And a momma keeping things right.
I wonder if they’re at the table
With their puzzles, their papers and pens?
When I get off the highway
And pull in that driveway,
Will they run to the window again?

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The Old Tote Road

by | July 25, 2019 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

I clabber down the old tote road towards the red pine forest, leaning on my staff, skirting boulder-strewn ruts and small gullies carved out by two days of heavy rain. It is only a mile or so from our cabin, still, my wife makes me wear a pouch with an iPhone and an...
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Last of the Boys

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

Come on over here
and I’ll buy the next round:
cold beer and some shooters
for the boys on the town;
Darby ain’t drinkin’
so let’s live it up
‘cause he’ll drive us all home
in his company truck

Jesus Christ, Jimmy,
man you say that you’re well;
I say we drive into Boston
and stir up some hell;
put a cap on the weekend,
a stitch in the night,
watch the Pats play on Sunday
and the welterweight fight.

That’s all she wrote boys,
there ain’t any more;
that’s why we’re standing here;
that’s what it’s for.
That’s why we all go on working all day
busting our ass for short pay:
~Hey…

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Make Something out of Something

by | February 26, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

It's hard to make chicken salad out of chicken manure      Dirty hands are a good sign, so hopefully, you got some mental mud on your hands and created some content to work with today.  To a starving man, any food is good food--unless it...
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Why Trump Is Not Flipping Me Out

by | March 18, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

I wonder why Trump is not flipping me out? I wonder if there is some bigoted, ignorant and right-wing element that lurks inside this folk-singing, poem writing, neo-socialist shell of mine. Maybe it is not that hard for me to make the empathetic reach to feel at least...
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Rainmaker

by | August 28, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

I loved the rain last night. Last week, in a bow to reality, I reclaimed my gardens and made them into yard. Four of my kids got poison ivy in the process and I (and more "they") got an extra ten feet of width to add to the soccer field--for really that is about the...
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Essex Bay

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

This house makes funny noises
When the wind begins to blow.
I should have held on and never let you go.
The wind blew loose the drainpipe.
You can hear the melting snow.
I’ll fix it in the morning when I go.
I’ll fix it in the morning when I go.

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Supermoon

by | August 10, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

Last night the August supermoon reminded me of the fickleness of time and how substance becomes shadow and memories begin to etch themselves immutably into the hardness of what is already lost.
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Grandma’s Words

by | April 24, 2018 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

In the beginning was the word... ~Genesis       We do not live in Grandma’s world of words, and neither did grandma live in her grandma’s world of words and on and on and so on in a downwards devolution through untold millennia. From primal grunts, whistles and...
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Welcome

by | August 12, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land... ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden I’ve...
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Guns, Me, and Rural America

by | February 27, 2018 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

     Sometimes I start writing without knowing where I stand—unsure of even where I stand. I have to trust some innate wisdom or audacity will cull through the bullshit we are all heir to in what Hamlet laments is “this earthly coil” we are forced to face when we wake...
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The Nagging Thing

by | November 19, 2015 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Not many more nights like this, warm enough to sit outside on the back porch. The kids and Denise long asleep. Usually, during the school year, this is my "time" to catch up on schoolwork--grading, posting the assignments for the week and playing the general catchup...
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The Small Potato

by | October 17, 2014 | Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Maybe there is a God. I just came home and sat down in the kitchen to grade some papers and input some grades, but the internet is buggy and slow, and I thought, "maybe this is the message" that I am trading my soul for work. I even remember myself  pontificating in...
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The Blathering of Teachers

by | March 4, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities  as you do at conclusions. ~Benjamin Franklin             Maybe we are born more to ignore than to listen. I understand too well how easy it is to ignore the blatherings of teachers. I was a master of it once myself, so why...
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The Most Unoriginal Teacher

by | February 5, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Yes, that's me. I am a fraudster, thief, and plagiarizer of the worst magnitude. I copy the very styles of classic poets; I steal from Noble Laureate novelists, and I copy words from every and any source I can. And even worse, I steal from myself. If you even dare to...
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Thanksgiving

by | November 28, 2013 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

I am surprised sometimes by the suddenness of November: beauty abruptly shed to a common nakedness— grasses deadened by hoarfrost, persistent memories of people I’ve lost. It is left to those of us dressed in the hard barky skin of experience to insist on a decorum...
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Contact John Fitzsimmons...and thanks!

The Flying Cloud

The Flying Cloud

by | Mar 11, 2017

Songs of the Sea & Fo’castle

The Flying Cloud

The American Folk Experience

The Flying Cloud

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

~Traditional

My name is William Hollander, as you will understand
I was born in the County of Waterford, in Erin’s lovely land,
When I was young and in my prime, a beauty on me shone,
And my parents doted upon me, I being their only son.

My father bound me to a trade in Waterford’s fair town,
He bound me to a cooper there by the name of William Brown.
I served my master faithfully for seven long years or more
Till I shipped aboard The Ocean Queen belonging to Tramore.

And soon we reached Bermuda’s isle where I met with Captain Moore,
The commander of the Flying Cloud from out of Baltimore,
He asked me if I’d ship with him on a slaving voyage to go,
To the burning shores of Africa, where the sugar cane does grow.

It was after some weeks of sailing we arrived off Africa’s shore,
Five hundred of them poor slaves, me boys, from their native land we bore.
We marched them up upon a plank and stowed them down below,
Scarce eighteen inches to a man was all they had to go.

Then the plague and the fever came on board, swapped half of them away.
We dragged their bodies up on deck and hove them in the sea,
It was better for the rest of them if they had died below
Than to work beneath the cruel planters in Cuba for evermore.

For it was after some stormy weather, boys, we arrived off Cuba shore
And we sold them to the planters there to be slaves for evermore,
For the rice and coffee seed to sow beneath the brilliant sun
And to lead a lone and wretched life till their career was run.

Well it’s now our money is all spent, we must go to sea again,
When Captain Moore comes on the deck and says unto us men,
“There’s gold and silver to be had if with me you’ll remain,
We’ll hoist the pirate flag aloft and scour the Spanish Main.”

We all agreed but three young men who were told us then to land.
Two of them were Boston boys, the other from New Foundland,
But I wish to God I joined those men and went with them on shore
Than to lead a wild and reckless life serving under a Captain Moore.

The Flying Cloud was a Yankee ship, five hundred tons or more,
She could outsail any clipper ship hailing out of Baltimore,
With her canvas white as the driven snow and on it there’s no specks,
And forty men and fourteen guns she carried below her decks.

For we sacked and plundered many a ship down upon the Spanish Main,
Caused many a widow and orphan in sorrow to remain.
To the crews we gave no quarter but gave them watery graves,
For the saying of our captain was: “Dead men will tell no tales.”

And pursued we were by many a ship, by frigates and liners too,
Till at last, the British man-o-war, the Dungeness, hove in view,
She fired a shot across our bows as we sailed before the wind,
Till a chain-shot cut our mainmast down and we fell far behind.

How our crew they beat to quarters as they ranged up alongside,
Soon across our quarter-deck there ran a crimson tide.
We fought till Captain Moore was killed and fifteen of our men,
till a bombshell set our ship on fire, we had to surrender then.

So it’s now to Newgate we were brought, bound down in iron chains,
For the sinking and the plundering of ships on the Spanish Main.
The judge he found us guilty, we were condemned to die.
Oh young men, a warning by me take, lead not such a life as I.

So it’s fare you well, old Waterford and the girl I do adore,
I’ll never kiss your cheek again, I’ll squeeze your hand no more,
Oh whiskey and bad company first made a wretch of me,
Oh young men, a warning by me take and shun all piracy.

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share this scholarly research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite sources accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  

Thanks!

 

Source: Mainly Norfolk

The Flying Cloud

[ Roud 1802 ; Laws K28 ; G/D 1:44 ; Ballad Index LK28 ; trad.]

Ewan MacColl sang The Flying Cloud in 1956 on his and A.L. Lloyd’s Topic LP The Singing Sailor; this track was also included six years later on their American LP on the Stinson label, Haul on the Bowlin’ and in 2004 on the anthology CD Sailors’ Songs & Sea Shanties.

Louis Killen recorded The Flying Cloud in 1965 for his Topic album Ballads & Broadsides. This recording was also included in 1993 on the Topic compilation CD Blow the Man Down. Angela Carter commented in the liner notes of Killen’s album:

There was nothing of the rakish, jolly, romantic pirate of pantomime and nursery lore about the real lives of the brutal criminals of the high seas who flourished in the early nineteenth century and before. Despite its beautiful name, The Flying Cloud was such a pirate vessel, if not in reality—for no records has come to light of a pirate ship called The Flying Cloud—then in the imagination of scores of traditional singers. This harsh and violent ballad, cast in the form of a confession from the gallows, depicts the worst of piracy on the Atlantic and the Caribbean in the early 1800s, when piracy and the slave trade often went hand in bloody had. Doerflinger (Shantymen and Shantyboys, New York, 1951) suggests the ballad-makers were originally inspired by a pamphlet, The Dying Declaration of Nicholas Fernandez, the purported confession of a notorious pirate on the eve of his execution in 1829—curiously enough, published as a temperance tract. The song is widely known in North America as well as in Britain. In Nova Scotia, the collector Elizabeth Greenleaf observed the tremendous emotional impact it made on audiences at singing gatherings in the nineteen twenties. At one time, it was an especial favourite with landlubbers in Canadian lumber camps. Most versions are broadly similar in text and tune.

