Sing Like a Seafarer on Talk Like a Pirate Day

Ahoy, matey! Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, created in 1995 and popularized in 2002 by humorist Dave Barry. I’ve found this event amusing since I first became acquainted with it, though I haven’t quite mastered the gift of pirate gab myself. Hence, I won’t be writing a review in Piratese, but in honor of this rather ridiculous holiday, I present my September 19th list of 19 seafaring songs. While only a quarter of them involve actual pirates and there’s a fairly heavy concentration of songs from the Irish Rovers and Celtic Thunder, I hope it goes down as sweet as a goblet o’ grog.

A Professional Pirate - In this song from Muppet Treasure Island, Tim Curry leads a most unsavory crew in a litany of reasons why the pirate lifestyle is so satisfactory. A gregarious song of welcome rather reminiscent of Oliver’s Consider Yourself, it offers the wily Long John Silver a chance to persuade innocent young Jim Hawkins that piracy isn’t so terrible after all. “It’s how you look at buccaneers that makes them bad or good, and I see us as members of a noble brotherhood!”

Blow the Man Down - When it comes to traditional sea shanties, few are more famous than this one. I’ve heard it any number of times at Celtic fests and other singalong occasions, but when I think of it nowadays, what pops into my mind first is the absurd but endearing sight of brainy Sheldon Cooper and his bubbly neighbor Penny using the song to help them mass-produce hair clips on The Big Bang Theory. “I’ll sing ye a song, a good song of the sea, with a way, hey, blow the man down. I trust that you’ll join in the chorus with me. Give me some time to blow the man down!”

Calypso - John Denver wrote this song in the immediate aftermath of his ride on the Calypso, the ship belonging to ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau. It’s easy to tell how inspired he was; it may be just about the most viscerally joyful song in his catalog, and given how happy so much of his music is, that’s really saying something. An exuberant tribute to Cousteau and to aquatic life. “Like the dolphin who guides you, you bring us beside you to light up the darkness and show us the way. Although we are strangers in your silent world, to live on the land we must learn from the sea to be true as the tide, free as a wind swell, joyful and loving in letting it be.”

Candle on the Water - Definitely not a sea shanty, but so rich in nautical imagery that I had to include it, especially since it is one of my very favorite Disney love songs. Helen Reddy’s Nora, a lighthouse keeper, continues to tend to her duties, hoping that one day the ship her beacon saves will be that of her fiancé Paul, who vanished at sea the year before. The lighthouse becomes a powerful metaphor for the flame in her heart that she refuses to extinguish. “A cold and friendless tide has found you. Don’t let the stormy darkness pull you down. I’ll paint a ray of hope around you, circling in the air, lighted by a prayer.”

Captain Hook - My favorite version of Peter Pan is the televised stage musical starring Mary Martin, with the outstanding Cyril Ritchard as the far more hilarious than menacing Captain Hook. A preening peacock of a man, he revels in the tribute he writes to himself, with his pirate crew chiming in on the chorus. “Who’s the swiniest swine in the world? (Captain Hook! Captain Hook!) Who’s the dirtiest dog in this wonderful world? (Captain Hook! Captain Hook!) Captain of villainy, murder and loot, eager to kill any who says that his hook isn’t cute. (It’s cute!)”

Farewell to Nova Scotia - This traditional Canadian dirge most likely dates back about a century, and I’ve heard several renditions, my favorite of which is the wistful, woodwind-soaked one by the Irish Rovers. Songs of emigration are common to Celtic music; this one stands out to me for this list because of the nautical focus of the chorus. “Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-bound coast. Let your mountains dark and dreary be. When I am far away, on the briny ocean tossed, will you ever heave a sigh or a wish for me?”

Gilligan’s Island Theme Song - Possibly the most maddeningly catchy theme song in television history. Once this song gets lodged in your head, you’re stuck with the bouncy ballad for life. These seven stranded castaways have such a cushy life that it doesn’t really matter that Gilligan manages to thwart their rescue week after week. Since the millionaire Howells seem to have packed for a three-year tour and there’s nothing that the Professor can’t build out of bamboo or coconuts, they’re set for life. Pretty lucky shipwreck! (P. S. You’re welcome.) “The mate was a mighty sailin’ man, the skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day for a three-hour tour (a three-hour tour).”

