Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)

Subject: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Oct 02 - 07:09 PM

We have a MIDI for this song, but I couldn't find the lyrics anywhere. As soon as I post them, somebody's going to point out that they've been posted six times before.
Such is life.
This is from Gordon' Bok's Folk-Legacy CD, North Wind's Clearing, which I think is one of his best.
-Joe Offer-

---

CAPE ANN
(Gordon Bok, BMI)

You can pass your days in the dory, boys;
You can go with the worst and the best,
But don't ever go with old Engleman, boys:
Each trip you go could well be your last.

Don't you remember Cape Ann, boys?
Don't you remember Cape Ann?
Oh, that crazy old drunk was a loser, boys,
He never cared if we never made in.

Don't you remember Cape Ann, boys?
Don't you remember Cape Ann?
You'll never catch me on the trawl again,
For it's surely no life for a dog or a man.

Don't you remember the Shoals, boys?
Don't you remember the Shoals?
And the Old Man asleep at the wheel, boys,
By God, it was black and cold.

Well, the mate was the man with the gall, boys;
He got the Old Man away from the wheel.
He took him below and he locked up the hatch,
And he threw all the booze o'er the rail.

JRO

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Oct 02 - 07:26 PM

The way I learned it from one of Gordon's earlier records, it ends by repeating the first verse and chorus. Kind of wraps it up.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 17 Oct 02 - 11:37 PM

Back in my rent-a-doc days, I spent two weeks in Gloucester, Massachusetts, which is on Cape Ann. I had this song running through my head the whole time. Here's what Gordon has to say about the song, in his Folk-Legacy songbook, Time and the Flying Snow:

"Part of this story happened to me on a little schooner quite a few years ago. When a similar thing happened to a friend of mine on a fishing vessel, I figured it was worth mixing the two stories together into a formal gripe. The names are changed and some details omitted to protect the families of the guilty."

Aloha,
Mark

PS For those who are interested in such things, Gloucester was the home port of the Andrea Gail, subject of the book and movie, The Perfect Storm.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 18 Oct 02 - 08:45 AM

Joe, what's wrong with the copy in DT HERE? There's a tune as well.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 01:28 PM

The Digital Tradition spells it "Cape Anne," but the Cape Bok sings of is definitely Cape Ann, Massachusetts - just north of Boston. Top-notch lighthouse territory, so I know it well.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Barbara
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 05:10 PM

Uhm, Joe, you know how dick greenhaus always tells us to search by something other than the proper name because of the many ways they can be spelled? Do you suppose he might have a point?
Just thought I'd add a little salt to the wound...
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 05:15 AM

Yup. As I was instructed by Dick Greenhaus and as I have instructed so many others, I searched for a distinctive phrase from the song - "don't you remember cape ann."
[grin]
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: Willie-O
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 06:11 AM

I like to play this as an uptempo fingerpickin type number...moves along like a gust of wind.

Best line in Perfect Storm: the exasperated coast guard search & rescue, on finding that a boat is heading right into the eye of the hurricane:
Gloucester!! They're always from Gloucester!"

I grew up in Gloucester, Ontario. (pronounced Gloster).

W-O

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: SINSULL
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 06:40 AM

Happy Birthday, Joe.
SINS, grinning

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Cape Ann (Gordon Bok)
From: masato sakurai
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 07:43 PM

From notes to Gordon Bok's Peter Kagan and the Wind (Folk-Legacy FSI-44, 1972) [LP]:

       A long-standing contributor of vessels and men to the Grand Banks fisheries. Also an awkward place to get around in a sailing vessel when the weather is bad.
       This is a composite of two true stories: one happened to a friend of mine, one happened to me.
       Long after I wrote the song I was introduced to some variants of the idea: "The Drunken Captain," for instance. Turns out I wasn't saying anything new after all.

~Masato