Louis Killen recorded The Flying Cloud for a second time in 1995 for his CD Sailors, Ships & Chanteys. He also sang it in 2004 at the 25th Annual Sea Music Festival at Mystic Seaport. He commented on the first of these albums:

Perhaps more well known in New England than in Old England, this confession ballad was a test piece among singers on the Grand Banks schooners. If you couldn’t sing this ballad to the satisfaction of the crew you wouldn’t be considered a “singer”.

Roy Bailey learned The Flying Cloud from The Singing Island, edited by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, and sang it in 1976 on his album New Bell Wake.

Dave Burland sang Edward Hollander (The Flying Cloud) in 1979 on his album You Can’t Fool the Fat Man.

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sang The Flying Cloud in 2000 on their CD Across the Western Ocean: Songs of the North Atlantic Sailing Packets. They commented in their liner notes:

The legend of the “Flying Dutchman” is a common one in many European countries, and its story has been used in novel, melodrama, opera and movie. In the most common British version, Vanderdecken, a Dutch sea captain, angered by continually adverse winds, swears a blasphemous oath (“by all the devils”) that he will double the Cape of Good Hope if it takes him till Doomsday. For this profanity he is condemned by God or Devil (it is never clear which) to his self-appointed fate. His ghost ship is rarely seen, and then only in stormy seas, beating in against the wind under full sail and bad luck to the ship which sights her. This latter ship, itself often becalmed, is sometimes entrusted with letters addressed to people long dead.

Although in the British melodramas the curse is absolute, in other versions Vanderdecken is allowed on shore every seven years, in hopes of breaking his curse by wooing a lady who will be faithful to him unto death. In Wagner’s opera, for example, he manages to achieve this salvation.

In the German legend the protagonist, von Falkenberg, is condemned to sail the North Sea in a ship with no helm or steersman, playing dice with the Devil for his soul. According to Sir Walter Scott, the “Flying Dutchman” was a bullion ship aboard of which a murder was committed. The plague subsequently broke out among the crew, and all ports were closed to the ill-fated craft.

The only recent printed source for the song seems to be Doerflinger, who obtained his set from Richard Maitland, then retired at Sailor’s Snug Harbor, New York. Broadside variants are to be found in the Harvard Library. A song of the “Flying Dutchman” was sung on the stage in New York, and printed in several early songsters there. Our version comes from a singer in a folk club in Manchester, and is generally similar to Doerflinger’s.

Chris Foster sang The Flying Cloud in 2003 on his Tradition Bearers CD Traces.

Martin Simpson sang The Flying Cloud in 2005 on his Topic CD Kind Letters. He commented in his liner notes:

I learned these songs in many cases from a number of different sources. I first heard The Flying Cloud sung at Scunthorpe Folk Club in the late ’60s. Roy Bailey’ excellent […] record […] provided me with the basic text and Martin Carthy furnished further versions from his library which I assembled [into] this version. The song is truly the equal of a blockbuster movie. Roy points out that the unfortunate Arthur Hollandene is to die for crimes against commerce and property and his expressed regret for this part in slaving does not seem to be shared by the authorities.

Jim Moray sang The Flying Cloud in 2016 on his CD Upcetera. He commented in his sleeve notes:

I learned this from Chris Foster’s recording on his CD Traces, and the version on Ballads & Broadsides by Lou Killen. So much conflicting emotion is wrapped up in just 14 verses.

Lyrics

Louis Killen sings The Flying Cloud

My name is William Hollander, as you will understand
I was born in the County of Waterford, in Erin’s lovely land,
When I was young and in my prime, a beauty on me shone,
And my parents doted upon me, I being their only son.

My father bound me to a trade in Waterford’s fair town,
He bound me to a cooper there by the name of William Brown.
I served my master faithfully for seven long years or more
Till I shipped aboard The Ocean Queen belonging to Tramore.

And soon we reached Bermuda’s isle where I met with Captain Moore,
The commander of the Flying Cloud from out of Baltimore,
He asked me if I’d ship with him on a slaving voyage to go,
To the burning shores of Africa, where the sugar cane does grow.

It was after some weeks of sailing we arrived off Africa’s shore,
Five hundred of them poor slaves, me boys, from their native land we bore.
We marched them up upon a plank and stowed them down below,
Scarce eighteen inches to a man was all they had to go.

Then the plague and the fever came on board, swapped half of them away.
We dragged their bodies up on deck and hove them in the sea,
It was better for the rest of them if they had died below
Than to work beneath the cruel planters in Cuba for evermore.

For it was after some stormy weather, boys, we arrived off Cuba shore
And we sold them to the planters there to be slaves for evermore,
For the rice and coffee seed to sow beneath the brilliant sun
And to lead a lone and wretched life till their career was run.

Well it’s now our money is all spent, we must go to sea again,
When Captain Moore comes on the deck and says unto us men,
“There’s gold and silver to be had if with me you’ll remain,
We’ll hoist the pirate flag aloft and scour the Spanish Main.”

We all agreed but three young men who were told us then to land.
Two of them were Boston boys, the other from New Foundland,
But I wish to God I joined those men and went with them on shore
Than to lead a wild and reckless life serving under a Captain Moore.

The Flying Cloud was a Yankee ship, five hundred tons or more,
She could outsail any clipper ship hailing out of Baltimore,
With her canvas white as the driven snow and on it there’s no specks,
And forty men and fourteen guns she carried below her decks.

For we sacked and plundered many a ship down upon the Spanish Main,
Caused many a widow and orphan in sorrow to remain.
To the crews we gave no quarter but gave them watery graves,
For the saying of our captain was: “Dead men will tell no tales.”

And pursued we were by many a ship, by frigates and liners too,
Till at last, the British man-o-war, the Dungeness, hove in view,
She fired a shot across our bows as we sailed before the wind,
Till a chain-shot cut our mainmast down and we fell far behind.

How our crew they beat to quarters as they ranged up alongside,
Soon across our quarter-deck there ran a crimson tide.
We fought till Captain Moore was killed and fifteen of our men,
till a bombshell set our ship on fire, we had to surrender then.

So it’s now to Newgate we were brought, bound down in iron chains,
For the sinking and the plundering of ships on the Spanish Main.
The judge he found us guilty, we were condemned to die.
Oh young men, a warning by me take, lead not such a life as I.

So it’s fare you well, old Waterford and the girl I do adore,
I’ll never kiss your cheek again, I’ll squeeze your hand no more,
Oh whiskey and bad company first made a wretch of me,
Oh young men, a warning by me take and shun all piracy.

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sings The Flying Cloud

‘Twas on a dark and cheerless night to the southern of the Cape,
When from a strong nor’wester we had just made our escape,
Like an infant in its cradle, all hands lay fast asleep,
And peacefully we sailed along in the bosom of the deep.

Just then the watchman gave a shout of terror and of fear,
As if he had just gazed upon some sudden danger near,
The sea all round was cloud and foam, and just upon our lee,
We saw the Flying Dutchman come a-bounding o’er the sea.

“Take in our lofty canvas, lads,” the watchful master cried,
“For in our ship’s company some sudden danger lies,
For every man who rounds the Cape, although he knows no fear,
He knows that there is danger when Vanderdecken ‘s near.”

Pity poor Vanderdecken, forever is his doom,
The seas around that stormy Cape will be his living tomb,
He’s doomed to ride the ocean for ever and a day,
And he tries in vain his oath to keep by entering Table Bay.

All hands to the rail, our gallant crew, as the ghost ship bore to sea,
Our hearts were filled with awe and fear, as she passed along our lee,
The helmsman was likewise entranced, and as all hands sighed relief,
With rending crash and mortal force our vessel struck a reef.

Links

See also the Mudcat Café thread Origins: The Flying Cloud.

Ewan McColl sings “The Flying Cloud”…

Performances, Workshops, Resources & Recordings

The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

Festivals & Celebrations

Coffeehouses

School Assemblies

Library Presentations

Songwriting Workshops

Artist in Residence

House Concerts

Pub Singing

Irish & Celtic Performances

Poetry Readings

Campfires

Music Lessons

Senior Centers

Voiceovers & Recording

““Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well…”

 

Globe Magazine

Join Fitz at The Colonial Inn

“The Nobel Laureate of New England Pub Music…”

Scott Alaric

Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground

On the Green, in Concord, MA Every Thursday Night for over thirty years…

“A Song Singing, Word Slinging, Story Swapping, Ballad Mongering, Folksinger, Teacher, & Poet…”

Theo Rogue

Songcatcher Rag

Fitz’s Recordings

& Writings

Songs, poems, essays, reflections and ramblings of a folksinger, traveler, teacher, poet and thinker…

Download for free from the iTunes Bookstore

Now Available on iTunes!

“A Master of Folk…”

The Boston Globe

Fitz’s now classic recording of original songs and poetry…

Download from the iTunes Music Store

Now Available on iTunes!

“A Masterful weaver of song whose deep, resonant voice rivals the best of his genre…”

Spirit of Change Magazine

“2003: Best Children’s Music Recording of the Year…”

Boston Parent's Paper

Fitz & The Salty Dawgs Amazing music, good times and good friends…

Listen here

TheCraftedWord.org

Writing help

when you need it…

“When the eyes rest on the soul…that’s Fitzy…”

Lenny Megliola

WEEI Radio

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don’t want no one
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It has been a long time since I wrote a simple old "this is what I am going to do today" post. So this is what I am going to do today: [and trust me, it will have nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with school work:)] Before the true winter settles in, I am going to...
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I           The dull staccato throb in light rain on a dark night. Unseen barges make their way up the QianTian River—concrete shores marked by the arch of the bridge, the spans of beam stretched on beam, the impeccable symmetry of the street-lights broken by a stream...
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Mum…

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by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

Here I am out on the road again
and it feels longer than it was back then;
when I was younger, man, it saw me through—
now it don’t do
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Too ra loo ra loo ra lady I—
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Too ra loo ra loo ra lady I
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by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

You say, hey,
who are you to say that you’re the one
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Out of the Forge: March 30, 2017

by | March 31, 2017 | Journal, Out of the Forge | 0 Comments

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Ring of Fire: The Power of Simplicity

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Jesse calls up this morning—
“You can come downstairs now;
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Well, I fixed it all;
I fixed everything for you.”