Greenland Whale Fisheries - Peter Paul and Mary sing a stirring version of this 300-year-old ballad detailing a whaling expedition gone awry. I’d never heard it before I got their boxed set five years ago, but it’s been covered by many, including The Weavers, whose rendition is perhaps the most famous. The deceptively upbeat banjo is countered by the melancholy flute in this tragic tale. “Oh, Greenland is a dreadful place. It’s a land that’s never green, where there’s ice and snow and the whale-fishes blow and daylight’s seldom seen, brave boys, and daylight’s seldom seen.”

Heartland - One of Celtic Thunder’s two signature songs, this Phil Coulter chant is a prayer for deliverance uttered by sailors in rough weather. In this way, it’s quite similar to the ballad Home From the Sea, included on a later Celtic Thunder album, but the bouncy folksiness of that song, along with the rescue at the hands of the coast guard, gives it a very different tone than this one, a reverent plea borne of desperation and deep faith. It’s a most appropriate song for the group to open with, since the Gaelic chorus, which translates to “Lord, have mercy, Christ, have mercy,” feels so Celtic and the stormy situation, brought to life with deep percussion, certainly takes care of the thunder. “When the winds are howling, vigil keep. Shelter us and save us from the deep!”

Into the West - Extensively hinted at earlier in the score, particularly the exquisite The Grey Havens, this is the end-credits anthem of The Return of the King. Drawing inspiration from Frodo’s vision of the West in the novel and the Tennyson-esque poem Bilbo’s Last Song, which imagines Bilbo’s poetic response to his departure from Middle-earth, this epic Annie Lennox song is slow and ethereal. While it deals specifically with the Westward journey that the heroic Bagginses undertake after their labors have ended, the song also uses nautical imagery to speak metaphorically and optimistically of death. “What can you see on the horizon? Why do the white gulls call? Across the sea, a pale moon rises. The ships have come to carry you home.”

Jack Sparrow - I distinctly remember the night six years ago when I was watching Saturday Night Live and saw my first Digital Short. I was blown away by Lazy Sunday, which was just so different and so refreshingly funny. In the video, a couple of geeky guys use hardcore rap to relate their exploits leading up to their viewing of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It’s hilarious and, aside from one extraneous word that seems to have been included mostly so it could be censored, perfectly clean. Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island cronies quickly got more risqué with their videos and songs on the show and off, so when this video went viral on Facebook, I was torn between keen interest and wariness. Interest won out; both were warranted. The main trio’s rapped verses are filthy, both in terms of language and activities described, but Michael Bolton’s random melodic outbursts that turn the chorus into a tribute to Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribeean make the wincing worth it. The most entertaining marriage of an epic score and absurd heights of fandom since last year’s I’ll Never Be LOST Again, it proved the perfect way to generate excitement for the fourth movie. “This is the tale of Captain Jack Sparrow, pirate so brave on the Seven Seas. A mystical quest to the isle of Tortuga. Raven locks sway in the ocean breeze.”

Safe in the Harbour - I just discovered this gentle Eric Bogle ballad thanks to George Donaldson’s debut solo album, The White Rose. Written in tribute to the late Canadian singer-songwriter Stan Rogers, it speaks of sailing as being akin to dreaming before using the chorus to craft a metaphor similar to the one used in Into the West. Simply gorgeous. “To every sailor comes time to drop anchor, haul in the sails and make the lines fast. You deep water dreamer, your journey is over. You’re safe in the harbour at last.”

The Irish Rover - This traditional tune from which the Irish Rovers take their name is a calamitous ballad that really should be a most mournful lament. Instead, however, the whole thing feels like a party, particularly the silly section detailing all of the cargo that the Irish Rover has in its hold. I’ve heard this song oodles of times, but nobody whoops it up like the Irish Rovers, who keep listeners on their toes by altering the lyrics slightly just about every time they record it. Never has a shipwreck been so much fun. “We had sailed seven years when the measles broke out and the ship lost its way in a fog, and the whale of a crew was reduced down to two: ‘twas meself and the captain’s old dog. Then the ship struck a rock – oh, Lord, what a shock! We nearly tumbled over. Turned nine times around and the poor old dog was drowned. I’m the last of The Irish Rover!”

