Lyr Req: Around the Wild Cape Horn (Ralph McTell)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Around the Wild Cape Horn (Ralph McTell)
From: GUEST,CJB
Date: 05 Aug 17 - 02:02 PM

Peking is safely ensconsed in the bowels of a huge barge. She's on her way to Hamburg. Images on the web but can't find them right now. Maybe on Facebook. Lots of posts on the Arethusa Forum on Delpiforums.com

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Around the Wild Cape Horn (Ralph McTell)
From: Sourdough
Date: 15 Apr 17 - 11:41 PM

The film that Irving Johnson put together about his trip "wrong way" around the Horn as an ordinary seaman is on YouTube. Although the film is silent, there is a narration by Johnson that makes the footage even more vivid.

As for the Pekin, she is in drydock at this time preparing to be carried to Hamburg which will be her new home port. The song lyrics hew very closely to the story that Capt. Johnson tells in his narration which was recorded many years later..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Around the Wild Cape Horn (Ralph McTell)
From: GUEST,AlanL
Date: 14 Aug 12 - 02:56 PM

When I first took an interest in this song after hearing it at Cropredy in 2011, I found this somewhere about how the song came to be:
"Irving Johnson was born in Massachusetts on Independence Day 1905 and dreamed of the sea and sailing upon it. And for a farm boy, he didn't do badly over the next 85 years. Clearly and totally a man's man, his watchword was wade in, do it, challenge yourself and reap the rewards of immersing yourself in life. His home-made movie "Around Cape Horn"(1929 and onward) with his own narration added decades later caught Ralph McTell's attention and the virility of his description is freely used verbatim in the lyrics
The Peking is now afloat in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut and spent some time in the Thames estuary as a Royal Navy training ship, temporarily renamed HMS Arethusa. Amazingly, one of Ralph's uncles served on her as a boy sailor! Johnson himself is commemorated world-wide as the father of youth sail-training and two beautiful ships bearing his and Exy. his wife's, names sail his beloved Pacific to this day. SN

I don't know who SN is, but all credit to him for the information.

Look up Irving Johnson and the Peking on t' internet and you will find that he (Johnson) sailed round the Cape Horn on the Peking in 1929 under the captaincy of Jürgen Jürs and produved a film of the trip.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: around the wild cape horn (McTell)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Sep 11 - 12:57 AM

The Ralph McTell recording is listed on Spotify, but I can't get that particular cut to play. There is a YouTub recording of McTell singing the song.

There's a Fairport Convention recording, and one at Cropredy by Fairport Convention with Ralph McTell.

Interesting song.

The ship mentioned in the song is the Peking. I wonder if it's the Peking a 1911, four-masted barque that's on display at the South Street Seaport museum in Manhattan. The museum has a fascinating film taken by a man who lashed himself to the mast of the Peking as it rounded Cape Horn. This video is apparently from a different ship, but it's similar to the one I saw.

-Joe-

Subject: Lyr Add: GHOSTS OF CAPE HORN (Gordon Lightfoot)
From: Beer
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 11:58 PM

Oh my!
I am hanging my head to say 999 that this is the first time I heard this song by Ralph McTell. I will definitely (as a Maritimer.) start learning it. Thank you so much.


Here is one by Gordon Lightfoot.
Ghosts Of Cape Horn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Dm) (C) (F) (G) (Dm) (C) (Dm) (C) (F) (G) (Dm) (C) (Dm)
All a(C)round (F) old Cape (G) Horn
(Dm) Ships of the line, (C) ships of the morn
(Dm) Some who (C) wish they'd (F) never been (G) born
They (Dm) are the ghosts (C) of Cape (Dm) Horn

(F) Fal deral da (C) riddle de rum
With a rim dim diddy and a (G) rum dum dum
(Dm) Sailing a(C)way at the (F) break of (G) dawn
They (Dm) are the ghosts (C) of Cape (Dm) Horn

(A) See them all in (Bo/A) sad repair, (A7) demons dance (Bb/A) everywhere
(A7) Southern gales, (Bo/A) tattered sails and (A) none to (Gm7) tell the (A) tale

Come (D) all of you (D/F#) rustic old (G) sea dogs
(Em) Who (A) follow the (A/G) bright Southern (D/F#) Cross
You were (G) rounding the (A) horn in the (A/G) eye of a (D/F#) storm
When you (G) lost her one (A) day
And you (D) read all your (G) letters from (A) oceans a(Bm)way
Then you (A) took them to the (G) bottom of the (Em) sea (A)

All around old Cape Horn
Ships of the line, ships of the morn
Those who wish they'd never been born
They are the ghosts of Cape Horn
Fal deral da riddle de rum
With a rim dim diddy and a rum dum dum
Sailing away at the break of dawn
They are the ghosts of Cape Horn

