Here's a song I've been working up while thinking about the recent loss of our good friend Barry Finn. It's based on the many evenings we spent together singing in the Press Room in Portsmouth, NH, and my experience there last weekend after we learned that Barry had died. The song itself borrows some lines from a poem by C. Fox Smith,The Tryphena's Extra Hand as arranged for singing by Bob Zentz, recorded on Closehauled on the Wind of a Dream, © 2007. Here's a link to Bob's website for the tune: click here for tune

The Press Room's Extra Voice

In the Press Room, just last evening,
The usual crowd was gathered there,
You could hear a concertina
Tracing out some doleful air;
And when the last verse ended,
Good-bye my Riley-o
I heard a voice behind me
Say these words so soft and low:

"Many a year I've sung these old songs,
And I've got to like them well,
And I've not much hopes of heaven
And I've not much use for hell:
But if so be as they'll let me,
By the great hook-block I swear,
When I hear you singing shanties,
My voice will be there."

"There'll be one more voice on the chorus,
One more voice on the refrain
Be it shanty or forebitter,
Be it snow or sleet or rain;
We'll raise those old songs to the roof
Such as shellbacks used to know
In the good old China tea trade,
Many and many a year ago."

Was he standing in the shadows?
I kind o' felt him near,
Kind o' saw him and didn't see him,
Kind o' heard him but did not hear,
And the funny thing about it
Was I somehow couldn't swear
Though I knew it sure as shooting
An Extra Voice was there.

Notes:

"The Tryphena's Extra Hand" by C. Fox Smith ,from Full Sail: More Sea Songs and Ballads, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, US, © 1926, pp. 41-45.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble