What is your favorite song about a ship
From the days of sail to rum runners to cargo ships on lake superior all of these are immortalized in song
I hope
doesn’t mind me borrowing the idea and format for this post. He recently asked for people’s favorite songs about bodies of water. In my reply I mentioned that you could have a separate category of songs about ships. As I mulled it over I realized that I should go ahead and start that list myself. will hopefully be happy. For each of the songs I have chosen the title indicates a specific vessel (in almost every case the title of the song contains the name of the ship). But I’m curious to hear what songs other people think of which could mention ships in either the title or lyrics. Here are 10 songs to start the conversation. All of my selections are connected in some way with the folk revival — either folk songs, or songs by singer-songwriters One thing that is clear from the list is that the standard way in which a boat is commemorated in song is by sinking.I: Gordon Lightfoot “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”
Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
The obvious first choice; a powerhouse song. Probably the most famous of Gordon Lightfoot’s impressive career.
II Stan Rogers “Mary Ellen Carter”
Rise again, rise again, that her name not be lost
To the knowledge of men.
Those who loved her best and were with her till the end
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
Another shipwreck song. In this case about the crew who decided that they couldn’t leave her laying on the bottom of the sea. Listening to a few versions of the song for this post I was particularly struck by Liam Clancy’s cover in which he fully embraces the emotion of the song.[1]
III: Gordon Lightfoot “Marie Christine”
Now have you seen the lighthouse shining from the rock
For the ship Marie Christine and all her gallant lot
Now have you seen the lighthouse, oh we are close to land
Cried the brave young captain to his wretched band
I generally avoid including two songs by the same person on a list, but in this case I like the contrast between the two. “Edmund Fitzgerald” has been called “a documentarian’s song.” It tells the story with gripping detail from beginning to end. “Marie Christine”, on the other hand, opens with the ship about to crash, then flashes backwards to the Captain’s introduction to the boat (“When at first I saw Marie Christine the woman that she was / I signed aboard to man her sails and honor well her cause”) in a verse that feels more than slightly like a double entendre, and never moves forward to let us know what happens.
IV: John Hartford “Julia Belle Swain”
Now the Julia Belle Swain is a women's-lib boat
The first I ever knew
It's got girls in the pilothouse and girls on deck
And a lady in the engine room.
Now Donna, she's got her license
And Cindy's learnin' to steer
John Hartford achieved commercial success when Glenn Campbell recorded “Gentle On My Mind.” That gave him the freedom to experiment, spending time working on riverboats and developing his particular style of bluegrass (this is a nice post from someone who followed John’s songs to working on the river. “More than a few icy, miserable days in January of '76 I cursed the name of John Hartford.”)
V: The Beach Boys “Sloop John B”
So hoist up the John B's sail (hoist up the John B's sail)
See how the main sail sets (see how the main sail sets)
Call for the captain ashore, let me go home
Let me go home
The Beach Boys made this one of the most famous names in popular music. I hadn’t realized that the song dates to 1916. Carl Sandburg included it in a 1927 collection of American songs and was told:
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.
VI: Gordon Bok “Old Fat Boat”
No more tobacco, no more cheese;
I'm sprung in the back and lame in the knees.
It's a damned good thing I'm easy to please;
There ain't nothing in town on a Sunday.
I don't care, man, I'm happy.
The second half of this list doesn’t have any more pop songs; we’re moving into songs I recall from my childhood. Gordon Bok has written great songs drawing on and adding to the mythology of the sea (which may deserve another post), but I like this one focused on the more prosaic aspects of sailing (“the other half of getting there is rowing”). This is the one song that doesn’t include the name of the boat in the title.
VII: Woodie Guthrie “Sinking of The Reuben James”
Tell me what were their names, tell me what were their names,
Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James?
What were their names, tell me, what were their names?
Did you have a friend on the good Reuben James
Not Woodie Guthrie’s best song, but one of the first that came to mind when thinking about songs titled after ships. I appreciate his impulse to render tragedy at a human level which you also see in “Deportee” (link goes to a recording by Arlo Guthrie). Wikipedia says
Woody Guthrie had started to write a song including each name on the casualty list of the sinking. This was later replaced by the chorus "tell me what were their names."
VIII Traditional “The Dreadnaught”
The Dreadnought’s a-sailing the Atlantic so wide
With the high roaring seas roll along her black sides
With her sails tautly set for the Red Cross to show
Bound away to the westward, in the Dreadnought we’ll go.
I knew the chorus, but until putting together songs for this post I had thought of a dreadnaught as a class of warship not, in this case, the name of packet (mail) ship. The song is described in this post (the posted version has a slightly different set of lyrics which can be found here):
This song was long associated with the repertoire of Cliff. This Dreadnought, a clipper packet ship, is one of the best-known of these vessels. She was launched in New York in 1853 and sailed until she wrecked off Cape Horn in 1869. The melody is rather older than this tale and in the manner so common throughout the 18th and part of the 19th century, the melody would be reused for other lyrics as suited the singer. The melody is believed to be most noticably from a broadside ballad about a British naval vessel, “La Pique”, but in fact comes from the 18th century song, Derry Down; an English melody found in Chappell’s anthology titled, Popular Music Of The Olden Time. The true origins the tune, its variations, and its exact date of origin are obscure but it is known to have already been considered old by the 1770s.
IX Traditional “Golden Vanity”
And she sailed on the lowlands, lowlands,
And she sailed on the lowlands low.
