Posts

Alex Sturbaum 2020

"I wanted there to be more explicitly LGBTQ songs in the folk tradition (after all, we've always been around), and while reading Nathaniel Philbrick's "In the Heart of the Sea", it occurred to me that whaler's wives had to sometimes fall in love."

Alex Sturbaum: https://alexsturbaum.bandcamp.com/track/sweet-mary-starbuck

I married John Coffin just two years ago
And he’s a fine man, as all Nantucket knows
And he’s bound to make second mate, or so I hear
If the Charles brings home enough oil next year

At twenty a mother, at nineteen a bride
With a child on my knee and another inside
My heart it was broken, and swept out to sea
Where my sweet Mary found it and brought it to me

Chorus:
Sweet Mary Starbuck from Nantucket town
If she were the sea I would willingly drown
And her voice like a bell on a clear winter’s day
Sets my heart a-ringing and winging away

At meeting one morning she came to me there
With the Nantucket wind in her flyaway hair
Her hand, soft and certain, clasped mine in the lane
And I felt my heart shiver when she spoke my name

Her words came in whispers, in trembling lines
Her cheeks red as roses, her eyes all a-shine
Then she kissed me so gently, so soft and so sure
The world spun round once, and at once I was hers

On Nantucket our men go to hunt for the whale
And they live at the mercy of teeth, sea, and gale
But in town life goes on, and it goes on apace
With children, and letters, and Mary’s sweet face

So when John comes I’ll give him a kiss and a smile
And a good whaleman’s wife I will be for a while
And in time I’ll stand watching his sail fade at sea
Then go home where my true love lies waiting for me 

Lui Collins 1992

Lui Collins: https://luicollins.bandcamp.com/track/surrender

The ocean does not cry aloud when she is asked to leave
She does not fight the moon’s pull, the tugging on her sleeve
The time has come for parting, she’s only just arrived
Surrendering to the moon’s pull, the ocean stays alive.

The moon, it is her constant call, she rests not in one place
No claim on her the shore holds, it but reflects her face
A mirror to her visage, she knows herself in love
Thus looking outward finds herself – then comes the call from above

Chorus:
“Surrender,” the moon calls, “these boundaries are not your own
“Surrender,” the moon calls, “and I shall lead you home.”

The ocean does not question why she’s drawn from shore to shore
She does not ask the Heavens, “Then which do I love more?”
For she is not possessed by the west nor by the east
Her life is held in mystery, the secrets of the deep.

In deepest, darkest waters precious gems of life are born
In depths of secret longing the ocean births her own
The coral grows beneath the waves, the pearl is forged anew
As far below the surface ocean’s beauty reigneth true.

The ocean does not cry aloud when she is asked to leave
She does not fight the moon’s pull, the tugging on her sleeve
And trusting in the parting, and knowing self in love
Surrendering to the moon’s pull, the ocean stays alive. 

trad 

The Teacups: https://haystackrecords.bandcamp.com/track/sugar-in-the-hold

Well, I wish I was in Mobile Bay
Screwing cotton all the day
But I’m stowing sugar in the hold below
Below, below, below

Chorus (x2)
Hey, ho, below, below
Stowing sugar in the hold below

The J. M White, she’s a new design
Stern to stem she’s mighty fine
She can beat any ship on the New Orleans Line
Stowing sugar in the hold below

Tell the mate we’ve got bad news
Can’t get no steam from the fire in the flue
The engineer he did bellow
Stowing sugar in the hold below

The captain’s on the quarter deck
Scratching away at his old neck
Heave the larboard lead and let her go
Stowing sugar in the hold below 

Grace Petrie 2021

Grace Petrie: https://gracepetrie.bandcamp.com/track/storm-to-weather

Batten down the hatches love, the night is rolling in
The clouds are getting darker and you’re scared of what they’ll bring
And you are searching the horizon for some sign, some little spark
Of morning that will chase away the dark

Heavy was the winter, love, and what became of spring?
This demon came and got its claws in every little thing
Now there are miles and glass and distance that are keeping me apart
From the beating of your strong and steady heart

Chorus:
There’s a storm here to weather, the thunder’s coming near
Louder than ever and we don’t know where to steer
And though we can’t be together, no matter what my dear
I will love you forever and we will dance again next year (x2)

This world is unfamiliar now, it’s turned us all around
A sailboat in a hurricane and nothing’s bolted down
And whichever way you turn there is no sanctuary in sight
No path to some safe harbour in the night

But I am sailing right beside you, I am just out of arm’s length
Willing you remember you are wrought of iron strength
And I am hanging my tomorrows on the bones of yesterday
All I can do to make it through today 

Lynz Morahn 2018

When we all stand together, then we grow our village stronger

We are stronger than we realize, we are stronger than we know

So stand together, love each other, sharing joys and sorrows

And we’ll grow our village stronger, this we know

(sing, dance, eat, laugh, stand, march, grieve, dream, rise up/rise)

Andy Irvine 2010

Jones cofounded the Industrial Workers of the World. "She worked as a teacher and dressmaker, but after her husband and four children all died of yellow fever in 1867 and her dress shop was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, she began working as an organizer for the Knights of Labor and the United Mine Workers union. From 1897, at about 60 years of age, she was known as Mother Jones. In 1902 she was called "the most dangerous woman in America" for her success in organizing mine workers and their families against the mine owners. In 1903, to protest the lax enforcement of the child labor laws in the Pennsylvania mines and silk mills, she organized a children's march from Philadelphia to the home of President Theodore Roosevelt in New York."

