One has to keep in mind that Stan wrote the song in about half an hour one evening. He was performing with The Friends of Fiddlers Green, and became annoyed when he couldn't get a chance to sing the lead in any of the sea chanteys they were doing. So...he went off into a quiet corner and wrote his own...one only he could sing the lead to that evening...thus came about the birth of Barrett's Privateers. Quite a guy was Stan. Another song he reportedly wrote quickly was "The House of Orange"...a much more meaningful piece of work, especially in light of what has been going on in Northern Ireland lately. It was also the last song Stan ever wrote. He said, "I don't care what your politics are, when our children are dying in the streets, it's time to put away the guns." Amen to that.

Dan