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Momma says you drink it too.
I can’t reach the stove,
But I can pour it, though—
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Hallows Lake

by | August 2, 2014 | Journal | 0 Comments

Foreward Thanks for taking a look at this "work in progress. It originally started out as an experimental one-man play. Maybe it still will be. Later I thought of making it into a novel, but it's hard to see it happening as there is (intentionally) no real plot, and...
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by | November 16, 2013 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

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Contact John Fitzsimmons...and thanks!

Lady Franklins Lament

Lady Franklins Lament

by | Mar 11, 2017

Songs of the Sea & Focastle

Lady Franklin’s Lament

The American Folk Experience

Lord Franklin's Lament

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

~Traditional

‘Twas homeward bound one night on the deep
Swinging in my hammock I fell asleep
I dreamed a dream and I thought it true
Concerning Franklin and his gallant crew

With a hundred seamen he sailed away
To the frozen ocean in the month of May
His maps were faulty and his compass bent
By mid July he was in Stoke-on-Trent

Through cruel hardships and Watford Gap
He saw no icebergs and no polar cap
Only the Eskimo in his skin canoe
And you don’t get many, this far south of Crewe

In Baffin Bay where the whale fish blow
The fate of Franklin no man may know
The fate of Franklin no tongue can tell
But round Northampton they all know him well

And now my burden it gives me pain
At Newport Pagnall he got lost again
The North West Passage was Lord Franklin’s dream
He’s lost forever deep in Milton Keynes

Yes, lost forever deep in Milton Keynes

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share this scholarly research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite sources accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  

Thanks!

 

Source: Wikipedia

Edit links
Portrait of Lady Jane Franklin by Thomas Bock, 1838

"Lady Franklin's Lament" (also known as "Lord Franklin" and "The Sailor's Dream") is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws (Laws K09) and Steve Roud (Roud 487).[1] The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Franklin speaking of the loss of her husband, Sir John Franklin, who disappeared in Baffin Bay during his 1845 expedition through the Arctic Ocean in search of the Northwest Passage sea route to the Pacific Ocean. The song first appeared as a Broadside ballad around 1850 and has since been recorded with the melody of the Irish traditional air "Cailín Óg a Stór" by numerous artists. It has been found in Ireland, in Scotland, and in some regions of Canada.[2]

Composition

Daguerreotype photograph of Sir John Franklin taken by Richard Beard in 1845, prior to the expedition's departure.

The song consists of five verses using the AABB rhyme scheme. The song is told from the perspective of a sailor on board a ship. He tells of a dream he had of Lady Jane Franklin speaking of the loss of her husband, Sir John Franklin, who disappeared in Baffin Bay during his 1845 expedition through the Arctic Ocean in search of a Northwest Passage sea route to the Pacific Ocean. Following his disappearance, Lady Franklin sponsored seven expeditions to find some trace of her husband. Through her sponsorship, influence, and offering of sizeable rewards, she supported numerous other searches. Her efforts brought great publicity to the expedition's fate. In 1854, Scottish explorer Dr. John Rae discovered evidence through talking to Inuit hunters, among others that the expedition had wintered in 1845–46 on Beechey Island. The expedition's ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, became trapped in ice off King William Island in September 1846 and never sailed again. According to a note later found on that island, Franklin died there on 11 June 1847. The exact location of his grave remains unknown.[3]

History

"Lady Franklin's Lament" first appeared as a broadside ballad around 1850.[2] Found in Canada, Scotland, and Ireland, the song was first published in 1878 in Eighteen Months on a Greenland Whaler by Joseph P. Faulkner.[2]

The song may have been inspired by the traditional Irish ballad "The Croppy Boy", which is set during the 1798 rising. Versions of that ballad first appeared shortly after the rising sung by street peddlers. Several broadside versions of the ballad were printed. These typically include the phrase "500 Guineas" or "one thousand pounds", and are also sung to the melody of the traditional Irish air "Cailín Óg a Stór".[4] These versions of "The Croppy Boy" may have been the basis for the later ballad, "Lady Franklin's Lament".

The song shares a tune with the traditional air "Cailín Óg a Stór" and other folk songs including versions of "A Sailor's Life".

Recordings

Traditional recordings

Several field recordings of the ballad were made in Canada, particularly in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, by collectors such as Edith Fowke, Helen Creighton and Herbert Halpert.[5]

In 1941, Helen Hartness Flanders recorded the song from a man named William Merritt of Ludlow, Maine, USA, who had learnt the song from his Scottish mother; the recording is available online.[6]

Three Scottish recordings were recorded in Whalsay in the Shetland islands in the early 1970s from men who probably either learnt the song at sea or from sailors. These recordings can be heard online courtesy of the University of Edinburgh.[7][8][9]

Popular recordings

"Lady Franklin's Lament" has been recorded by numerous artists. A version was recorded as "Lord Franklin" by Mícheál Ó Domhnaill and Kevin Burke on their album Promenade (1979). Other notable renditions were recorded by Liam Clancy, Pentangle, Martin Carthy,[10] John Renbourn, and Sinéad O'Connor.

Several variations and adaptations of the song have been recorded, such as version by the Duncan McFarlane Band, where the chorus of "Northwest Passage" is added to the end. Bob Dylan wrote his own lyrics to the song's melody—from the traditional air "Cailín Óg a Stór"—for his song "Bob Dylan's Dream", which appeared on his 1963 album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. In his version, Dylan borrows lyrical ideas from "Lady Franklin's Lament". David Wilcox took a similar approach with his song "Jamie's Secret".

Lyrics

We were homeward bound one night on the deep
Swinging in my hammock I fell asleep
I dreamed a dream and I thought it true
Concerning Franklin and his gallant crew

With a hundred seamen he sailed away
To the frozen ocean in the month of May
To seek a passage around the pole
Where we poor sailors do sometimes go

Through cruel hardships they vainly strove
Their ships on mountains of ice were drove
Only the Eskimo with his skin canoe
Was the only one that ever came through

In Baffin's Bay where the whale fish blow
The fate of Franklin no man may know
The fate of Franklin no tongue can tell
Lord Franklin alone with his sailors do dwell

And now my burden it gives me pain
For my long-lost Franklin I would cross the main
Ten thousand pounds I would freely give
To know on earth, that my Franklin do live

List of recordings

References

  1. ^ Fowke, Edith (1963). "British Ballads in Ontario". Midwest Folklore. 13 (3 Autumn): 133–62 [146].
  2. ^ a b c Robert B. Waltz. "Lady Franklin's Lament". The Ballad Index. Retrieved 31 July 2010.
  3. ^ Keenleyside, Anne; Bertulli, Margaret; Fricke, Henry C. (1997). "The Final Days of the Franklin Expedition: New Skeletal Evidence" (PDF). Arctic. 50 (1): 36–46. doi:10.14430/arctic1089. ISSN 0004-0843.
  4. ^ Griffiths, Sian (21 July 2010). "Canadian archaeologists hunt long-lost Arctic explorers". BBC News.
  5. ^ "Search: rn487 sound canada". Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.
  6. ^ D14B - archival cassette dub, retrieved 2021-07-07
  7. ^ "Fate of Franklin, The". Whalsay's Heritage of Song. 2014-12-08. Retrieved 2021-07-07.
  8. ^ "Fate of Franklin, The". Whalsay's Heritage of Song. 2014-12-11. Retrieved 2021-07-07.
  9. ^ "Fate of Franklin, The". Whalsay's Heritage of Song. 2014-12-09. Retrieved 2021-07-07.
  10. ^ "Martin Carthy with Dave Swarbrick: Second Album". mainlynorfolk.info.

External links

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Franklin%27s_Lament

Source: Mainly Norfolk

Lord Franklin

[ Roud 487 ; Laws K9 ; G/D 1:16 ; Ballad Index LK09 ; Bodleian Roud 487 ; trad.]

This ballad about the fate of Lord Franklin, who perished on the search for the North West Passage, was recorded in 1956 by A.L. Lloyd for his, Ewan MacColl’s and Harry H. Corbett’s album The Singing Sailor. He was accompanied by Alf Edwards on concertina. This track has been reissued on his and Ewan MacColl’s albums Row Bullies Row, Singing Sailors (Wattle Records) and Off to Sea Once More (Stinson Records), and on the compilation Sailors’ Songs & Sea Shanties.

Lord Franklin was also sung by Martin Carthy in 1966 on his Second Album; this was reissued on the Martin Carthy anthologies A Collection and The Carthy Chronicles. Carthy commented in his original record’s sleeve notes:

Sir John Franklin set out with two ships, the “Erebus” and the “Terror”, on his second attempt to discover the North West Passage and was never heard of again. It was almost twelve years before the story of what had actually happened to the expedition was finally pieced together. After sailing round the island in the far north of Canada, the ships, predictably, became trapped in the ice; what was completely unexpected, however, was that the lime juice stored in barrels became useless and half the crews of both ships died of scurvy. Some of the others decided to strike across country for a mission station, but one by one they died on the journey. How they managed to die in country that was full of game where Eskimos had lived for generations is a mystery. The real tragedy was Franklin’s blunder in not allowing for such a contingency: he had taken along beautiful tea-services, flags and dress uniforms for the celebrations when their mission was accomplished, instead of extra food supplies. Several rescue operations were mounted, one by Lady Franklin herself from the proceeds of public fund she started for that purpose, after the Admiralty had washed it hands of the whole affair, having itself failed in a rather desultory rescue attempt. The truth was actually discovered by an expedition in which the United States Navy took part.

