Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacColl

Subject: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacColl
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 19 Jul 03 - 10:21 PM

On the recording "Whaling Ballads," with Ewan MacColl and A.L. lloyd, lloyd sings lead on "The 'Eclipse.' There is one line that I'm having trouble understanding. It's in the seventh verse:

We couldn't keep a light below the sea run mountains high.
The whales were gone, the ship was done, and--------------?

I brought the tape to Radriano's, and we played that verse multiple times. The closest we could come up with was "and half of our supplies," though it sounds like there's a "b" pronounced somwhere in the line, where we were first guessing the word is "half." It's a much-played tape of an old recording, so some words come off sounding slurred. We also came up with "...and I barfed up some flies" and "....and parrots ate some pies." :-).

This verse, by the way, is not sung by lloyd on his recording "Leviathan," where he sang The' Eclipse' as well. Whaling Balads is long out of circulation, but if anyone has it and can help out, it would be much appreciated. Couldn't find it in the DT.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacColl
From: Jeri
Date: 20 Jul 03 - 10:05 PM

Refresh, before it goes 'kerplunk'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacColl
From: Francy
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 12:46 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacCol
From: Abby Sale
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 10:33 AM

'and half our barrels dry.'

Thanks for getting me to get out the LP & listen. Been meaning to learn thin since it was issued. And most of the others on it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacColl
From: Roberto
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 11:30 AM

Chanteyranger, now you got the complete text. Could you please post it? Thank you. Roberto

Subject: Lyr Add: THE ECLIPSE (from Lloyd & MacColl)
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 21 Jul 03 - 06:39 PM

Abby, thanks! Mystery solved. Whaling Ballads is my all-time favorite sea music recording, hands down. Much played and well-worn.

Will do, Roberto.Here's what I transcribed. Abby, if you find any errors in the transcription, please correct. it's a variant of Blow Ye Winds, with a very similar melody.

                               THE 'ECLIPSE'

It was the twenty-first of June, it'd been a glorious day
The 'Eclipse' she saw a whale fish and she lowered all hands away

Chorus: So, blow your winds a-mornin'
                Blow your winds high-o
                Clear away your running gear
                and blow boys, blow

The boats we pulled to leeward, went skippin' over the sea
and we killed this noble whale fish for another jubilee
(Ch)
The captain Davy gray was kind, he give his crew a treat
and that is why we caught this whale that measured fifty feet
(Ch)
The 'Eclipse' she lies to windward, her colors she did fly
The 'Erik' and the 'Hope' they prayed for the jubilee
(Ch)
The 'Erik' caught a sperm whale, that measured forty-three
But the 'Hope' has none and she'll get none this year of jubilee
(Ch)
The wind come from the Northwest, and bitterly did blow
The captain cries 'stand by me boys, from the ice we'll have to go.'
(Ch)
We couldn't keep a light below, the sea run mountains high
The whale was gone, the ship was done, and half our barrels dry
(Ch)
Now when this trip is over, we'll not ship for one and three
Because we didn't get fair play this year of jubilee
(Ch)
We'll march up to the custom house where we do all sign clear,
and when we face old bless me soul we'll tell him without fear
(Ch)
We'll tell him that we'll never sign again for one and three,
and we'll all march down Commercial street and we'll sing this jubilee
(Ch)

The song relates true events during the 1887 whaling season, which brought home a paltry amount of oil, since a good many of the whales in the Northern waters had already been taken. The 'Eclipse,' though, took a 57-foot whale on the 21st of June. Lloyd writes in his liner notes in his other recording of the song on "Leviathan!" that the bonus of "one and three" was one pound and three tuppence per ton of oil. "Her crew felt the trip had hardly been worth the hardship, and they marched through the streets of Peterhead to tell the owners so."

Subject: Lyr Add: THE ECLIPSE (from Lloyd & MacColl)
From: Abby Sale
Date: 22 Jul 03 - 11:12 PM

Chanteyranger, given the medium you had to work with, you did pretty good. Only a very few homophonic differences. Not even one real Mondegreen.

THE ECLIPSE

It was the twenty-first of June, it being a glorious day.
The 'Eclipse' she saw a whale fish and she lowered all hands away.

Chorus: So, blow, you winds a-mornin'.
Blow, you winds high-o.
Clear away your running gear
And blow, boys, blow.

The boats, they pulled to looward, went skippin' over the sea,
And we killed this noble whale fish for another jubilee. (Ch)

The captain Davie Grant* was kind. He give his crew a treat,
And that is why we caught this whale that measured fifty feet. (Ch)

The Eclipse she lies to windward. Her colors she did flee**.
The Erik and the Hope also, they prayed for the jubilee. (Ch)

The Erik caught a sperm whale that measured forty-three,
But the Hope has none and shall get none this year of jubilee. (Ch)

The wind come from the Northwest and bitterly did blow.
The captain cries, "Stand by, me boys. From the ice we'll have to go." (Ch)

We couldn't keep a light below. The sea run mountains high.
The whales were gone. The ship was done, and half our barrels dry. (Ch)

Now when this trip is over, we'll not ship for one and three,
Because we didn't get fair play this year of jubilee. (Ch)

We'll march up to the customhouse where we do all sign clear,
And when we face old Bless-me-soul, we'll tell him without fear. (Ch)

We'll tell him that we'll never sign again for one and three,
And we'll all march down Commercial Street and we'll sing this jubilee. (Ch)

The only other set I've found so far is #14 in Greig~Duncan. That gives a shorter set of the same version. Most of the comparable words are identical. There are additional notes that do not conflict with Lloyd's but do add some more to it. Greig had anecdotal information that it was written by "a man from Shetland."

