A Shanty for Barry Finn

Subject: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 01:59 PM

I wanted to write something in Barry's honor, and I knew it had to be a shanty. While I have done some blue water sailing, I'm no expert on the tall ships, and so forgive me(and correct me, I know Barry would) if some lines are lubberly. Anyone who has a couple of lines they'd like to toss in, welcome aboard. I hope on one is offended by this. Its just my way of celebrating my memory of him.

Barry Finn

Well the sails are raised and the anchor stowed
No more shall we tarry
And it's roll and go on the West Sea Road
Sing it again for Mr Finn and haul away for Barry!

May our loved ones back in port be blessed
No more shall we tarry
And our course be set for the West Nor'west
Sing it again for Mr Finn and haul away for Barry!

Well our ship is old but she's sound and dry
No more shall we tarry
So its raise the flag and watch her fly
Sing it again for Mr Finn and haul away for Barry!

We're bound for harbor on the Eastern Shore
No more shall we tarry
A thousand miles away or more
Sing it again for Mr Finn and haul away for Barry!

If never we return again
No more shall we tarry
We'll leave a song on the Western Wind
Sing it again for Mr Finn and haul away for Barry!

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:08 PM

Damn Leej......Very well done! Yeah.......that's just about perfect.......


Spaw

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: jacqui.c
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:11 PM

Beautiful EJ, just beautiful.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Songbob
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:14 PM

Not that is can be expressed in a text-only medium, but what's the tune?

And is it essentially a five-line stanza?

If never we return again
No more shall we tarry
We'll leave a song on the Western Wind
Sing it again for Mr Finn
And haul away for Barry!

My memory of most shanties (not my specialty, for sure) is that the short second line would typically be mirrored in the fourth line, so I tried cutting your last line into two short lines instead.

I almost think you could drop the "Mr. Finn" part and just leave the "haul away for Barry" in its place:

If never we return again
No more shall we tarry
We'll leave a song on the Western Wind
And haul away for Barry!

Your mileage may vary.

I may have more comments on the lyric in a while.

Bob Clayton

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: maeve
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:21 PM

I love the structure as is, and had no trouble at all setting it to a strong, rhythmic tune. I'm hearing a tasty bit of bodhran in there, too- and lots of rich harmonies.

maeve

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: jacqui.c
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:25 PM

So, next time you're around the area, Maeve, we need to hear this and join in.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:26 PM

The last bit with the extra line is a little unusual, but I like it. Maybe it fits my feeling about Barry. But you are right, Bob, it is essentially 5 lines 4 beats each.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: maeve
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:31 PM

Jacqui- I'd be happy to try it out with y'all- but it's not my song, and others may well have tunes to suggest too. I'll note it down.

I like the song as is a lot. Thanks for posting it, Lonesome EJ.

maeve

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:36 PM

Very nice. Maybe we can sing it on the banks @ Chalk Point next year?

I had a vision of a duet I wanted to do with Barry some time as a lark, did't make time this year to pitch it to him. I thought it would be funny to intersperse some of Julianna with Julie London's rendition of Sentimental Journey: "haha, my London Julie!" Had a whole bit worked up in my head.

Dani

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:46 PM

As long as you lead it, Dani, I'd love to join in on the choruses.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: gnu
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 02:48 PM

Damn fine!

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Genie
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 03:44 PM

Lonesome, if you call me and sing your chantey into the phone as a voice mail, I can either turn it into an mp3 or make a MIDI of it.   Of course, you could probably do that with other Catters who have them newfangled answering machines, voice mails, and computer machines.

Genie

PS
I love your lyrics!
I'm sure Barry's smiling somewhere when you sing them.

And whether the longer or shorter version of the last line works best really can't be known without hearing the tune.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: ClaireBear
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 03:56 PM

I love 'em too, as written with the extra line, and can't wait to hear the tune. Thank you for putting pen to paper!

C

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Azizi
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 04:05 PM

Barry Finn was one of the Mudcatters who introduced me to shanties. I believe he would like this song.

And even though this is a very sad time, I smiled a bit thinking how 50 or 100 years from now some group of folkies somehow are going to be debating about who "Mr Finn" was and what town named "Barry" is referred in that song.

And of course there will be a contentious few who will insist that the "town" was not really "Barry" but "Gary" [Indiana?] :o)

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 04:06 PM

exceedingly fine, LEJ

and I hear part of it to "The Black Ball Line"...the 2nd & 4th lines fall into place.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 04:16 PM

Leave Her, Johnny, Leave Her

Well the sails are raised and the anchor stowed
No more shall we tarry
And it's roll and go on the West Sea Road
And it's haul away for Barry!

Slight alteration.


Nicely done, LeeJ
Thank You.

