Thursday, October 06, 2011

And now, here is some music

is this possibly the best song ever written about anything

8 comments:

Johanna said...

Yes, yes it very possibly is.

Johanna said...

I've been enjoying your writing about folk music this last couple of years, by the way, and I've been wondering whether you've heard much, or any, of Gordon Bok's music? Either solo work or that with Ann Mayo Muir and Ed Trickett. I believe you would probably like it.

K said...

Oh my gosh! By high school youth boating group (Sea Scouts!) used to spontaneously burst into this song when we had spare time on our hands. Also other Stan Rogers, but particularly this one. Man, that brings it back. This would have been around about 1995.

Sam Dodsworth said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SK said...

Oh, yes. I was amazed when I learnt that other people had heard it.

Chestertonian Rambler said...

I'd always heard an acapella version that turns the song into, essentially, a sea chanty.

I liked that version, but the song improves greatly when the singer so angrily believes in it. Thanks for the link.

Andrew Rilstone said...

Yeah, that's true of a lot of Stan Rogers songs -- they are formally shanties or sea songs but he performs them as heartfelt narrative ballads.

Jo Walton said...

Millions of people have written songs about ships sinking.

It took a genius like Stan Rogers to write a song about a sunken ship coming back up.