Andy Irvine: https://andyirvine.bandcamp.com/track/the-spirit-of-mother-jones

Mother Jones is dead and gone she could no longer stay
No one knew how old she was but she was often heard to say
How she was born in 1830 in the sweet County Cork
But she crossed the foaming billows till she landed in New York

Chorus:
Mother Jones the miners’ angel must be treated with respect
She’s an old-fashioned lady and you never would suspect
That this gown and this bonnet would fill the rich man full of dread
“She’s the most dangerous woman in America!”, they said

I see her marching down the street with her umbrella in her hand
I can hear her still at Ludlow where the miners made a stand
And she says: “John D. will you kindly tell to me
How could you let your troopers lay them thirteen children down?”

In the horrors of West Virginia and in Colorado too
Mother Jones and her miners they never could subdue
And the men they fought and died in their tents and shanty towns
And the women stood like a wall of steel that nothing could batter down

“And it’s now for the evils of child labour”, says she
And the march of the mill children took place in nineteen three
From Philadelphia to New York and she says: “I’m going to show
Wall Street the flesh and blood they squeeze to make their dough”

When she died in 1930 O the sadness was profound
And they laid her to rest in a Union burial ground
And she lies in Mount Olive where the midnight wind it moans
“Stand up for the Union!”, cries the spirit of Mother Jones

The rich man and his police and his pulpit and his press
Got away with murder then they’d get away with it yet
But we’ll form a mighty union and we won’t be overthrown
And we never will forget the spirit of Mother Jones 

trad 

Edith Gawler & Bennett Konesni

These words were composed by Spencer the Rover
Who traveled Great Britain and most parts of Wales
He had been so reduced, which caused great confusion
And that was the reason he went on the roam

In Yorkshire, near Rotherham, he had been on his rambles
Being weary of traveling, he sat down to rest
At the foot of yonder mountain there runs a clear fountain
With bread and cold water he himself did refresh

It tasted more sweeter than the gold he had wasted
More sweeter than honey and gave more content
But the thoughts of his babies, lamenting their father
Brought tears to his eyes which made him lament

The night fast approaching, to the woods he resorted
With woodbine and ivy his bed for to make
There he dreamt about sighing, lamenting and crying
Go home to your family and wandering forsake

On the fifth of November, I’ve a reason to remember
When first he arrived home to his family and wife
They stood so surprised, when first he arrived
To behold such a stranger once more in their sight

His children came around him with their prittle-prattling stories
With their prittle-prattling stories to drive care away
Now they are united, like birds of one feather
Like bees in one hive, contented they’ll be

So now he is a living in his cottage contented
With woodbine and roses growing all around his door
He’s as happy as those who have thousands of riches
Contented he’ll stay and go a rambling no more 

trad

In South Australia I was born, (Heave away, haul away)
In South Australia round Cape Horn (We’re bound for South Australia)

Chorus:
Haul away, you rolling king, (Heave away, haul away)
Haul away, oh hear me sing, (We’re bound for South Australia)

As I walked out one morning fair, Twas there I met Miss Nancy Blair.

There only one thing grieves me mind, That’s leaving Nancy Blair behind.

O when I sail across the sea, My girl says she’d be true to me.

Oh, when we sail around Cape Horn, You’ll wish to God you’d never been born.

I wish I was on Australia strand, With a glass of whiskey in my hand.

 

 

Colin Meloy 2006

When we arrive, sons and daughters
We’ll make our homes on the water
We’ll build our walls aluminum
We’ll fill our mouths with cinnamon now

These currents pull us ‘cross the border
Steady your boats, arms to shoulder
‘Til tides all pull our hull aground
Making this cold harbour now home

Take up your arms, sons and daughters
We will arise from the bunkers
By land, by sea, by dirigible
We’ll leave our tracks untraceable now

Outro (x however many you want)
Hear all the bombs fade away

Zoe Mulford 2020

Zoe Mulford & Windborne: https://zoemulford.com/track/2466836/songs-stay-sung#

There is an end to every thing –
The breath we take and the songs we sing
And the last note rings and dies away
But the song stays sung ’til the end of days

Chorus:
And all we do may be undone
But love stays loved and songs stay sung
Love stays loved and songs stay sung

Astronomers could never chart
The constellations of the heart
For lovers part and lovers pine
But the love stays loved ’til the end of time

And every life’s a brief, bright spark
That dies and seems to leave no mark
So we curse the dark and we mourn the flame
But the things it showed us still remain

And I’ve been told that we are made
Of dust cast off when stars decayed
And the bodies fade that once were ours
But the dust goes on to make new stars