Dear Joe,

Thanks for correcting the pages in Beck. What am I using it for? In May at the Saturday Market I listened to our local duo "Shanghaied on the Willamette" (Jonathan Lay and Gordy Euler) and shot the bull a bit with them on their break. They specialize in sea songs, although they do a lot of other stuff too. I mentioned "The Ghostly Crew," and they did not know it but expressed some interest. So over the summer I put this together bit by bit--with that much time to work on something as short as this, it's not terribly hard--and gave it to them last week, to do with as they please. Songs from New England and Atlantic Canada are not heard out here on the Pacific coast as much as they probably should be, so if something comes of it locally I would be pleased, but if this is useful to anyone on this forum, that is enough reason to do it.

It seems to me that we have now absorbed the emphasis on context, singer, performance, and process, and are ready to undertake again song histories and so on with a broader perspective; Roger Renwick is right, although I don't think we should regret the other emphases that have been to the fore in recent decades. Bibliographies may encourage this sort of thing. I wish I could do discographies, but it would be too inefficient with the available resources, so I will leave that to someone else.   

I'm pleased that you decided to post the texts. This is one case where we have the original text from which the oral-traditional versions were derived, so here is the poem by Harry Marcy as originally published by the Procter brothers:

The Ghostly Crew
(Harry Marcy)

Well, smile if you've a mind to,
But perhaps you'll lend an ear--
For boy and man together
Nigh on to fifty year,

I've sailed upon the water,
In summer's pleasant days,
Or when the snowy winter
It's [sic] howling storms would raise.

I've tossed about on Georges,
Been fishing in the Bay,
Down south in early summer,
Most anywhere 'twould pay.

I've sailed at different seasons
To Western Banks or Grand,
And been in herrin' vessels
That went to Newfoundland.

And I've seen storms I tell you
Where things looked rather blue,
But then somehow I always
Was lucky and got through.

I ain't a brag, however,
And won't say much--but then
I ain't much easier frightened
Than most of other men.

We were the night I spoke of
(I never thought before
I'd see the sight I saw then)
A little ways off shore.

The trip before, our schooner,
She was on Georges then,
Ran down another vessel
And sunk her and her men.

This night as I was saying
We were off shore a ways,
I never shall forget it
In all my mortal days;

For in the dim dark watches
I felt a chilly dread
Come on me, just as if I heard
One calling from the dead.

And o'er our rail there clambered
All silent, one by one,
A dozen dripping sailors--
Just wait till I am done.

It wa'nt a dream I tell you,
For all our vessel's crew
Saw the same sight I spoke of
Just as I'm telling you.

Right on to deck they clambered
And not a voice we heard,
They moved about before us
And never spoke a word.

Their faces pale and sea wet
Shown ghastly throught the night,
Each took his place as fairly
As if he had a right.

And they, sir, worked the vessel
Till land was just in sight,
Or rather I should say, sir,
The light house towers [sic] light.

And then those ghastly sailors
Moved to the rail again,
And vanished like a mist scud
Before the sun, and then

We sailed into the harbor,
And every mother's son
Will tell you, sir, the story
The same as I have done.

I don't know any reason
Of course, why they should come
And navigate the vessel
Till just in sound of home;

But 'twas the same poor fellows
I think, God rest their souls,
That our old craft ran under
That time on Georges shoals.

And there you have my story,
And 'twas just as I say,
And I've believed in spirits
Since that time anyway.