Bob Dylan learned Lord Franklin from Martin Carthy and based his song Bob Dylan’s Dream on it.

Jon Raven sang Lord Franklyn on the 1968 Broadside album The Halliard : Jon Raven.

Louis Killen recorded Lord Franklin in 1968 for his 1973 LP Sea Chanteys. and in 1995 for his CD Sailors, Ships & Chanteys. He also recorded it in 2003 for the anthology Song Links: A Celebration of English Traditional Songs and Their Australian Variants The corresponding Australian variantThe Loss of Bob Mahoney was sung by Danny Spooner.

Pentangle sang Lord Franklin in 1970 on their Transatlantic album Cruel Sister.

Derek Sarjeant and Hazel King sang Lord Franklin in 1978 on their album English & Scottish Folksongs and Ballads.

Martyn Wyndham-Read sang Lord Franklin in 1978 on his album Ballad Singer.

Nic Jones sang Lord Franklin live in Italy in 1981. This recording was included in his CD In Search of Nic Jones.

Cyril Tawney sang Lady Franklin’s Lament on his 1990 Neptune Tapes cassette Sailor’s Delight.

Jo Freya sang Lord Franklin in 1992 on her Saydisc album Traditional Songs of England.

Éilís Kennedy’s sang Lord Franklin in 2001 on her album Time to Sail.

Artisan sang Lady Franklin’s Lament in 2001 on the Fellside anthology of unaccompanied English traditional songs, Voices in Harmony.

David Jones sang Lady Franklin’s Lament in 2002 on the Revels’ CD Homeward Bound.

Tom and Barbara Brown sang Franklin in 2014 on their WildGoose album of songs collected by Cecil Sharp in Minehead, Somerset, from Captains Lewis and Vickery, Just Another Day. They commented in their liner notes:

Following the loss of Lord Franklin’s 1945 exploratory voyage to find the north-west passage,a campaign was led by Franklin’s widow, to try to get the government to mount an expedition to find out what happened. Part of that campaign was a long broadside written in 1850 by George Boker, of which fragments remained in the tradition. Here is Vickery’s delightfully abbreviated version with the text slightly tidied up.

Hannah Sanders sang Lord Franklin in 2015 on her CD Charms Against Sorrow.

Andy Turner sang Lord Franklin as the November 21, 2015 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.

Jim Moray sang Lord Franklin in 2016 on his CD Upcetera. He commented in his sleeve notes:

Learned from versions sung my Martin Carthy and Nic Jones. Lady Franklin funded several search expeditions to look for her husband and his crew, and this is possibly the first charity single. The sum of ten thousand pounds mentioned in the final verse was the reward for successfully finding a north-west passage trade route.

Lyrics

Both A.L. Lloyd’s and Nic Jones’s versions are very similar in wording to Martin Carthy’s version listed below. Nic Jones left out the third verse and repeated the first verse at the end.

Martin Carthy sings Lord Franklin Sam Henry, Songs of the People
(from Digital Tradition)
It was homeward bound one night on the deep,
Swinging in my hammock I fell asleep.
I dreamed a dream and I thought it true
Concerning Franklin and his gallant crew.		 We were homeward bound all in the deep,
Alone in my hammock I fell asleep.
And I dreamt a dream that I thought was true
Concerning Franklin and his bold crew.
With a hundred seamen he sailed away
To the frozen ocean in the month of May
To seek that passage around the pole
Where we poor sailors do sometimes go.Through cruel hardships these men did go
His ship on mountains of ice was drove
Where the Eskimo in his skin canoe
Was the only one who ever came through
As I was musing on yon foreign shore
I heard a lady and she did deplore.
She wept aloud and to me did say,
Oh, my loving husband, he stops long away.It is seven long years since three ships of fame
Caused my dear husband to cross the main,
And a hundred seamen of courage stout
A northwest passage for to find out.They sail-ed east and they sail-ed west
To find their passage they knew not best.
Ten thousand pounds would I freely give
If I only knew if my husband lived.There is Captain Parry of high renown,
There is Captain Hoggs of Seamore town,
There is Captain Ross and many more,
I’m afraid they are lost on some foreign shore.
In Baffin Bay where the whale fish blow
The fate of Franklin no man may know.
The fate of Franklin no tongue can tell,
Lord Franklin along with his sailors do dwell.		 In Baffin’s Bay where the whale fish blows
The fate of Franklin no one knows
I am afraid he is lost on yon foreign shore
Where he left his home to return no more.
And now my burden it gives me pain,
For my long lost Franklin I’d cross the main.
Ten thousand pounds would I freely give
To know on earth that my Franklin do live.

Acknowledgements and Links

See also Just Another Tune’s study Bob Dylan’s Dream & Lady Franklin’s Lament.

The Fate of Franklin website

Martin Carthy’s version transcribed by Garry Gillard.

The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

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Contact John Fitzsimmons...and thanks!

Greenland Whale Fisheries

Greenland Whale Fisheries

by | Mar 11, 2017

Songs of the Sea & Fo’castle

The Greenland Whale Fisheries

The American Folk Experience

The Greenland Whale Fisheries

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

~Traditional 

‘Twas in eighteen hundred and fifty-three
And of June the thirteenth day,
That our gallant ship her anchor weighed,
And for greenland bore away, brave boys,
And for greenland bore away.

The lookout in the crosstrees stood
With spyglass in his hand;
There’s a whale, there’s a whale, there’s whalefish he cried
And she blows at every span, brave boys
She blows at every span.

The captain stood on the quarter deck,
And a fine little man was he;
“Overhaul, overhaul! Let your davit tackles fall,
And launch your boats for sea, brave boys
And launch your boats for sea.

Now the boats were launched and the men aboard,
And the whale was full in view.
Resolv-ed was each seaman bold
To steer where the whalefish blew, brave boys
To steer where the whalefish blew.

We stuck the whale the line paid out,
But she gave a flourish with her tail,
The boat capsized and four men were drowned,
And we never caught that whale, brave boys,
And we never caught that whale.

“To lose the whale,” our captain said,
It grieves my heart full sore,
But oh! to lose (those) four gallant men
It grieves me ten times more brave boys
It grieves me ten times more.

The winter star doth now appear,
So, boys we’ll anchor weight;
It’s time to leave this cold country
And homeward bear away, brave boys
And homeward bear away.

Oh Greenland is a dreadful place
A land that’s never green
Where there’s ice and snow, and the whalefishes blow
(and the) daylight’s seldom seen brave boys
But the daylight’s seldom seen.

 

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share this scholarly research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite sources accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  

Thanks!

 

Source: Wikipedia

Edit links
This article is about the folk song. For whaling in Greenland, see Whaling § Greenland.
Greenland Fisheries
Tune for Greenland Fisheries
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"Greenland Whale Fisheries" is a traditional sea song. This song originated in the West Indies. In most of the versions collected from oral sources, the song opens up giving a date for the events that it describes (usually between 1823 and 1853). However, the song is actually older than this and a form of it was published as a ballad before 1725.[1] It has been given a Roud number of 347.[2]

The song tells of a whaling expedition that leaves for Greenland. The lookout spots a "whalefish", and harpoon boats are launched. However, the whale strikes the boat with its tail, capsizing it, and several men are killed. The captain grieves over losing his men, but especially for having lost his prey. He then orders the ship to sail for home, calling Greenland a "dreadful place".

Like most traditional songs, "Greenland Whale Fisheries" exists in different versions.[3] Some change details (such as the date of the expedition), and others add or remove verses. Some modern versions, including the ones recorded by Judy Collins and Theodore Bikel, The Chad Mitchell Trio, and later by The Pogues, flip the captain's expression of grief to make him regret losing his catch even more than losing his crew.

In the version popularized by The Weavers and Peter, Paul and Mary, a shanty recorded by Alan Lomax from a Bahamian fisherman[4] is appended, which begins, "When the whale gets strike, and the line run down, and the whale makes a flounder with her tail, and the boat capsized, and we lost our darling man, No more, no more Greenland for you you, Pray Boys, No more, no more Greenland for you."...."[5]

Folk singer Paul Kaplan recorded a song with the same tune under the title "Call Me the Whale". Following a similar chronology, it tells the story from the whale's perspective.[6]

Covered by The Dubliners on their 1969 album At Home with The Dubliners, and on the B-Side of their 1965 single, "Roisin Dubh".

Covered by Ryan's Fancy on their 1971 album Dark Island.

Covered by The Longest Johns on their 2024 album Voyage.

In the Futurama episode "The Birdbot of Ice-Catraz", Bender, in an ironic state of soberness, sings a snippet of the song.

The Greenland Whalefishers, a Celtic punk band from Norway, is named after the song.