Azizi - you made me laugh. Very insightful.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 04:44 PM

You know Sins, I did think of that tune. I love the bittersweet tone of it, and it would fit the shorter version. and yet...
It really seems to me that a Barry Finn shanty ought to be a rousing, stomping, joyous thing. A bench-walker, if you will.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: open mike
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 04:58 PM

here is a re-post from the obit thread

still looking for info about the one who posted this tune
and wondered if it might fit the meter of the song/

Subject: RE: Obit: Barry Finn (16 Oct 2009)
From: open mike - PM
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 12:09 AM

Will someone please tell me if there is a connection?
I happened to open a message tonight with a tune written in it:
X: 1
T: Barry Finn
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Gmaj
|:D3 FED|FAA A2 B|c3 BAG|EDC EGE|
D3 FED|FAA EGG|EDC A,B,C|D3 A3:|
|:d2 e d2 c|ABc EFG|ABc EFG|A3 A2G|
FED EGG|CEE G2A| EDC A,B,C|D3 D2 A:|

this was the web site:
http://www.thesession.org/tunes/display.php/9970

tune: Barry Finn, jig

Key signature: Gmajor

Submitted on October 17th 2009 by seinnteoir.

Is the person seinnteoir a mudcat? is this tune about "our" Barry?

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: SINSULL
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 04:58 PM

You're right, Leej.
A bit morose right now.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Jeri
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 05:02 PM

Leave Her Johnny is a natural tune, and I think the last line works the way it is. I'd just add a few notes/beats in the last line.

Well done, LEJ, and Barry sure would like it.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Genie
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 05:29 PM

I just sent you an email, LEJ, with a possible 'new' tune. It's kind of a patchwork of tune phrases I've heard in other chanteys, etc., but I don't think the final product is the tune to any song I've heard before.    You may or may not find it helpful, but if you do, use it however you please.

Genie

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: ClaireBear
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 05:30 PM

LEJ -- your instincts are right on. I know it will come to you and be just right.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 06:59 PM

Leave that ine structure as it be, Mister Johnson!! This is a classic, and perfectly true to its source as qritten, IMNSHO.

I will try and record it tonight. I think I know the tune...



A

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: haddocker
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 07:06 PM

It's a wonderful tribute. I am frustrated, however in that I don't have the tune, although until the last line of the refrain, it would fit "Leave Her Johnnie Leave Her". Can you post a midi, or something so that we can start it going?
                     h

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: maeve
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 07:10 PM

He has several tunes working their way to him as we speak.
For myself, Barry was such an original I'd kind of hate to see these words with an existing tune. LEJ will figure out what he wants to use... perhaps more than one version will form.

maeve

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Janie
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 07:44 PM

Well done, Ernie.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: ranger1
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 07:46 PM

Leej,
Yes, definitely a rousing, stomping, joyous thing. Thanks for sharing this.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Tinker
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 07:53 PM

Thanks LeJ -- a bench walker indeed... Loud and rowdy and forcing your feet to stomp along.... I've been going through video and it seems every year the camera would stray down for a moment or two to capture Barry's feet --- A reminder that is warn't no quiet sit and listen music.

thanks

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Genie
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 08:14 PM

Barry's feet moved while he sang, Tinker? You mean like this?

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Tinker
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 09:10 PM

Yes, there are many variations on the theme...

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Amos
Date: 19 Oct 09 - 11:41 PM

Ernie:

My recording setups are all fubar, so it will be a day or so before I can get you the recording. Damn. You may have found one you like, already, but if not I'll email you a version as soon as I can debug my mixer and get it down.


A

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: SaltyWalt
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 12:36 AM

Actually, I agree with both camps about this songs line length-- You have a point Mr Clayton, with your suggestion it would be a haliard chantey, and it works better. That being said, Barry chose to sing a lot of songs that by the usual standards and metrics "didn't work" and he "Didn't give a flying F**k" He sang em any and loved em hard and in public. He was drawn to unusual structures (Think of what he did to make the "Yangtze River Shantey" singable.

I've had to sing versions of "Leave Her Johnny" at too many funerals this year, and I'm sorry, I get it, but it's too overdone in our community. Besides Jerry Bryant already stole that basic tune for his tribute to Stan. Let's give Barry one that relates more to him.

For that reason I worked with the original and lyrics, pinched and pieced together two of his favorite perfomance pieces to give a tune that is mornful, soulful, and ends on an up beat err. . . note.

Those of you who stood next to him late at night at sings will know which two I chose.
It's not hard.

Perhaps you can tidy up what I was trying to do, and you can improve it. If you get it, great, If not, well this is how we'll sing it in 'ol Frisco.

After all I've had no internet all week so I'm reading this thread for the first time tonight, and made the recording I hope to post in about 10 minutes. I'll post it or a link to it, err, as soon as I figure out how. . .

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Genie
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 01:11 AM

LEJ, the email I sent you came back to me. DK if the 1.8 MB audio file was too big or your e-dress is no longer the one listed here at Mudcat.   If you PM me the correct e-dress I'll try again.
I'm thinking maybe if you hear the various tunes that get sent to you, you'll come up with your own special tune that may perhaps reflect aspects of those. (Or not.) Anyway you'll have some ideas to ponder.

Genie

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: SaltyWalt
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 01:43 AM

Please, forgive the sond quality.

I'll try for a better recording tomorrow.

I tried to imagine him singing it, but I didn't want to copy his unique style at this time lest someone think I was making fun.

