Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale (from Tamarack)

Subject: Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale - Tamarack
From: GUEST,Kees
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 05:29 AM

Can anybody help me with the words of "The Greenland Whale" as sung by Tamarack on an their album "Frobisher Bay". This is not the well known "Green Whale Fisheries".
Thanks,
Kees

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale - Tamarack
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 05:57 AM

Possibly the one in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs where it's called The Whale-Catchers, and recorded by Martin Carthy on his album with Dave Swarbrick, 'Straws in the Wind.'

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale - Tamarack
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 08 Nov 09 - 07:40 AM

Ignore the above - it's not that one!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale (from Tamarack)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 09 Nov 09 - 12:55 PM

James Gordon wrote THE GREENLAND WHALE. He is a member of Tamarack.

THE GREENLAND WHALE is also on James Gordon's solo album "Mining for Gold" (2000).

I couldn't find any lyrics or sound files.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale (from Tamarack)
From: GUEST,Kees
Date: 21 Nov 09 - 06:34 PM

Thanks Jim for your help. I managed to get the lyrics.

Kees

Subject: Lyr Add: THE GREENLAND WHALE
From: Dennis the Elder
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 05:28 PM

I know of the following version, it certainly is a good song worth singing.
THE GREENLAND WHALE

It was seventeen hundred and eighty-four
On March the seventeenth day
We weighed our anchor to our bow
And for Greenland bore away brave boys
And for Greenland bore away

Bold Stevens was our captain's name
Our ship called the Lion so bold
And our poor souls our anchor away
To face the storms and cold brave boys
To face the storms and cold

Oh when we arrived in that cold country
Our goodly ship to moor
We wished ourselves safe back again
With those pretty girls on shore brave boys
With those pretty girls on shore

Our boatswain to the main top stand
With a spyglass in his hand
A whale a whale my lads he cries
And she spouts at every span brave boys
And she spouts at every span

The captain walked the quarter-deck
And a jolly little fellow was he
Overhaul overhaul your davit tackle fall
And we'll launch our boats all three brave boys
And we'll launch our boats all three

There was harpineery and picaneery
And boat steerery also
And twelve jolly tars to tug at the oars
And a-whaling we all go brave boys
And a-whaling we all go

We struck that whale and down she went
By the flourish of her tail
By chance we lost a man overboard
And we did not get that whale brave boys
And we did not get that whale

When this news to our captain came
It grieved his heart full sore
And for the loss of a 'prentice boy
It was half mast colors all brave boys
It was half mast colors all

It's now cold months is a-coming on
No longer can we stay here
For the winds do blow and the whales do go
And the daylight seldom does appear brave boys
And the daylight seldom does appear

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale (from Tamarack)
From: Frug
Date: 22 Nov 09 - 06:16 PM

OOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhh the memories of singing whalefish songs. A bit different from current curriculum !!

Frank

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Greenland Whale (from Tamarack)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 12 - 09:24 PM

On board the whaling ship True Love
In the spring of 1823
From in the riggings up above
I bid farewell to my own country

O'er the western water we set sail
To that land that knows no night
The wind it blow a pleasant gale
Baffin Island in our sight

When we've reached the ice in the Davis Strait
Hundred krangs lay on the shoal
Oh us whalers could not wait 'til we had flenched a hundred more

We came upon a big right whale
He spied our ship and swam once round
We watched her spout and flip her tail
Then she put her head against our bow

She pushed us through Lancaster Sound
We heard her sing a mournful tune
Til our captain he called down
All hands on deck, man the harpoons

I looked that bowhead in the eye
Just as she dived beneath the water
How could the value of this prize
Ever be worth this cruel slaughter

12 hundred yards of line she took
Before she hit the ocean floor
When she crashed down our whole ship shook
And that proud whale she was no more

With a hold full of oil and baleen
Soon we'll be home with a year's full pay
But I'm haunted still by what I've seen
I'll not hunt the Greenland whale again

I thought some gentle westerly
Somehow carried me far over
This cold green sea as in a dream
back to those bonnie cliffs of Dover

But my eyes were fooling me
Baffin's Bay we still did sail
It was an iceberg I did see
And we still hunt the Greenland whale