References

  1. ^ R. Vaughan Williams & A.L. Lloyd (editors): The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, Penguin Books, 1959. p.115
  2. ^ "Vaughan Williams Memorial Library Roud 347 entry".
  3. ^ e.g. Vaughan Williams & Lloyd p.50. Version collected by Anne G. Gilchrist from the singing of W. Bolton, Southport, Lancashire, 1906
  4. ^ "Bahamas 1935: Chanteys & Anthems from Andros & Cat - Alan Lomax | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic.
  5. ^ Check-list of Recorded Songs in the English Language in the Archive of Folk Song, United States Work Projects Administration. District of Columbia - 1942,Page 435
  6. ^ Call Me the Whale Lyrics
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_Whale_Fisheries

Source: Mainly Norfolk

The Greenland Whale Fishery

[ Roud 347 ; Laws K21 ; G/D 1:9 ; Ballad Index LK21 ; trad.]The Greenland Whale Fishery is a song about the Spitsbergen right whale fishing in the 1720s. A version collected from W. Bolton, Southport, Lancashire in 1906 by Anne Gilchrist was printed in A.L. Lloyd and Vaughan Williams’ The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (1959).A.L. Lloyd sang The Greenland Whale Fishery in 1956 on his, Ewan MacColl and Harry H. Corbett’s album The Singing Sailor. This recording was reissued on their albums Singing Sailors (Wattle Records, Australia) and Off to Sea Once More (Stinson Records, USA).

A.L. Lloyd also recorded this song for his and Ewan MacColl’s Riverside LP Thar She Blows! (where it was called Sperm Whale Fishery) and, for a third time, in 1967 for the album Leviathan! Ballads and Songs of the Whaling Trade. He commented in the latter album’s sleeve notes:

This is the oldest—and many think the best—of surviving songs of the whaling trade. It had already appeared on a broadside around 1725, very shortly after the South Sea Company decided to resuscitate the then moribund whaling industry, and sent a dozen fine large ships around Spitsbergen and the Greenland Sea. The song went on being sung with small changes all the time to bring it up to date. Our present version mentions the year 1834, the ship Lion, its captain Randolph. Other versions give other years, and name other ships and skippers (there was a whaler the Lion, out of Liverpool, but her captain’s name was Hawkins, and she was lost off Greenland in 1817). We may take it that the incident described in the song is not historical but imaginary, a stylisation like those thrilling engravings of whaling scenes that were once so popular. But the song’s pattern of departure, chase, and return home, was imitated in a large number of whaling ballads made subsequently. It is the ace and deuce of whale songs.

Ewan MacColl sang just three verses—5, 8 and 9—of The Greenland Whale Fishery in the musical score of the 1962 film Whaler Out of New Bedford.

Philip Hamon and Hilary Carre of Sark on the Channel Islands sang The Whale Fishery on the anthology Sailormen and Servingmaids (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 6; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1970).

The Watersons sang a concise six-verse version of The Greenland Whale Fishery in 1965 on their very first record, New Voices. This wonderful recording was included on the Topic sampler Sea Songs and Shanties and on the French compilation Chants de Marins IV: Ballads, Complaintes et Shanties des Matelots Anglais, reissued on the Watersons’ CD Early Days, included on the 1993 Topic sampler Blow the Man Down: Sea Songs and Shanties and in 2004 on the Watersons’ 4 CD anthology Mighty River of Song.

A.L. Lloyd commented in the New Voices sleeve notes:

How old is this song? In the Watersons’ version the date 1864 is given, which is thirty years too late for Greenland whaling, for by 1830 the Greenland grounds were fished out and the expeditions had transferred their attention to the seas of Baffin Bay. In any case, we know the song is very much older than it seems, for it was already in print as a broadside before 1725. The Dutch and English had opened up the Greenland grounds (where, by the way, they fished for right whales, not sperm whales) early in the sixteenth century so the song came into being some time between then and the opening years of the eighteenth. It remained a great favourite, being reprinted over and again by broadside publishers, and many versions of it have been collected from country singers during the present century. It’s one of the great sea songs.

Mike Waterson and Louis Killen sang The Greenland Whale Fishery in 1965 in the BBC TV documentary about the Watersons, Travelling for a Living.

The Pogues recorded Greenland Whale Fisheries in 1984 for their first album, Red Roses for Me, and Van Dyke Parks sang it in 2006 on Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys.

Jon Boden sang Greenland Whale Fishery as the August 4, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He noted in the blog:

My first introduction to The Watersons was on a Topic LP Sea Songs and Shanties that I borrowed from Winchester library at a tender age. I had heard Norma sing on the first Waterson:Carthy album but was absolutely knocked out by the ferocity of the sound the three siblings and cousin John could produce. This was one of [four] Waterson tracks on the album.

This YouTube video shows the Exmouth Shanty Men singing Greenland Whale Fisheries at the Blackmoor Theatre Exmouth in November 2008:

Lyrics

A.L. Lloyd sings The Greenland Whale Fishery The Watersons sing The Greenland Whale Fishery
We may no longer stay ashore
Since we’re so deep in debt.
So off to Greenland we will steer
Some money for to get, brave boys,
Some money for to get.
It was eighteen hundred and thirty-four,
On March the seventeenth day,
That we hoist our colours to the top of the tree
And for Greenland bore away, brave boys,
For Greenland bore away		 They took us jolly sailor lads
A-fishing for the whale.
On the fourth day of August in 1864
Bound for Greenland we set sail.
John Randolph was our captain’s name,
Our ship the “Lion” so bold.
We had fifteen men and they were brave
For to face the wind and cold, brave boys,
To face the wind and cold
It was when we come to them icy grounds
Our good ship for to moor.
It was then that we wished ourselves back again
With the pretty girls ashore, brave boys,
With the pretty girls ashore
Our bosun he goes up aloft
With a spyglass in his hand.
“It’s a whale, a whale, oh a whale-fish,” he cries,
“And he blows at every span, brave boys,
And he blows at every span.”		 The lookout stood on the cross-trees high
With a spyglass in his hand.
“There’s a whale, there’s a whale, there’s a whale-fish,” he cried,
“And she blows at every span.”
Our captain walked on the quarterdeck
And the ice was in his eye
“Overhaul, overhaul, let your davit tackle falls.”
And we launch our boats all three, brave boys,
We launch our boats all three.		 The captain stood on the quarterdeck,
And a sod of a man was he.
“Overhaul, overhaul, let your davit tackles fall.”
And we’ll launch them boats to sea.
Well, every keel had its bold harpooner,
It’s pikeaneer a steerer also,
And four jolly tars for to pull at the oars.
And a-whaling we did go, brave boys,
Oh a-whaling we did go.
Well, our boats got down, and the men all in
And the whale was full in view.
Resolved, resolved, was them whalermen so bold
To strike when the whale-fish blew, brave boys,
To strike when the whale-fish blew.
Well, the harpoon struck, and down went the whale
With a flourish of his tail.
And by chance we lost two men overboard.
No more Greenland for you, brave boys,
And we never caught that whale.		 We struck that whale and the line played out
But she gave a flurry with her tail.
And the boat capsized, we lost seven of our men,
And we never caught that whale.
When the captain heard of the loss of his men,
It grieved his heart full sore.
But when he heard of the loss of the whale,
It was half-mast colours all, brave boys,
It was half-mast colours all.		 Now the losing of seven fine seamen,
It grieved the captain sore.
But the losing of a bloody sperm whale
Oh, it grieved him ten times more.
The winter star did now appear,
And it’s time our anchor for to weigh,
To stow below our running gear
And from Greenland bear away, brave boys,
From Greenland bear away.
Oh, that Greenland is a dreadful place,
No longer can we stay.
Now the cold winds blow and the whales do go
And it’s seldom ever day, brave boys,
It’s seldom ever day.		 Now, Greenland is a horrid place,
Where our fisher lads have to go,
Where the rose and the lily never bloom in spring;
No there’s only ice and snow.

Acknowledgements

The Watersons’ version was transcribed by Garry Gillard. A.L. Lloyd’s version is from the Leviathan! sleeve notes.

Performances, Workshops, Resources & Recordings

The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

Festivals & Celebrations

Coffeehouses

School Assemblies

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Voiceovers & Recording

““Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well…”

 

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Join Fitz at The Colonial Inn

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Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground

On the Green, in Concord, MA Every Thursday Night for over thirty years…

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And a momma keeping things right.
I wonder if they’re at the table
With their puzzles, their papers and pens?
When I get off the highway
And pull in that driveway,
Will they run to the window again?

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There’s a little blonde boy in a superman cape
Racing around the back yard;
Sayin’, “Daddy don’t you know I can fly to the moon;
I’m gonna bring you back some stars.
And after that I’m gonna save the world”
Cause I’m superman today.”
I scoop that boy right into my arms,
And this is what I say:

You don’t need a cape to be a hero
You’ve got all the special powers that you need
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And you’ll always be superman to me

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Come on over here
and I’ll buy the next round:
cold beer and some shooters
for the boys on the town;
Darby ain’t drinkin’
so let’s live it up
‘cause he’ll drive us all home
in his company truck

Jesus Christ, Jimmy,
man you say that you’re well;
I say we drive into Boston
and stir up some hell;
put a cap on the weekend,
a stitch in the night,
watch the Pats play on Sunday
and the welterweight fight.

That’s all she wrote boys,
there ain’t any more;
that’s why we’re standing here;
that’s what it’s for.
That’s why we all go on working all day
busting our ass for short pay:
~Hey…

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Contact John Fitzsimmons...and thanks!

Shenandoah

Shenandoah

by | Mar 10, 2017

American Folk Songs

& Ballads

Shenandoah

The American Folk Experience

Shenandoah

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

~Traditional 

Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,
Way hey, you rolling river.
Shenandoah, I long to hear you
Ha ha, we’re bound away ‘cross the wide Missouri.

