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New Botanical Shanty |
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Subject: Lyr Add: BOTANY BAY From: GUEST,chrish@uk.muze.com Date: 29 Feb 00 - 11:36 AM BOTANY BAY
Come all you young mariners lately at ease
(Chorus)
Around the Canaries, Brazil and Cape Horn
(Chorus)
From there to the Southland is but a few days
(Chorus)
So quit these grim taverns and pox-ridden whores
(Chorus)
Now if your young lass should implore you to stay
(Last chorus)
(In memory of the gallant crew of botanists on board The Endeavour under Captain Cook who landed at Botany Bay on 29th April, 1770) © Chris Hoban 1998 --------------- Can anyone suggest a better title, so as not to confuse it with its considerably more famous namesake?!
Cheers
Chris |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: Amos Date: 29 Feb 00 - 11:43 AM Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful..well done! |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: MMario Date: 29 Feb 00 - 12:11 PM What about "Von Linne"? tune?? (I'm greedy) |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: Amos Date: 29 Feb 00 - 03:30 PM Terra Australis |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: GUEST,chrish@uk.muze.com Date: 29 Feb 00 - 06:36 PM Tune - sure! How can I paste the melody onto this site? |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: GUEST Date: 29 Feb 00 - 09:29 PM How about "The Endeavour's Passage to Botany Bay" or just "Passage to Botany Bay". Margo |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: Bob Bolton Date: 29 Feb 00 - 09:40 PM G'day Chris, How about Baie de Verdhu (or its correct Portugese form) - virually the same name - to commemorate the Portugese map that Lt. Cook was almost certainly following. (He remarks in his journal that the Bay was not as big as he expected). Regards, Bob Bolton |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: GUEST,Philippa Date: 01 Mar 00 - 02:42 AM How about "Botanist's Bay" I hadn't realised why the place is called 'Botany Bay' -- very interesting! |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: GUEST,chrish@uk.muze.com Date: 01 Mar 00 - 04:18 AM Great suggestions, Margo & Bob - quite by chance I speak Portuguese! The modern equivalent would be "Bahia De Verde", but in those days they could have spelt it in a number of ways. That's very interesting, and I'll look into it more. Have you heard that they've found Portuguese coins in up the Queensland coast dating from the 1540s, and that there are a couple of indigenous tribes there that use some portuguese words and grammatical structures in their vocabulary - something that not only indicates a landing, but some kind of settlement?
"The Endeavour's Passage To Botany Bay" & "The Passage To Botany Bay" are very good suggestions and tie in with the chorus. I'll chew it over!
Cheers
Chris |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: raredance Date: 01 Mar 00 - 08:50 PM Linnean Around the Islands Botany Gray rich r |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: Bob Bolton Date: 02 Mar 00 - 12:56 AM G'day Chris, The story on the Portugese map seems to be that a very old map in an antiquated projection, can be reinterpreted into modern projection and starts to look like much more like the East Coast of Australia. It would date from ~ the 16th century and was a secret British Admiralty document, possibly captured from a Portugese man o' war.
Back when the Pope split up the world and awarded all new discoveries to either Spain or Portugal, the dividing line in the Pacific region included a fair part of what we now know as the East Coast of Australia ... in the Spanish section. The Portugese did some serious politicking and trading to have the division moved ... so that Australia (officially unknown) now fell in their section. Nothing came of this, presumably because of the rapid decline of Portugal as an exploring maritime nation, but they presumably knew the coast was there and had done some mapping and exploring. There are reports of Portugese and Spanish coins (and even possible wrecked ships) all round Australia but it is hard to judge from minor finds since both nations' currencies had been international standards in the way that the greenback remains today. Regards, Bob Bolton |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: Mark Cohen Date: 02 Mar 00 - 08:40 PM Bahia de Verde? Isn't that where the Packers are? So you could call it Pickers and Packers -- oof! where is Art Thieme when we need him? Wonderful song, Chris. Aloha, Mark |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: Steve Parkes Date: 03 Mar 00 - 03:21 AM ... and von Linné is non other than Linnaeus, the Swedish father of taxonomy. |
Subject: RE: New Botanical Shanty From: GUEST Date: 03 Mar 00 - 07:06 AM That's right, Steve - I wrote the song as part of a show about Carl von Linne, aka Linnaeus - an amazing man. He was the first scientist to suggest that plants had sex, he invented dendochronology (how to count the age of trees by its rings - though Native American and other tribal societies had been aware of this for years) and the thermometer (though Celsius has ultimately claimed credit for this), and dedicated his whole life to completing the Great Chain Of Being (the post-biblical belief that earthly creation was finite and hierarchical).
Unfortunately, the plant-collecting by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander from Australasia, which was supposed to complete the chain of a fixed number of species of animal, vegetable and mineral, ended up being so extensive that they came back with far too many specimens. It was this, combined with Linne's own creation of a reproductive hybrid (i.e. a new species) that "broke" the Chain and opened the doors to Darwin and evolution 80 years later.
Phew! Who'd be a scientist - glad I'm just a musician!
I wrote another song for the show called "The Great Chain Of Being", which I'll also post up on the site when I can get a moment.
Cheers everyone
Chris |
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