Lyr Req: Enderby Whaling

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Enderby Whaling
From: raredance
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 11:38 PM

Sort of related and in all liklihood you are already familiar with "New Zealand Whales". It refers to whaling "off the coast of New Zealand" but doesn't specifically mention the Aucklands. It's a derivative of "Coast of Peru". The words are in a 1999 forum thread (search: new zealand whales - click).

rich r

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Enderby Whaling
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 11:13 PM

Thanks Sorcha and Jim, alas, none fit what I want. Guess I'll have to write my own. Rudy's song is about a trip down the NZ coast from the North Island city of Aucland to our southern port of Bluff, which is just 20 miles across Foveaux Strait from here on Stewart Island. Auckland Is are some 200 miles to the south of us.

Coincidentally, Rudy was interviewed on the wireless just last week, so I tracked him down on the phone for our first yarn in 35 years. Caught up with the current doings of folk mates of those days - well the few of us who are still alive. Hmmm...

"Auckland to Bluff" has given me a song theme. In 1850 g-g-g'dad James sailed from Auckland Is to Dunedin to buy sheep for the Enderby Settlement farm. They were there for a month, and didn't have much luck with sheep, but Jaaes picked up a wife. They were married in a Pub, sensible folk. Their first child was born on Auckland Is, not long before the settlement folded in 1852. In 1856 they ran a pub in Porirua, just north of Wellington. Hmmm.... it explains a bit about me ... ;)

Anyway, thanks again.

Cheers - Sam

Subject: Lyr Add: AUCKLAND TO THE BLUFF (Rudy Sunde)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Jun 03 - 09:26 PM

I was proud of myself for finding this, until I realized the song is probably not about the Auckland Islands. Blame my ignorance of NZ geography. Maybe you'll like it anyway.

Copied from here. There's lots of stuff on that page: sheet music, a midi file, information about the album it's from, the songwriter, etc.

AUCKLAND TO THE BLUFF
(Rudy Sunde 1975?)

I left the city when just a lad.
Times were hard and no work to be had,
So I went to sea in the Flora Belle.
Little did I know 'twas a ship from hell.

The ship was old and leaking at the seams,
A dirty old tub, somewhat broad in the beam.
Its sails were torn. Some planks were rotten.
It lay at the wharf a-gently rockin'.

CHORUS: I've sailed from Auckland to the Bluff,
A thousand miles and that's enough--
A thousand miles on the heaving sea.
Glory Hal-le-lu'! That's enough for me.

We set sail on the evening tide.
It was early on a Saturday night.
All went well till the Tiri light,
And then, by God, I got a fright.

The ship was hit by a big beam sea.
Christ! I thought it's all up for me.
She rolled and she lolloped like a big tin drum.
Hell! I swore my time had come. CHORUS

"Shorten sails," the skipper cried.
"Shorten the sails or you buggers will all die.
Get aloft, get aloft, right up the mast.
Get aloft, get aloft, and get up there fast."

Never in my life had I been so scared.
Never in my life had I wished I was dead.
But I climbed up the mast and I shortened sail,
Then I climbed down again and was sick o'er the rail. CHORUS

---

On this page you can hear an .mp3 of a different group (The Corsairs) singing it.

There is some discussion of this song in an old thread called Lyr Req: Sea Shanty, but they failed to get the complete lyrics. (Anyway, the request was for a different song.)

Subject: Lyr Add: MOBY DICK
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 09:02 AM

Maybe??

Moby-Dick - Lyrics
By Roughly Enforcing Nostalgia
(11/10/99)
Based on the novel by Herman Melville.
MP3

Call me Ish-
Mael, 'cause
Mapple preached on that day,
"Your nature's In oppo-
sition with God's way."
Met Starbuck, Queequeg, Stubb:
All dead by a few
Chapters la-
ter, the Sign
Of Jonah knew.


Can't find the whale,
But sooner eat kale
Then renege our boast
That we'd see Dick roast
In our blubber pails.


(We can't find the whale;
We swore to sail;


We drank a toast to Moby's trail.)
Pip sank in-
To madness;
Fleece preached to the sharks;
Enderby's Skipper showed
Where Dick left his mark,
Once bitten. The Great White
Charged our ship, raising cain.
Ahab, caught
By the neck,
Got drug down the drain.

We found the whale;
We tried and failed.
I'm the one left to speak
From the pulpit's beak
On how life's so frail . . . Braille!
(We found the whale;
All's left afloat are the nails;


Melville's metaphors even translate to . . )

From: http://www.roughly.net/InstantClassics/MobyDickLyrics.htm

Subject: Lyr Add: Shaking Out the Snow
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 09:00 AM

Found this one but it's not a shanty. Found another that might be. BRB.

Shaking Out The Snow
Words & Music By Nanci Griffith and James Hooker
© Irving Music INC. / Ponder Heart Music (BMI)
Snowing - through South Dakota I once drove
With the wife of my best pal
Who cloaks her heart from cold with gold
It was well into the winter
Of December in the cold
Off to see Mount Rushmore staring through the snow
And to gamble with the boys of Deadwood
As we drove

Chorus:
Snowing - I am shaking out the snow
Oh, the cold that is within my heart
I'm gonna shake out all that snow
Riding years ago
Through those South Dakota roads
When the laughter could thaw Enderby
And shake me from the snow
Like a hurricane through Florida
I'll shake out all this snow

Snowing - one Christmas morn' when I was four
My brother told me it was warm
So a swimsuit I adorned
Then he sent me to the weather
And behind me locked the doors
A four year old in a swim suit and brand new plastic skates
Out into the snow to catch this cold
I cannot shake

(Repeat Chorus)

Snowing - yeah, it snows in Tennessee
The place where I now make my life
Is still snowing down on me
I'd prefer Antarctica
Perhaps the land of Enderby
Where the weather is my heart and I'm closer to the sea
Since I cannot ever seem to shake the snow
Out of me

(Repeat Chorus)

And all across the states you see the tractors and the plows
Clearing out the roads
And the bridges north and south
Something they did learn
And I just don't seem to know
How to clear a passage
And shake out all the snow

From: http://www.nanci-griffith.com/lyrics/sots.html

Subject: Lyr Req: Enderby Whaling
From: Billy the Bus
Date: 17 Jun 03 - 04:26 AM

G'day Chantymen,

A couple of years back, I discovered where my love of chanty and whaling history came from. It's 'in me blood'! G-g-g'dad, James Hindsley Bromley was part of the infamous 'Enderby Settlement' on the Auckland Islands (1849-52).

Does anyone have songs that reference 'Enderby & Co', or the Auckland Islands?

Hope you can help me compile my fumbly fambly heritage - from a song-wise viewpoint.

In the true Enderby spirit, I have poured another spirit!

Slainte - Sam

PS - the above discovery sorta explains my absence from Mudcat.