Oh, Shenandoah, I love your daughter
Wey hey, you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter
ha ha, we’re bound away ‘cross the wide Missouri

Missouri she’s a mighty river…
When she rolls down, her topsails shiver…

Seven years, I courted Sally…
Seven more, I longed to have her…

Farewell, my dear, I’m bound to leave you…
Oh, Shenandoah, I’ll not deceive you…

Child Ballad #

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share their research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite their work accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  Thanks!

Source: Wikipedia

This article is about the American folk song. For other uses, see Shenandoah (disambiguation).
"Shenandoah"
"Shenandoah" as performed by the Singing Sergeants of the United States Air Force Band
Problems playing this file? See media help.

"Oh Shenandoah" (also called "Shenandoah", "Across the Wide Missouri", "Rolling River", "Oh, My Rolling River", "World of Misery") is a traditional folk song, sung in the Americas, of uncertain origin, dating to the early 19th century.

The song "Shenandoah" appears to have originated with American and Canadian voyageurs or fur traders traveling down the Missouri River in canoes and has developed several different sets of lyrics. Some lyrics refer to the Oneida chief Shenandoah and a canoe-going trader who wants to marry his daughter. By the mid 1800s versions of the song had become a sea shanty heard or sung by sailors in various parts of the world. The song is number 324 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

Other variations (due to the influence of its oral dispersion among different regions) include the Caribbean (St. Vincent) version, "World of Misery", referring not to an "Indian princess" but to "the white mullata".[1][2]

History

Until the 19th century, only adventurers who sought their fortunes as trappers and traders of beaver fur ventured into the lands of the indigenous peoples as far west as the Missouri River. Most of these French colonial "voyageurs" in the fur trade era were loners who became friendly with, and sometimes married, Native Americans. Some lyrics of this song heard by and before 1860 tell the story of a trader who fell in love with the daughter of the Oneida Iroquois chief Shenandoah (1710–1816) who lived in the central New York state town of Oneida Castle. He was a co-founder of the Oneida Academy which became Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and is buried on the campus grounds.

["Shenandoah"] probably came from the American or Canadian voyageurs, who were great singers ... . In the early days of America, rivers and canals were the chief trade and passenger routes, and boatmen were an important class. Shenandoah was a celebrated Indian chief in American history, and several towns in the States are named after him. Besides being sung at sea, this song figured in old public school collections.

— W.B. Whall (1910)[3]

The canoe-going fur-trading voyageurs were great singers, and songs were an important part of their culture.[3] In the early 19th century flatboatmen who plied the Missouri River were known for their shanties, including "Oh Shenandoah". Sailors heading down the Mississippi River picked up the song and made it a capstan shanty that they sang while hauling in the anchor.[4] This boatmen's song found its way down the Mississippi River to American clipper ships—and thus around the world.[5]

The song had become popular as a sea shanty with seafaring sailors by the mid 1800s.[6] A version of the song called "Shanadore" was printed in Capt. Robert Chamblet Adams' article "Sailors' Songs" in the April 1876 issue of The New Dominion Monthly.[7] He also included it in his 1879 book On Board the "Rocket".[8] "Shanadore" was later printed as part of William L. Alden's article "Sailor Songs" in the July 1882 issue of Harper's New Monthly Magazine,[9][10][11] and in the 1892 book Songs that Never Die.[12] Alfred Mason Williams' 1895 Studies in Folk-song and Popular Poetry called it a "good specimen of a bowline chant".[13]

Percy Grainger recorded Charles Rosher of London England singing Shenandoah in 1906 and the recording is available online via the British Library Sound Archive.[14] A recording sung by former shantyman Stanley Slade of Bristol, England, in 1943 is also publicly available.[15]

In a 1930 letter to the UK newspaper The Times a former sailor who had worked aboard clipper ships that carried wool between Australia and Great Britain in the 1880s said that he believed the song had originated as an African American spiritual which developed into a work song.[a]

One of the first popular singers to record it was Paul Robeson, who released several versions from the 1930s onwards.[17]

Lyrics

Since "Shenandoah" was a riverman's and then sailor's song and went through numerous changes and versions over the years and centuries, there are no set lyrics. Modern variations may include[citation needed] lyrics such as the following:

Earlier versions

Charles Deas' The Trapper and his Family (1845) depicts a voyageur and his Native American wife and children

Lyrics from prior to 1860, given by Whall (1910)[3] were reported as follows:

Missouri, she's a mighty river.
Away you rolling river.
The redskins' camp, lies on its borders.
Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.
The white man loved the Indian maiden,
Away you rolling river
With notions[b] his canoe was laden.
Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.
"O, Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Away you rolling river.
I'll take her 'cross yon rolling water."
Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.
The chief disdained the trader's dollars:
Away you rolling river.
"My daughter never you shall follow."
Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.
At last there came a Yankee skipper.
Away you rolling river.
He winked his eye, and he tipped his flipper.
Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.
He sold the chief that fire-water,
Away you rolling river.
And 'cross the river he stole his daughter.
Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.
"O, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,
Away you rolling river.
Across that wide and rolling river."
Ah-ha, I'm bound away, 'Cross the wide Missouri.

J.E. Laidlaw of San Francisco reported hearing a version sung by a black Barbadian sailor aboard the Glasgow ship Harland in 1894:[18]

Oh, Shenandoah! I hear you calling!
Away, you rolling river!
Yes, far away I hear you calling,
Ha, Ha! I'm bound away across the wide Missouri.
My girl, she's gone far from the river,
Away, you rolling river!
An' I ain't goin' to see her never.
Ha, Ha! I'm bound away, (&c.)[c]

Lyrics to "Oh Shenandoah" as sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford (1959):

Oh Shenandoah, I hear you calling,
Hi-o, you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you,
Hi-o, I'm bound away.
'Cross the wide, Mis-sou-ri.
Mis-sou-ri, She's a mighty river,
Hi-o, you rolling river.
When she rolls down, her topsails shiver,
Hi-o, I'm bound away,
'Cross the wide, Mis-sou-ri.
Farewell my dearest, I'm bound to leave you,
Hi-o, you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah, I'll not deceive you,
Hi-o, I'm bound away.
'Cross the wide Mis-sou-ri.

Modern usage

The song is popular in local organizations such as Shenandoah University, Southern Virginia University, Washington and Lee University, Virginia Tech and the Virginia Military Institute.

"Shenandoah" was proposed as the "interim state song" for Virginia in 2006 with updated lyrics.[19] The proposal was contentious because the standard folksong refers to the Missouri River and in most versions of the song the name "Shenandoah" refers to an Indian chief, not the Shenandoah Valley or Shenandoah River, both of which lie almost entirely in Virginia.[19][20]

"Our Great Virginia" which uses the melody of "Shenandoah" was designated by the Virginia Legislature as the official traditional state song of Virginia in 2015.

In the movies it is featured in the soundtrack of the 1965 movie Shenandoah, starring Jimmy Stewart. It is also heard repeatedly in 1947's Mourning Becomes Electra, and as part of a medley in the 1962 film How the West Was Won. As a sea chanty, it is heard in Java Head (1934). The choir arrangement of the song has also been used in the films The Good Shepherd and Nixon.

Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.[21]

Various arrangements by Percy Grainger have been recorded by John Shirley-Quirk and other classically trained singers. "A song of the waters: variations on the folksong Shenandoah" is a classical composition by James Cohn. At least one version was arranged by Leslie Woodgate.[22]

The song is featured in the Fallout series, being played on Appalachia Radio in the game Fallout 76.

Selected notable recordings

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ This chantey is obviously of American origin ... . 'Shenandoah' was more a wool and cotton chantey than a capstan chantey. I have many times heard it sung down the hold on the wool screws by the Sydney waterside workers ... and many were full-blood negroes, who undoubtedly brought these chanteys off the cotton ships ... . With regard to the words, these vary according to the taste of the chantey man in the first and third line of each verse, there being no effort called for on these two lines, but the second and fourth lines were always the same, these being the rhythm lines on which the weight was used. When I was in the wool trade in the eighties, in both The Tweed and Cutty Sark this chantey was daily used on the wool screws. — R.L. Andrews (1930)[16]
  2. ^ Old “notions” = modern “knick-knacks”.
  3. ^ Brookington added his informant Laidlaw had later heard it sung "almost word for word as the sailor of Harland sang it" in 1926 at Monterey Presidio by a captain of the 9th U.S. Cavalry, and that this regiment, though officered by whites, was made up largely of black troopers. Brookington speculated, therefore, the song was originally a negro spiritual.[18]