I'll really miss everthing we will never do together.
I am so glad he got a cd out.
I know, wrong thread.

If this link doesn't work, Let me know.

http://www.yellowzeppelin.net/Barry/Chantey%20For%20Barry.mp3

http://www.yellowzeppelin.net/Barry/Chantey%20For%20Barry.mp3

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 02:04 AM

Very nice, Walt!

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Anglo
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 02:37 AM

Ah, an adaptation of Bye Bye My Roseanna, I take it. Appropriate enough. I've sung that one with Barry a few times. Nice, Walt. And I totally agree, nothing at all amiss with the 5-line stanza. I like it that way.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: georgeward
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 04:15 AM

Re: open mike's question about the Barry Finn Jig. It's good, a bit appropriately lonesome, and in D Mixolydian, not G maj. And there's not a word on the comment tab about it or its composer. Hard to imagine it isn't "our" Barry. But who...?

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 08:56 AM

Nicely sung, Walt!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 10:46 AM

Barry once convinced me to sing Warren Zevon's 'Carmelita' at one of our sea music sessions, just because he loved it (even if he did keep insisting that "Smith Corona" should be "Smith & Wesson" because a junkie with a typewriter didn't make sense to him). I think there might have been some aerodynamic copulation commentary involved. ("Barry, I can't--it's not a sea song!" Barry: "So? I don't give a...") So I sang it, and it was a right dog's breakfast because I couldn't find a key that would let us both sing melody. He didn't much care about the mess either. You screw something up, you have fun doing it, laugh and move on.

I'll have to look for a completely inappropriate place to sing that song now. Of course, I now hear a lot of similarity between the tune for 'Carmelita' and 'Leave Her, Johnny'.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: open mike
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 11:04 AM

nice to hear from you here salty walt--i was stage manager for the sea music fest. on the stage you performed on...golly i miss that event...
good job on the shanty...

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 11:36 AM

That settles it...for me, at least. I will hear Walt's version in my head. As Barry would say, "I don't give an aerodynamic... flying ****".

Thanks, LEJ and SaltyWalt...and everyone...

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 12:32 PM

Nice job, Walt, and very much the kind of thing I had inmind as well!!


A

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 02:32 PM

Beautiful- thanks, Leej!

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Tinker
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 02:45 PM

Thank You one and all --- it sets a wistful smile, and leaves the promise of some boot stompin' when the time is right.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 03:26 PM

Walt's tune was beautiful, and Genie sent me a great version in a minor key which is unique and has some good foot-stomping potential. If anyone wants to hear her version, I'm quite sure she would email it. Maeve has promised me a cassette with her take. I am very gratified that so many people who knew and liked Barry think the Barry Finn Shanty was a good idea.

Funny thing about this song. I suppose because it seems to have hit home for a lot of people, I hardly feel that its my song anymore. I really like Walt's tune, but I had originally envisioned something more raucous, as Barry might have sung it for someone he loved and lost. But then I think Barry Finn had a lot of facets to his singing, and he could do the tear-jerkers as well as anyone.
So I almost think the decision isn't mine to make. The song belongs to Barry and those who knew him. I think he might enjoy hearing the tune done however the singer's heart told him to do it.
Or, of course, he might think this whole line of thought is sentimental horseshit. ;>}

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: ClaireBear
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 04:15 PM

I've got a tune bubbling up inside me too, so the San Francisco scene might get TWO tunes to choose from. Mine's raucous, at least I think it will be. I'll let you know what it is when it's finished percolating around in there.

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Amos
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 04:20 PM

Sentimental horseshit??? ROFL. He would say something like that, ya know, but it isn't what he'd think of this, at least inside.



A

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Bupkes
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 05:24 PM

For the past year, I sat next to Barry nearly every week at the Press Room, and I'd testify that he would bend a tune like Superman bending steel with his bare hands.

I like Walt's version, but sensing the folk process still in process, I'm experimenting with other tunes too. For example, something like Bold Riley-O the way Kate Rusby does it, the verses part not the chorus, seems to work, without the "Mr Finn" part, as others suggested. May well come back to Walt's tune in the end, though.

I'll try it out on Peter Souza and the others at Cameron's tonight. (Sorry, I'm having a hard time getting into the Mudcat nicknames.)

Marty

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 05:59 PM

Hi Marty. If you do it at Cameron's, I'd be interested to know how it's received.

Ernie

Subject: RE: A Shanty for Barry Finn
From: Genie
Date: 20 Oct 09 - 08:20 PM

LEJ, I did make a slipshod video just for the purpose of sharing a possible tune and some possible harmonies. It's a crummy video (partly because I was reading off the 'puter screen) but the sound quality is better than on the audio file I sent you yesterday. Here's the link, in case anyone wants to hear the tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3NxaT3RF_g.
I will probably take the video down in a day or two, since it was just thrown together (and I'm a bit 'pitchy' in a place or two). As I said, it's just for letting people hear a tune suggestion.


I do kind of like the "folk process" that seems to be going on with this song and the Mudcat community.

Genie