Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Roger in France on January 21, 2010, 04:53:23 pm
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A comment on another thread reminded me that I am not sure I have ever seen sea shanties written down.
I am sure there is a rich oral tradition in such songs.
I will go away and do a little research. But if anyone can point me in the right direction, meanwhile, I would be glad.
I am particularly interested in the full words and origins of the song "Eddystone Light":
"Oh me father was the keeper of the Eddystone Light
And he married a mermaid one fine night".......
Roger in France
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Oh, me father was the keeper of the eddystone light
And he slept with a mermaid one fine night
From this union there came three
A porpoise and a porgy and the other was me
Chorus:
Yo ho ho, the wind blows free, oh for the life on the rolling sea
One day as I was a-trimmin’ the glim
Humming a tune from the evening hymn
A voice from the starboard shouted, ahoy!
And there was me mother a-sittin’ on the buoy
Chorus
Oh what has become of me children three?
Me mother then she asked of me
One was exhibited as a talking fish
The other was served in a chafing dish
Chorus
Then the phosporus flashed in her seaweed hair
I looked again, but me mother wasn’t there
But I heard her voice echoing back through the night:
The devil take the keeper of the eddystone light!
Chorus
Oh the moral of the story you’ll learn when you find
To leave god’s creatures for what nature had in mind
For fishes are for cookin’, mermaids are for tales
Seaweed is for sushi and protecting is for whales
Chorus
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Well that last verse certainly was never sung when I visited the Eddystone in 1955!
Roger in France
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Sea shantys were work songs
Hauling songs for sails
Or Capstan songs
My Father was the Keeper
was either a music hall song
or a sea song but never a shanty
Yours Aye
Ned
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Try Looking for the Bristol Shanty Men --- They had a web site a few years Ago --- Also Look up the American Folk singer Burle Ives He was the first person I heard sing the Eddy Stone Light and I'm Not sure But I think he may have written it in the 50's
Freebooter :-))
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Ah....Burl Ives, he of "The Ugly Bug Ball" when "Uncle Mac" used to do "Childrens Favourites"......memory lane!
I think "Eddystone Light" goes way back before the 1950's.
I stand corrected, "Sea songs"!
Thanks for the tips.
Roger in France
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Nice rendition with words on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4KrEvReK84&feature=related Lots of other sea songs and shanties, fishermens choirs on youtube .
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Nicked from a website
"Eddystone Light is one of the world’s most famous Lighthouses since the Tower was the first offshore Lighthouse built on exposed rock barely above sea level in the open ocean.
In 1698, the first lighthouse was built on Eddystone Rocks, a reef 14 miles southwest of Plymouth, England, by Henry Winstanley. From 1698 to 1755, three wooden Lighthouse were built, altered (1699), and destroyed by a sea storm (1703) and fire (1755).
The above Sea Shanty* was written for the fourth lighthouse built by John Smeaton between 1756 and 1759 using interlocking stone dovetailing construction to resist the forces of the sea. The stone Tower survived for 127 years before cracks at the base required a new Lighthouse. The Smeaton stone lighthouse was dismantled and rebuilt on Plymouth Hoe.
*Sea Chanteys (or shanties) are sailor work songs about life at sea including Lighthouse work. Any lyrics with a regular beat were used to harmonize the steady-paced work. Originally, the shanty lyrics were shouted by a chanter and the seaman sung the chorus in rhythm to the teamwork. The old sea chanteys energized the sailors performing the rigorous work during the age of sail.
Sea chanteys were written by sailors and landlubbers alike to synchronize the work crews performing the strenuous labor. For example, Alexander Mitchell, Irish marine engineer who developed the screwpile support for Lighthouses located in shallow bays and rivers, would lead the chanteys the crews sang as they tread around the huge windlasses that drove in the massive screws.
‘glim’:
Old English word meaning a source of light such as a candle or oil lamp. Wicks of whale oil lamps were frequently trimmed to ensure the light shone steadily without flare-ups which could be misinterpreted as a flash and to reduce the carbon deposits on the interior of the lamp’s lens."
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My school, which looked out over the sea toward the Eddystone, was divided into "Houses" each named after a builder of one of the lighthouses.
Smeaton's Tower, which as you say, stands on Plymouth Hoe and is open to the public, did not itself fail it was the rock it was mounted upon. The subsequent lighthouse was built on a closely adjacent rock. The stump of Smeaton's Tower still stands where it was originally built.
Roger in France
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As I said, I was quoting from another website, not my facts.
Don't shoot the messenger ;)