References

  1. ^ Version sung by The Chicago based folk duo of Jacquie Manning and Rich Prezioso
  2. ^ [1] Archived 2022-01-17 at the Wayback Machine California State University, Fresno, Folklore Department]
  3. ^ a b c Whall, W.B., ed. (1913) [1910]. Ships, Sea Songs, and Shanties. collected by W.B. Whall, Master Mariner (First 1910, Third 1913 ed.). Glasgow – via Archive.org.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  4. ^ "Shenandoah". BalladofAmerica.com. Retrieved August 21, 2016.
  5. ^ In a 1931 book on sea and river shanties, David Bone wrote that the song originated as a river chanty or shanty, then became popular with seagoing crews in the early 19th century. (David W. Bone (1931). Capstan Bars. Edinburgh: The Porpoise Press. OCLC 896299.)
  6. ^ The Times. September 12, 1930. p. 8, column B.
  7. ^ Capt. R. C. Adams (April 1876). "Sailors' Songs". The New Dominion Monthly. Montreal: John Dougall & Son: 262. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  8. ^ Robert Chamblet Adams (1879). On Board the "Rocket". D. Lothrop. p. 317. Retrieved March 27, 2014.
  9. ^ "About "Shenandoah"". Song of America Project. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2010-03-06.
  10. ^ "Sailor Songs", Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 65, no. 386, p. 283, July 1882
  11. ^ "Harpers New Monthly Magazine from 1882". ebooks.library.cornell.edu. Retrieved September 29, 2012.
  12. ^ Buck, Dudley. Songs that Never Die. B. F. Johnson, 1892. p. 36.
  13. ^ Alfred Mason Williams (1895). Studies in Folk-song and Popular Poetry. London: Elliot Stock. pp. 5–7. ISBN 9780848228811., as reprinted in Alfred Mason Williams (2005). Studies in Folk-song and Popular Poetry. BiblioBazaar. ISBN 978-0-559-78728-7.
  14. ^ "Shenandoah - Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds". sounds.bl.uk. Retrieved 2023-06-23.
  15. ^ "Stanley Slade, Bristol (Kennedy 1950 and BBC 1943) - Peter Kennedy Collection - World and traditional music | British Library - Sounds". sounds.bl.uk. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  16. ^ Andrews, R.L. (19 September 1930). "Shenandoah". The Times (letter). London, UK. p. 6.
  17. ^ Cheal, David (9 October 2017). "Shenandoah — a song steeped in history and mystery". Financial Times. Retrieved 2023-01-03.
  18. ^ a b Brookington, A.A. (12 September 1930). "A letter from A.A. Brookington of Liverpool". The Times (letter). No. 45616. relaying a report by J.E. Laidlaw, of San Francisco. p. 8. col B.
  19. ^ a b Sluss, Michael (March 2, 2006). "Proposed state song doesn't bring down the House". The Roanoke Times. Archived from the original on September 11, 2012.
  20. ^ "Virginia Searches For A New State Song". NPR.org. Retrieved 2016-10-23.
  21. ^ Western Writers of America (2010). "The Top 100 Western Songs". American Cowboy. Archived from the original on 19 October 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
  22. ^ British Library (1 January 1987). The Catalogue of Printed Music in the British Library to 1980. Saur. ISBN 978-0-86291-359-5.
  23. ^ "Paul Robeson - Shenandoah". lost.fm. Retrieved 2023-05-11.
  24. ^ Friedwald, Will (2017). The Great Jazz and Pop Vocal Albums. Pantheon. p. 306. ISBN 9780307379078.
  25. ^ a b c d e f Margotin, Philippe; Guesdon, Jean-Michel (2020). Bruce Springsteen: All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track. Octopus. p. 660. ISBN 9781784727253.
  26. ^ Caligiuri, Jim (July 28, 2000). "Cowboy Nation: A Journey Out Of Time". Austin Chronicle. Retrieved 2023-01-26.
  27. ^ "Cowpunk Survivors". OC Weekly. January 18, 2001. Retrieved 2023-01-26.

External links

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh_Shenandoah

Source: Mainly Norfolk

Shenandoah

[ Roud 324 ; trad.]

Brian Mooney, Glen Tomasetti or Martyn Wyndham-Read sang Shenandoah in 1965 on their Australian album Will Ye Go Lassie Go?, and Martyn Wyndham-Read sang Shenandoah in 1984 on the album The Old Songs, accompanied by a chorus of John Kirkpatrick, Martin Carthy and Maggie Goodall.

Don McLean with a chorus of Gordon Bok, Jon Eberhard, Bob Killian, Pete Seeger and Andy Wallace sang Shenandoah in 1774 on the album Clearwater.

Jolly Jack sang Shenandoah in 1988 on their Fellside album A Long Time Travelling.

Richard Greene and Jack Shit sang Shenandoah in 2006 on the anthology of pirate ballads, sea songs and chanteys, Rogue’s Gallery.

Future Pilot A.K.A. and Karine Polwart sang Shenandoah in 2007 on the former’s album Eyes of Love.

Barbara Brown and Keith Kendrick sang Shanandore in 2012 on the anthology of songs of John Short collected by Cecil Sharp, Short Sharp Shanties Vol. 2. The anthology’s notes commented:

A shanty that is usually sung very freely—despite it’s being invariably cited as a capstan or windlass shanty. Sharp comments that “The tune is always irregular in its rhythm” and notated Short’s version in 3:2 varying into 2:2. However, Short’s beautiful version works perfectly and regularly (as it would need to for capstan work) if notated in 2:4—and sounds no different!

Another anecdote of Short is worth recounting here: Several years after he had initially introduced his parishioner, John Short, to Cecil Sharp, the Rev. Alan Brockington—by now a vicar in Liverpool—wrote to The Times in response to a discussion about the origins of Shenandoah, going on to say that: “I visited Mr. Short again in 1928. My wife was with me, and I asked him to sing Shanadar for her benefit. He said: ‘I don’t know as I like Shanadar.’ I wondered why he did not like the song, and then I remembered that that we had omitted from the published book one line he had sung in 1914, on account of its—well, unsuitability. Mr. Short seeing a lady was present and being too old to change his words at a moment’s notice, escaped from his embarrassment by saying that he did not like the song. Whereas in 1914, it was the only tune that, of his own proper volition, and without any remark from Cecil Sharp, he had praised.” The line, duly noted in Sharp’s notebook and faithfully recorded on the CD is, of course:

Oh Shanadar, I love your daughter
I love the place she makes her water.

Hugill commented that: “This is one of the shanties collectors have always thought to be clean, but when crossed, as it often was, with Sally Brown(owing to her having a daughter like Shenandoah) not even the most broadminded collector could call it clean.” Yankee Jack’s version does court Sally, but never descends to filth—unless, of course, Short was hiding behind his frequent ‘bound away’ verses! Most collectors tend to make similar comments to Terry, who did not publish Short’s version, but wrote: “This is one of the most famous of all shanties. I never met a sailor to whom it was unknown, nor have I ever found any two who sang it exactly alike. This version (sung to me by Capt. Robertson) is almost, but not quite, identical with the one I learnt as a boy. Shenandoah (English seamen usually pronounce it ‘Shannandore’) was a celebrated Indian chief after whom an American town is named. A branch of the Potomac river bears the same name. The tune was always sung with great feeling and in very free rhythm.” So you pays your money, and you takes your choice—but we’ve come to really like John Short’s version of the tune—sung here with a regular capstan timing!

Lyrics

Martyn Wyndham-Read sings Shenandoah

Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you,
Away, you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you,
Away, I’m bound to go ‘cross the wide Missouri.

Oh Shenandoah, I took a notion,
Away, you rolling river.
To sail across the stormy ocean,
Away, I’m bound to go ‘cross the wide Missouri.

Oh Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you,
Away, you rolling river.
Oh Shenandoah, I’ll nor deceive you,
Away, I’m bound to go ‘cross the wide Missouri.

Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughters,
Away, you rolling river.
I love the music of your waters,
Away, I’m bound to go ‘cross the wide Missouri.

‘Tis seven long years since last I saw you,
Away, you rolling river.
But Shenandoah, I’ll never grieve you,
Away, I’m bound to go ‘cross the wide Missouri.

Oh Shenandoah’s my native valley,
Away, you rolling river.
Beside her waters I love to dally,
Away, I’m bound to go ‘cross the wide Missouri.

Oh Shenandoah’s a lovely river,
Away, you rolling river.
And I shall not forget you ever,
Away, I’m bound to go ‘cross the wide Missouri.

Links

See also the Mudcat Café thread Origin: Shenandoah.

Performances, Workshops, Resources & Recordings

The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

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There is in an easiness

by | June 8, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments

When I begin to think of myself. My girded shell squeezing Oysters in a jar; My oily viscera Jammed and joggled Into impossible places. My pancreas Is never where it should be; My esophagus cut cleanly Swirls in a diaspora. My tongue is a trapped In a tangle of...
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A Redemptive Moment

by | November 15, 2013 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

I see the clock ticking towards 7:00. The kids are deep in their weekday world of homework, juggling soccer balls around the house, watching TV, but I am in my “got to rally” and get to the inn mode that happens very Thursday. Tonight I am tired. I’ll admit it, but...
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Garden Woman

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

I woke today and had my tea
and at the window spent the morning:
the same scene I’ve seen so many times
is each day freshly born;
from the ground I turn each spring and fall
come the flowers sweetly blooming;
you disappear among the weeds—
you are the garden woman.

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The Farmer, The Weaver & the Space Traveler

by | June 26, 2020 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

     Words matter. Words carefully crafted and artfully expressed  matter infinitely more. There is something compelling in a turn of phrase well-timed, arresting image juxtaposed on arresting images; broad ideas distilled into clear, lucid singular thought. For the...
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Practice Doing

by | April 26, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Someday, someone might fire you for not doing what you should have done.    There are some days when a teacher might wonder whether it is worth giving the extra effort if the students are not giving the extra effort. I am lucky--and cursed--that I get to live and...
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Out of the Forge: April 6, 2017

by | April 11, 2017 | Journal, Out of the Forge | 0 Comments

Some nights I feel like I am singing in a mall. Tonight--in a fun way--it felt a bit like I walked into the Natick mall at Christmas time and pulled out my guitar in front of the Apple store and started to play, but like every night down at the inn it evolved into a...
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The Queer Folk

by | April 18, 2016 | Journal, Songs | 0 Comments

True to my words of earlier this week, I finished this song last night, and at the time, I liked it--but in the clear light of day, too much of it seems forced, especially the rhymes. But that is part of the process. I think I am almost there. Let me get my saw and...
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China Journal: Part One

by | July 23, 2015 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

I           The dull staccato throb in light rain on a dark night. Unseen barges make their way up the QianTian River—concrete shores marked by the arch of the bridge, the spans of beam stretched on beam, the impeccable symmetry of the street-lights broken by a stream...
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Winter in Caribou

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

I know your name. It’s written there.
I wonder if you care.
A six-pack of Narragansett beer,
Some Camels and the brownie over there.
Every day I stop by like I
Got some place I’ve got to go;
I’m buying things I don’t really need:
I don’t read the Boston Globe.