The final two songs are ones that I remember my father singing when I was a child. The first of which is a traditional song that has been popular in many variations.
The earliest known text of this still-favourite ballad is a broadside from the Pepysian collection dating back to the last hall of the 17th century. In that version, the villain-captain is played by Sir Walter Raleigh, but in later texts ballad singers have deleted all references to him. Details of the ballad vary greatly, and aside from the usual havoc wreaked by oral tradition on names and places, an unusual amount of variation exists in the emotional contexts of the ballad ending. In some versions, the cabin-boy hero is amply rewarded (as in MacColl’s Scottish version) ; in others he is left to drown, or is pulled aboard too late and dies on deck. Some few texts even have the cabin-boy take his revenge by returning (in ghost form) and sinking the ship. The ballad was widely current in England, Scotland and America.
For both this and the final song I didn’t associate them with a specific recording, so I enjoyed trying to find a good version on YouTube. There were many to chose from but my favorite was this one, from a singer I hadn’t previously heard of, even though he changes the line about “the lowlands, lowlands low” which is catchy and seemed mysterious to me as a child.
The story is one of betrayal. The Golden Vanity is menaced by pirates, the captain promised his daughters hand in marriage to anyone who can save them. A cabin boy take an auger and swims/drifts over to the pirate ship where he is able to drill holes below the waterline and sink the ship. He then swims back (against the tide) and returns exhausted, and the captain has changed his mind. He does not wish his daughter to marry the cabin boy, so he refuses to pull him out of the water. The boy tries to get someone else to pull him out, but dies in the sea.
X: Wade Hemsworth “The Story Of The I’m Alone”
Now the Dexter's captain was a very rough man;
He had sworn that he'd never lose the I'm Alone again.
He ran a string of signals, saying: How do you do?
Now you know that I'll fire if you don't heave-to!
Skipper John semaphored immediately:
I'm on the high seas and you have no jurisdiction over me.
So the Dexter's captain
Sent several volleys through the I'm Alone's riggin'
By contrast, this is a fairly recent song, written about the sinking of a Canadian rum runner in international waters. I was able to find the following video which does a good job of illustrating the story, but doesn’t quite match the tune I heard growing up. But the story is a memorable one
It was on March 20, 1929, that the US Coast Guard cutter, Walcott, came upon the I’m Alone outside American waters and asked Capt. Randell to “heave to.” He did and proceeded to have conversation with the captain of the Walcott who had boarded his vessel. Capt. Randell advised the cutter’s captain the he was in international waters and the American authorities had no jurisdiction over him. Furthermore, he told the American captain, since he had not broken the Rum Running Treaty between the US and Britain, he would not surrender his ship. Following this discussion, the cutter’s captain returned to his ship and proceeded to follow the I’m Alone. It was during this time that the Walcott fired several shots at the I’m Alone. There was little damage done to the I’m Alone, and Capt. Randell was not about to surrender.
The next ship to come upon the scene was the US Coast Guard cutter, Dexter. After discussing the matter with the captain of the Walcott, the captain of the Dexter asked Capt. Randell to stop his ship. When Randell gave a negative reply, the Dexter opened fire on the I’m Alone with rifle and machine gun fire, followed by four-pounder explosive shells aimed at the water line of the rum-runner. All the while Capt. Randell and his crew remained at the stern of their ship.
Finally, the I’m Alone succumbed to the attack and the vessel sank bow first. The crew jumped overboard and clung to the wreckage. The boatswain of the I’m Alone drowned. The rest of the crew were hauled aboard the Dexter, and Capt. Randell was placed in leg irons.
While onboard the Dexter returning to an American port, Capt Randell managed to get on deck one day. He noticed signals being passed between the crews of the Dexter and the Walcott. Being a master mariner and a former lieutenant-commander in the Royal Navy in charge of warships, Randell could read the signals without difficulty. They were discussing how to explain the sinking of the I’m Alone some 200 miles off the American coast in international waters.
The sinking of the I’m Alone caused an international incident. When the hearing took place in New Orleans, the district attorney dropped the case against the captain and crew of the I’m Alone because they were wrongly arrested outside American waters. In addition, the United States government awarded the owners of the rum-runner $25,000 and the Captain and crew $25,000 as compensation.
As he did so many times before, Capt. Randell returned to sea following his experience with American Justice. Due to ill health, Capt. Randell retired in 1941. This fascinating captain from Port Rexton died in 1944.
[1] There’s a video of Stan Rogers which opens with an interview with a sailor who credits the final verse of “Mary Ellen Carter” with giving him the strength and courage to survive a shipwreck. The top comment is:
My dad was Robert Cusick, the man who sang this song to inspire him to live through that terrible night in the lifeboat. We lost him two weeks ago, and I sang this at his funeral. Thank you Stan for giving me an extra 30 years with him. I'm sure they're raising a jar together on the other side......
If you can read that without choking up a little, you are made of stronger stuff than I am.
The Dubliners’ “Irish Rover”.
"Boats to Build" by Guy Clark is at the top of my list. The Grateful Dead's "Ship of Fools" is pretty good. Vampire Weekend's "Hudson," about Henry Hudson's last doomed journey up the river that bears his name, is haunting. If you're talking about a specific ship, Bob Dylan's "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" is about a specific boat, that is never named. "Ferry 'Cross the Mersey," anyone?