The Mariner’s Revenge Song - This was the song that introduced me to The Decemberists, a truly unusual alt-folkie group fronted by Colin Meloy, who mostly writes songs that sound as though they’ve been floating around for a couple of centuries. That’s certainly true of this nine-minute-long whale of a song accompanied by accordion and tambourine and filled with words like “roustabout” and “consumptive.” After the narrator’s “poor sweet mother” charges her young son with the task of violently dispatching the ne’er-do-well who had his way with her, infected her with some foul disease and abandoned her, even Inigo Montoya would be hard-pressed to compete with his blood-thirsty drive for vengeance. Quite a nasty narrative, but oh so grandiose. “We are two mariners, our ships' sole survivors in this belly of a whale. Its ribs are ceiling beams. Its guts are carpeting. I guess we have some time to kill…”

The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything - Since its first episode, one of the trademark elements of the VeggieTales line of computer-animated Christian videos has been Silly Songs With Larry. This particular Silly Song is doubly goofy because it makes its debut in a video that consists of nothing but previous Silly Songs. These lackadaisical pirates would go on to star in two full-screen flops that almost toppled the company, so I guess you might say they accidentally pillaged their own production. Nonetheless, I found the films fairly fun and the concept a hoot as gruff Pa Grape, luxuriating Mr. Lunt and oblivious Larry the Cucumber brag about all the piratey – and, in Larry’s case, just plain weird – things they’ve never actually done. “And I never hoist the mainstay, and I never swab the poop deck, and I never veer to starboard ‘cause I never sail at all. And I’ve never walked the gangplank, and I’ve never owned a parrot, and I’ve never been to Boston in the fall.”

The Voyage - This Johnny Duhan song, famously covered by Christy Moore, is another that I heard first from Celtic Thunder’s George Donaldson. In this tender love song, the speaker likens marriage to a nautical journey, instantly reminding me of LOST’s Odyssean lovers Desmond and Penny, who spend so much of their time navigating the ocean in their quest to be together. While the central metaphor comes close to being mawkish at times, it never crosses the line, at least when sung by such master balladeers as I’ve heard performing it. “I am a sailor; you’re my first mate. We signed on together; we coupled our fate. We hauled up our anchor, determined not to fail. For the heart’s treasure, together we set sail.”

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Up until the Decemberists came along, I found it hard to imagine a seafaring ballad that could eclipse this six-and-a-half-minute-long behemoth. Even in light of that song, Gordon Lightfoot’s electrified ode to the doomed titular ship remains impressive. Inspired by a straightforward newspaper account of the infamous shipwreck that occurred November 10, 1975, it also has the distinction of being the only non-local song I can think of to mention Lake Erie. I saw this song performed from the second row at a concert in 2000, and believe me, it really felt like we were out there on that roiling ocean. I’ll always think of this as the ultimate shipwreck song. “In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed in the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral. The church bell chimed till it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

Yellow Submarine - No, it’s not a boat per se, but how could I not include this cheerful ocean vessel at the heart of one of the Beatles’ peppiest, most recognizable tunes? It sure sounds like a wonderful way to see the aquatic world. “In the town where I was born there lived a man who sailed to sea, and he told us of his life in the land of submarines. So we sailed into the sun till we found the sea of green, and we lived beneath the waves in our yellow submarine.”

Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me) - I love that my alphabetization of this list landed me with pirate songs on either end. This song, very much along the same lines as A Professional Pirate, is a celebration of this lawless lifestyle and has served as the official theme song to the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions for upwards of four decades. A very singable shanty that delights in devilish deeds and a perfect way to wrap up this Talk Like a Pirate Day Playlist. “We’re beggars and blighters and ne’er-do-well cads. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho! Aye, but we’re loved by our mommies and dads. Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!”

It took me a while to come up with enough songs for this list, but once they started pouring in, I had a hard time restricting myself to just 19 and had to leave out several great ones, from the Irish Rovers’ mandolin-drenched lament My Boy Willie to the hearty barrel-riding number Rolling Down the Hole from the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit. If any of you have favorite nautical songs I haven’t mentioned here, I welcome recommendations. Meanwhile, if you enjoy this type of music as much as I do, I hope I’ve helped you find an appropriate musical backdrop for this most auspicious occasion. I best be shovin’ off fer now, so fair winds to ye, matey, until this time next year!