Lyr Req: Northwest Passage (Stan Rogers)

Subject: North West Passage
From: selby
Date: 04 Oct 99 - 01:31 PM

Can you Help me.I heard many years ago on a documentry about finding the NWP a song that I know only a small bit of and that i can't get out of my head I think it says GIVE ME ONE MORE TRIP AND I ILL FIND THE NORTH WEST PASSAGE

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: sophocleese
Date: 04 Oct 99 - 01:37 PM

Is it the Stan Rogers tune Northwest Passage..

Ah for just one time I would take the Northwest passage, to find the hand of Franklin reaching for the Beaufort sea..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: sophocleese
Date: 04 Oct 99 - 01:42 PM

By the way I meant to say that if that is the song its in the Digitrad, just search under Northwest. If it isn't ignore this message.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Oct 99 - 01:53 PM

Hi, Selby - I guess you got thrown off by the "northwest" in the title being one word. If you put [northwest passage] in square brackets in the search box on this page, you'll find it. Otherwise, you can be lazy and Click here
Stan Rogers was one of those songwriters who can make a song sound a century old the moment it's published. The song is only twenty or thirty years old, but it has a timeless quality to it. I just wish it fit into my vocal range a little better. It's a tough song to sing well.
It might be worth your while to search the database and forum for Franklin and Northwest Passage to see what else has been sung about Franklin's voyage.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From:
Date: 04 Oct 99 - 06:37 PM

The phrase Selby has given, I don't think is in the Stan Rogers' Song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Jeri
Date: 04 Oct 99 - 11:02 PM

I think he may be misremembering lyrics he heard long ago. My introduction to Stan Rogers was in a documentary. Actually an episode of Nova, about the discovery of Franklin's men frozen in the ice. Maybe the same show? "Lady Franklin's Lament" was also in it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: selby
Date: 05 Oct 99 - 06:25 AM

Jeri I think you are spot on it sounds like the same documentry There was just snatches of the song throught the programme & my memory is not what it should be. Keith

Subject: ADD VERSE: Northwest Passage
From: radriano
Date: 05 Oct 99 - 12:26 PM

Dear Selby:

I recently researched this song for a friend of mine and I found, on the Stan Rogers website, that he had written an additional verse to the song which was never published. Here it is:

And if should be I come again to loved ones left at home
Put the journals on the mantle, shake the dust out of my bones
Making memories of the passage, only memories after all
And hardships there the hardest to recall

Regards,
radriano

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Winters Wages
Date: 06 Oct 99 - 03:19 AM

The song is Northwest Passage Sung by Stan Rogers. It was used in a PBS documentary back in the early 80"s (sounds way back doesn't it being's were going into 2000) on the Franklin Expedition. Dr. Owen Batey (not sure of the correct spelling) from the university of Alberta led an investigative team to the sight where three seamen from the expedition were buried. Due to the extreme perma-frost the bodies were in preserved condition to do DNA testing and other tests to try and determine the cause of this great tragedy. They used Stan's song in the begining of the film. The documentary was called I believe "Buried In Ice" there is also a book published by Dr. Batey by the same name...or the book might be "Frozen In Time". I have studied this Tragedy mysel and been to the area. I also perform the song "Lady Franklins Lament" also a faster version of the same : "Lord Franklin" Knowing the full story To me...it at times is hard to sing..ANYWAY hope this helps..Regards W. Wages

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Martin Ryan
Date: 06 Oct 99 - 03:46 AM

While on a Tall Ships cruise in the Scottish Islands this year, I was in Stromness in Orkney and saw the house where Lady Franklin lived during part of the time when searches were organised. The small museum in the town has a number of relics of the expedition - the first traces of which were found by an Orkney man (Dr. John Rae?) who worked with the Hudsnon's Bay Company. It is also claimed he invented the inflatable boat!

Beatty's book is indeed called "Frozen in Time".

Regards

p.s. Do we know the "faster song"?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 06 Oct 99 - 11:29 PM

In case anyone is interested, there is a -- dare I say it? -- parody (whew, no thunderbolts yet) of this wonderful song. It's called "FOR JUST ONE DIME" and is in the Digital Tradition here. (How'd I do with the link, Joe?) If anyone is really mad at my putting this in this thread, just say so and I'll go away. But as a member of Parodists [not so] Anonymous, I think it's possible to love a song and write another one based on it. Parodies aren't always making fun of their subject. We probably need another name. But that should be the subject of another thread...
By the way, here in Hawaii, and I presume elsewhere, phone calls are now up to 35 cents. Another song, anyone?
I was fortunate enough to hear Stan perform Northwest Passage, and it was all the more stirring.

Aloha,
Mark Cohen

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Winters Wages
Date: 07 Oct 99 - 12:13 AM

Well, by faster version...I was refering to the tune "Lord Franklin" What is "One More Dime' Im Interested...probably because all who know me know that Im cynical...especially about PAY PHONES..(someti,mes called ROBBERY PHONES) Regards W. Wages.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Oct 99 - 02:23 AM

The link was very well executed, Mark. So was the song. I hadn't noticed it, and I'm glad you provided the link.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: sophocleese
Date: 07 Oct 99 - 09:38 AM

Mark, thanks for pointing out the parody to me. From the introduction to the Faber Book of Parodies (one of my favourite books) some quotes:

"Parody is frequently welcomed by its victims, who recognize it as a compliment, however back-handed."

"It is a parasitic art and, though it can hold the eminent up to ridicule, without them it could not exist."

"At its best parody sharpens the judgement."

I like parodies. Sometimes I even parody myself.

Sophy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Fall Fling Charlie
Date: 07 Oct 99 - 11:23 AM

Since we're on Northwest Passage parodies... I wrote Northeast Passage back in 1982, gave it to Stan before the break at a Cherry Tree concert, and had the thrill of a lifetime when he came out after the break and sang MY version! At his concert in May 1983 the crowd wouldn't let him leave until he sang it again. It was,sadly, the last song he sang in Phila. before his untimely death. There is a story, confirmed by Garnet, of the band being run out of New York by an irate waitress at the club in which they were performing when they sang the song there. Since I dedicated the song to my ex-wife it was written in good humor. It can also be found on Digitrad.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: North West Passage
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 07 Oct 99 - 11:24 PM

Fall Fling Charlie, thanks for sharing your song. I bought many a suit (well, a few, anyway) at Fleet's on Castor Avenue when I was younger and well-dressed. You would probably also appreciate GREENBERG'S, another parody of sorts (wish we had a better name for a song that uses the music and form and even some of the words but isn't poking fun at the original -- any ideas?) with a theme straight out of Northeast Philly. But I digress. I heard Stan on board the Gazela Primeiro at Penn's Landing in Phila. in 1981, and wish I could have heard him again and again.

Aloha,
Mark Cohen