The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18448   Message #183951
Posted By: GUEST,chrish@uk.muze.com
24-Feb-00 - 07:18 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Essiquibo River
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Essequibo River
The two additional verses that Martin Simpson includes are:

Running like the devil when we're running from the squall
Boddy tanana, we are somebody, oh
Running like the devil, or the devil take us all
Boddy tanana, we are somebody oh

When we get to Georgetown the sheets a-coming down
Boddy tanana, we are somebody, oh
.......... silver dollars and go tearing round the town
Boddy tanana, we are somebody, oh

Sadly I still can't make out the beginning of the "silver dollars" line. Any ideas from Martin Simpson fans?

I'm certain that the song is concerned with the South American Guyana, which was a British colony until comparatively recently, and Georgetown was a humming port. The Essequibo is indeed "The King of rivers all" when the rains are upon us, and flows at an incredible rate. Sir Walter Ralegh, the old sea dog himself, journeyed up it twice on two well-documented voyages on a doomed search for El Dorado. He didn't find it, but he did come back with the germ of an idea for how to run a colony (having already experienced disasters in Munster and Roanoke, Virginia) which grew and changed the face of world history.

...So the song might well have an interesting history! Bragging Elizabethans, perhaps?

Chris