But I, I think that I
Caught the corner of your eye.
But why, why can’t I try
To say the things I’ve got inside
To you ….

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Rainmaker

by | August 28, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

I loved the rain last night. Last week, in a bow to reality, I reclaimed my gardens and made them into yard. Four of my kids got poison ivy in the process and I (and more "they") got an extra ten feet of width to add to the soccer field--for really that is about the...
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Kampuchea

by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

I stutter for normality across the river from black men fishing for kibbers and horned pout. Barefoot children rounded bellies curled navels stalk the turtle sunning on a log. lonely in the field grass lonely on the curbstones I stutter for normality. Not a mother...
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Busy…

by | September 17, 2014 | Journal | 0 Comments

The start of the school year, and I have literally spent every free moment working on what is ostensibly pretty cool stuff, methinks...but it is work in every sense of the word, so I do miss those long summer mornings when  could literally write to my heart and heads...
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Why Trump Is Not Flipping Me Out

by | March 18, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

I wonder why Trump is not flipping me out? I wonder if there is some bigoted, ignorant and right-wing element that lurks inside this folk-singing, poem writing, neo-socialist shell of mine. Maybe it is not that hard for me to make the empathetic reach to feel at least...
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What a Picture Tells

by | May 6, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

"Zou Ma Guan Hua" You can't ride a horse and smell the flowers ~Chinese Proverb Sometimes I love just browsing through old folders of pictures of my kids when they were just kids in every sense of the word. Just seeing the pictures is a visceral experience for me as I...
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No Dad To Come Home To

by | August 26, 2014 | Dawghouse, Songs | 0 Comments

Rain’s falling outside of Boston—
Thank God I’m not working tonight.
I’ve got six of my own,
And a stepdaughter at home,
And a momma keeping things right.
I wonder if they’re at the table
With their puzzles, their papers and pens?
When I get off the highway
And pull in that driveway,
Will they run to the window again?

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Zenmo Yang Ni

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

I lost the time I hardly knew you,
half-assed calling:
“How you doing?
Laughing at my hanging hay field;
I never knew the time
that tomorrow’d bring,
until it brung to me.

Yuan lai jui shuo: “Zenmoyang ni?”
Xianzai chang shu: “Dou hai keyi”;
Xiexie nimen, dou hen shang ni.
Xiwang wo men dou hen leyi
Dou hen leyi

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Going Google?

by | July 1, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

When you find yourself in the majority, it's time to join the minority ~Mark Twain I have to admit, Google is pretty impressive. The whole set of features that are offered to the public and to educators for free is pretty astounding: email, document creation and...
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Close Your Eyes and See

by | April 9, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

      A lot of things in life fall short of the mark, but thoughtfulness has never let me down. For some forty years I have faithfully kept journals of the wanderings of my mind—most of which is lost in some way or another, but the effect hangs on like a sailor...
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The Old Tote Road

by | July 25, 2019 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

I clabber down the old tote road towards the red pine forest, leaning on my staff, skirting boulder-strewn ruts and small gullies carved out by two days of heavy rain. It is only a mile or so from our cabin, still, my wife makes me wear a pouch with an iPhone and an...
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In the unfolding chores

by | July 7, 2017 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

The day sometimes slip away from me, a huge pine half-bucked in the backyard, the kids old tree fort cut into slabs, a ton of coal waiting to be moved in a train of buckets to the bin. Sipping cold water on the back deck I hear Emma rustling for soccer cleats and...
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Superman

by | August 12, 2014 | Dawghouse, Songs | 0 Comments

There’s a little blonde boy in a superman cape
Racing around the back yard;
Sayin’, “Daddy don’t you know I can fly to the moon;
I’m gonna bring you back some stars.
And after that I’m gonna save the world”
Cause I’m superman today.”
I scoop that boy right into my arms,
And this is what I say:

You don’t need a cape to be a hero
You’ve got all the special powers that you need
Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil
And you’ll always be superman to me

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You Are All a Bunch of Punks

by | February 3, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Poetry without form is like tennis without a net. ~Robert Frost       Free verse poetry is not, as many assume, poetry without rules. It is a measured and thoughtful crafting of an idea into lines, spaces, and breaks intentionally and willfully crafted to heighten and...
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Welcome

by | August 12, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land... ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden I’ve...
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Let It Snow, Let It Snow…

by | February 2, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

You can't kill time without wounding eternity. ~Henry David Thoreau       Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...but don't let it totally define your day. Most of us see a snow day as an unexpected vacation day, though really what it is could be called "a day of...
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Goathouse

by | July 12, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

In reaching for the scythe I’m reminded of the whetstone and the few quick strokes by which it was tested— the hardness of hot August; the burning of ticks off dog backs. It’s winter now in this garage made barn, and the animals seem only curious that I’d be here so...
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Practicing What I Preach

by | April 10, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

It is not where you go. It is how you go. ~Fitz Is there any value in coming to the page this late at night after three hours of singing in a pub, just because I said I would? I expect you to go to the empty page and pry tired and stubborn thoughts and lay them on the...
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Moby Dick: Chapters 42-51

by | March 1, 2015 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

A literary reflection to my students... The lowering for whales, the appearance of Fedallah's crew, the vivid descriptions of the first chase in a sudden and unrelenting gale, the fatalistic joy of resigning oneself to fate, the awesome poetic intensity of Melville's...
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Mum…

by | May 8, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

Very jealous today of all the folks I see spending time with their respective moms--and sad for those who can't and for those whose wives were taken from their families too early in life... This is my remmebrance of my "mum" who died several years ago.       I ran...
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Another Day…

by | July 7, 2016 | Journal | 0 Comments

I've been somewhat lax about posting in here of late, but I have been giving myself a bit of a break from writing. In fact, I spent the last month or so just living--and that has been just fine with me. I set a simple goal for myself this summer to get in shape. PJ...
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Crows & Swallows Release

by | October 21, 2017 | Journal | 0 Comments

There is seldom a red-carpet celebration when a book of poetry is released, so I will keep this a quiet and humble affair. My newest book of poetry, “Crows & Swallows” is now on iBooks, so fresh you can almost smell the ink. My business model is unchanged: It is a...
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Metamorphoses

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

It’s something I‘ve hardly ever thought of:
this simple and rattling old diesel
has always gotten me there and then some;
and so at first I think this sputtering
is just some clog, and easily explained:
some bad fuel maybe, from the new Exxon,
or just shortsightedness on maintenance.
I’ve always driven in the red before,
and these have all been straight highway miles —

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How To Be Human

by | July 24, 2015 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

Mark Twain once wrote that it is good to be a good person, but it is better to tell people how to be good--"and a damn sight easier!" So much of my life is lived in response to the moment and not in a practiced and cultivated wisdom. I sat here this morning looking...
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Once Burned. Twice Shy.

by | April 6, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Just because no one understands you,  it doesn’t mean you are an artist ~Bumper Sticker        I sometimes wonder why when you give a group of teenagers a video camera, the first impulse is to shoot something stupid. It’s as if there is some jackass switch...
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The Storm of Fallibility

by | October 29, 2017 | Journal | 0 Comments

       One good cigar is better than two bad cigars, or so it seems right now. It is a beautiful and stormy night--pouring rain and howling wind, and I thought a good smoke would be a fitting end to a busy and over-booked week. As it goes, I bought a couple of cheap...
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Reflecting on Literature

by | March 27, 2017 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

I am constantly asking my students (and myself) to reflect on the literature they, and I, read. As I have grown older—and not necessarily wiser—I find myself only reading literature that I am sure will prod me out of my intellectual and emotional torpor, like a lizard...
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This new spring begs attention

by | March 22, 2019 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

And shivers its literal timbers. Cold, wet and pleading, Scarred by winter winds And pasty snows, My small field and patch of woods Is now a monument To aging neglect. Shorn limbs and branches Hang high and tangled in the Sugar maples (Widow makers we called them Back...
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The Fallacy of Philanthropy

by | November 11, 2013 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

There are thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one striking at the root. ~Henry David Thoreau     I just spent a long day deconstructing our backyard. EJ sold his alpacas, and so our fenced in pasture and barn can now return to its suburban origins as a shed...
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The End Is the Beginning

by | September 2, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

For the past twenty years this night has always been a bittersweet moment. I have never been hobbled by boredom or a lack of "things I love to do," so whatever supposed free time I have is rewarding in whatever I choose to do. The flip side is that I am teacher, and I...
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All You Need is Love

by | November 16, 2013 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

    The day grew warm today, as did my mood. I did a couple of shows at my school’s diversity day. It was good to see girls there and the obvious racial differences. It was comforting to see a sea of color with a smattering of white instead of the other way around. My...
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The English Soldier

by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

There is a soldier dressed in ancient English wool guarding the entrance to the inn. He is lucky for this cool night awaiting the pomp of the out of town wedding party. He is paid to be unmoved by the bride's stunning beauty or her train of lesser escorts. He will not...
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