* Lloyd's notes note that while the song gives 'Davie Grant,' the captain's name was David Gray. The set in Greig~Duncan does give Gray, though.

** This is the only word of which I'm not sure. I hear 'displee' which does make sense. G~D gives 'did flee' which I also hear on the LP.

The song relates true events during the 1887 whaling season, which brought home a paltry amount of oil, since a good many of the whales in the Northern waters had already been taken. The Eclipse, though, took a 57-foot whale on the 21st of June. Lloyd writes in his liner notes in his other recording of the song on "Leviathan!" that the bonus of "one and three" was one pound and three tuppence per ton of oil. "Her crew felt the trip had hardly been worth the hardship, and they marched through the streets of Peterhead to tell the owners so."

Per G~D, while the 57-foot whale was the largest Gray ever caught, his full take was the least of any voyage in his life. The Erik took one small whale and Hope none at all. Whaling effectively ended in Peterhead by 1893.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacCol
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 23 Jul 03 - 11:21 PM

Thanks, Abby! Curious why it's sung "Grant." It does sound like a definite "Grant" on the tape. I transcribed it as Gray because I though my ears were deceiving me, given that lloyd notes Capt. Gray. Could be a mistake of the anonymous songwriter. On "looward," my understanding is that it's spelled "leeward" though pronounced "looward."

"Did flee" is a vexing one, isn't it. A Scottish-ized "did fly" in an English song, maybe? On another note, and maybe I'll post a separate thread for this, but I wonder why so many lloyd-MacColl shanty collaborations haven't been released on CD? (Blow Boys, Blow is the only one I'm aware of). Legal problems, getting the rights? So much great stuff from those guys remain submerged in old record collections.

Thanks again, Abby.

Chanteyranger

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacColl
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 27 Jul 03 - 07:16 PM

Every singer makes mistakes. 'Grant' may be one. 'Flee' may have been made to rhyme with the next line.

Some more info:
[1993:] The golden jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated in the Greenland seas on 21 June 1887, by the killing of a 57 foot long female whale. It was the largest whale ever caught by Captain David Gray, of the Peterhead whaler Eclipse, and a Shetland seaman on the Hope, captained by David Gray's brother, John, wrote a special Jubilee song to mark the 'glorious day'. He declared that when they got back to Lerwick they would march through Commercial Street and 'sing the Jubilee'. The whale yielded 27 tons of oil. Its jawbone, which measured close on 20 feet, was sent to South Kensington Museum in London.

Other whalers with the Eclipse were less lucky. The Erik, a Dundee ship, caught only a small whale - it 'measured three feet three', said the Jubilee song. 'Three-feet-three' was the length of the longest strands of whalebone out of the 365 pieces in the whale's head, which meant that the 'fish' was at least 20 feet long. The Hope got nothing. The Shetland poet grumbled about his own ship's lack of success - 'the Hope has none, and none shall get'. As far as he was concerned it had been a 'dreary voyage', and he felt that there was a lack of fair play on the Hope. [...]

'One-and-three' was the sailors' oil money. They boasted that when they were paid off on shore they would have 'plenty of brass and a bonny lass', but 1s.3d. a ton was scarcely the sort of 'brass' they had expected when they signed on and went off to the Arctic to make their fortunes.

The song, entitled The Eclipse, was written four years before Captain David Gray retired. Among the late nineteenth century whaling captains he was considered the most skilful. He was also widely-known for his scientific knowledge [...]. The Grays and their relatives were involved in Arctic whaling longer than any other family in the British Isles. [David Gray, Sen.] took over the Perseverance in 1811, and in 1826 his son, John, became captain of the Active. John had three sons - John, David and Alexander - and while all were successful whalers it was David who left an indelible mark on the whaling scene. In 1844, when he was only fourteen, he went to sea with his father on board the Eclipse, a ship that had been taken over from one of John Gray's relatives, Captain John Suttar [...]. Some twenty years later, David Gray took command of another Eclipse, a steam whaler that was to write its name across the pages of Greenland whaling history. He was following a tradition set by his father on the Old Eclipse, which was invariably top ship in the Peterhead fleet. In 1854, it gave its name to an inlet in the Davis Straits - Eclipse Sound. [...]

Blame for the extermination of the Greenland whale can be laid at many doors, but the Gray family were far from guiltless. In 1838, after British whaling fleets had suffered three disastrous seasons, the Peterhead fleet of ten ships took eighty whales and 28,708 seals. The top ship was the Old Eclipse under Captain John Gray, with 22 whales and 5,500 seals. Most of the whales were nursery whales, not long weaned. They were no more than 30 feet long - the kind of 'three-feet-three' caught by the Erik in the Jubilee year - and they were easily killed. [...] This killing of young fish was the first step towards wiping out the Bowhead population. (Smith, Whale Hunters 26ff)

In 1891, both the Eclipse and the Hope were sold. [...] The sturdy Eclipse, which was perhaps the most famous of all Scottish whalers, went stubbornly on for another half century. She served for a time with the Russian Imperial Navy [renamed the 'Lomonosov'] and after the First World War went back to the Arctic as a supply ship. She sank in 1927, was raised in 1929, and went to Siberia as a research ship. The old veteran finally met her end in 1941, when she was destroyed by a German bomb during an air raid on Archangel. (Smith, Whale Hunters 33f)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The 'Eclipse' as sung by lloyd&MacCol
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 28 Jul 03 - 03:28 AM

Thanks for the background info. No "gray" areas there.