Come all you old sea dogs from Devon
Southamptom, Penzance, and Kinsale
You were caught by the chance of a sailor's last dance
It was not meant to be
And you read all your letters, cried anchors aweigh
Then you took them to the bottom of the sea

All around old Cape Horn
Ships of the line, ships of the morn
Those who wish they'd never been born
They are the ghosts of Cape Horn

Fal deral da riddle de rum
With a rim dim diddy and a rum dum dum
Sailing away at the break of dawn
They are the ghosts of Cape Horn

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: around the wild cape horn
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 11:06 PM

S'far's I now know, Charley, please read Big Al's post.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: around the wild cape horn
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 10:46 PM

S'far's I now know, Charley, it hasn't been recorded by Ralph McTell at all. But, you can see and hear him sing it on this Youtube video..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: around the wild cape horn
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 10:23 PM

How'd you mean Charlie?

Ralph put it on his 60th birthday concert dvd at the royal albert hall - also its on an album called Somewhere Down the Road.

The other songs on the album also Ralph originals which as usual are about all sorts of things. Its the last item on this page:-

http://www.weatherthestorm.it/_private/discouk.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: around the wild cape horn
From: Charley Noble
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 09:18 PM

What a weird nautical song! What else was it recorded with?

Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr Add: AROUND THE WILD CAPE HORN (Ralph McTell)
From: GUEST,999
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 06:55 PM

Around The Wild Cape Horn - by Ralph McTell

(G) I was born a land-bound (C)farm (G)boy
and (Emin)in New (D)England (C)raised,
The rippling of the (G)wheat fields,
well they (Emin)were my ocean (D)waves.
Each (G)cry and call, each (C)rise and (G)fall,
of the (Emin)crows a(D)cross the (C)corn
Were seagulls (G) swooping a (D) cross the (G) bow,
of a (C)ship I dreamed
I'd (Emin)sail a(D)round Cape (G)Horn.

My deck was the dusty farm yard,
my mast was the telegraph pole,
The wind blown choir in the telephone wire
was the chord heard in my soul.
And it seemed to have been singing,
since the day that I was born,
Gonna take a trip on a sailing ship,
all the way around the wild Cape Horn.

Well I found that ship in Hamburg,
her name was The Peking
Our skipper's name was Captain Jürs,
and I'd never met a man like him.
He pulled two men out from the sea,
by the hair, in a raging storm.
And he kept that grateful sailing ship,
all the way around the wild Cape Horn.

Well it's (D) four hours on, and it's four hours off
you (Amin) sleep in your wet (C) clothes.
The only dry thing (G) on this ship,
is the (Emin) cargo down be(D)low.
Eleven thousand miles we sailed,
nigh on one hundred dawns,
Thirty-two sails on a heaving ship,
pulling us around the wild Cape Horn.

Well the cargo weighed five thousand tons,
the ship three thousand more.
An acre of sail was up aloft,
some seventeen storeys tall.
And we had a pig, and a scruffy dog
and a turkey fed on corn.
And willing hands who catch the wind,
hauling us around the wild Cape Horn.

For seventeen days we were becalmed
and then Friday the thirteenth
Sixty eight great ships were lost
in the storm of the century.
But we were swept into the Atlantic,
on a sun-lit sparkling morn,
The turkey got sick, so we ate him quick,
on the way around the wild Cape Horn.

Well she had us sort of hypnotised,
no time to catch our breath,
If you want to feel really alive,
well you have to flirt with death.
Sail close to the hardest wind,
and treat all risks with scorn
A farm boy and un-yoked team,
ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn.

Now on that voyage we lost two boys,
they got thrown overboard.
Silence from us down below,
no one could put in words.
Two empty bunks to mark the space
in our young lives to mourn,
Voids between all life and death,
on the way around the wild Cape Horn

And mountain waves, like avalanches
crashed upon the decks,
The screaming winds snapped ropes and spars,
and tried to have us wrecked.
but she rose and fell through the foam and the swell,
her sails were ripped and torn
Eight thousand tons tossed like a cork,
on the way around the wild Cape Horn.

And she had us sort of hypnotised,
no time to catch our breath,
If you ever want to feel alive,
well you'd better flirt with death.
And sail close to the hardest wind,
and treat all risks with scorn
A farm boy and un-yoked team,
ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn.
Well, a farmer boy and un-yoked team,
ploughed their way around the wild Cape Horn.



You can hear FC doing it on Youtube.

Subject: Lyr Req: around the wild cape horn
From: GUEST,brooko
Date: 08 Sep 11 - 05:13 PM

does anyone know the lyrics to around the wild cape horn by fairport convention.