The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9561   Message #62107
Posted By: Barbara
09-Mar-99 - 03:47 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Lower the Boat Down / ...the Yawl Boat...
Subject: RE: Lyrics to
This one has a refrain that runs:
There's only one thing that grieves me
Oh, lower the boat down,
It's my poor wife and baby
Lower the yawl boat down.

The song describes the history and fate of the schooner Alice Wentworth, bought in a run-down to condition to be rehabilitated by a woman "from Buzzard's Bay, who drove her to hell and left her to stay".
I believe it ends "The women are women and the men are men/And the ships will sail when the women stay home" and I have heard Gordon Bok sing it, tho I don't know if he recorded it.
It isn't exactly a goody-goody song, at least if you are a woman.(grin) And "yawl" in the last line could easily be misunderstood as "old". It's a small boat used to haul crew and goods from ship to shore and back, I believe.
I'll see if I can scare up the rest of the words around here someplace, and get back to you.
Blessings,
Barbara