Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 Mar 23 - 02:41 PM

Thanks for that, Henry. Some interesting descriptions of latter-day chanty attempts, by mainly outsiders. Pleased with the use of the old spelling, but they certainly do not date back to Tudor times, 1830 at the earliest, and African-American at that.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 02 Mar 23 - 10:13 AM

Steve Gardham - you may enjoy this recollection!

https://www.warrenfahey.com.au/songs-from-the-shackleton-expedition-to-antartica/ Chanties Marston

CHANTIES By G. E. Marston This is extracted from the Shackleton team’s memoirs. It is most probably the last lucid report of shanties in use and makes for fascinating reading.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Mar 23 - 09:58 AM

Not specifically about Shackleton, but someone else mentioned Vaughan Williams' "Sinfonia Antarctica" (now with correct spelling) which sends shivers down my spine.

Also, I don't think anyone yet has mentioned Vangelis' "Antarctica" suite, which was used as the soundtrack for a Japanese film: also very atmospheric music, but no singing. In 2007, I achieved a lifetime ambition of going to Antarctica and used some of Vangelis' suite as backing for my own videos of the trip (strictly non-commercial, for my own private use only!)It was a good alternative to the ambient soundtrack of wind noise!

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 02 Mar 23 - 07:23 AM

After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this [Antarctic] crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective, but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance. On this day in 1958, a British team led by Vivian Fuchs completed the first crossing of the Antarctic, covering 2,158 miles from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea in 99 days.

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/1t5mvf/snocat_hangs_precariously_over_crevasse_during/
Sno-Cat hangs precariously over Crevasse during Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, November/December 1957.

Of the three Tucker Sno-Cats that travelled to the South Pole, door-code 'A' is on display in the Antarctic section of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand. Door-code 'B' is on display at the Antique Gas and Steam Engine Museum in Vista, California, United States. Door-code 'C' was returned to the UK, and is currently and is currently viewable via appointment at the Science Museum at Wroughton. The fate of the fourth Tucker Sno-Cat door-code 'D' is unknown, and may still be in the vicinity of Shackleton Base. Wikipedia

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/haywire-one-of-the-snowcats-used-by-dr-fuchs-and-his-news-photo/3259261
10th May 1958: 'Haywire', one of the snowcats used by Dr Fuchs and his Commonwealth explorers on their journey across the Antarctic continent, arrives at Tilbury from New Zealand, via Antwerp.

This Snow-Cat must have toured the country. My mother took me to see it on display in Blackpool. Well, it was on a low-loader quite neglected in a car-park at Gynn Square. After all of its trips to desolate places, it looked as though it had been abandoned in Blackpool!

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Mar 23 - 03:59 PM

Hmmm. Shanties being sung, but is there any indication that they were being used as work songs or were they merely part of the concert repertoire?

Also, Alan Villiers writes about using chanties for their proper use well into the 20s.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 01 Mar 23 - 12:41 AM

From: wysiwyg Date: 01 Nov 02 - 08:35 AM The previous thread "Zither banjo on Shackleton" includes a few song references, but what about songs about the expedition itself? Know of any? Susan

Dr James Murray FRSE (21 July 1865, Glasgow – February 1914) was a biologist and explorer. In 1907, at the age of 41, he served under Ernest Shackleton on the Nimrod Expedition where he was in charge of the base camp. In 1913, he co-wrote a book about the expedition, titled Antarctic Days, with George Edward Marston (1882–1940), a fellow member of the expedition. Wikipedia

https://www.warrenfahey.com.au/songs-from-the-shackleton-expedition-to-antartica/

CHANTIES By G. E. Marston This is extracted from the Shackleton team’s memoirs. It is most probably the last lucid report of shanties in use and makes for fascinating reading.

FOLKLORE FROM THE SHACKLETON EXHIBITION TO ANTARTICA
FROM ‘MEMORIES OF ANTARTIC DAYS’ BY JAMES MURRAY AND GEORGE MARSTON. 1913

SHANTIES played an active role in the pioneering Shackleton exhibition and this first-hand account states the following were sung:

Santa Ana
Leave Her Jollies
Yankee Ship
Blow the Man Down
Sally Brown
Paddy Doyle’s Boots
Drunken Sailor
Whiskey Johnny
Stormalong
The Merman
Shanandoah

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Feb 23 - 11:54 PM

Shackleton's Song (EMPIRE WILD original) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNLL3kKezhg Shackleton's Song

Getting ready for the winter with this song honoring the explorer Ernest Shackleton. This is from a live show we did at the University of Iowa School of Music back in November 2019!

Subject: LYR ADD: Shackleton's Whiskey
From: Felipa
Date: 28 Feb 23 - 03:48 PM

thanks to crism's suggestion of this song

https://bethdesombre.com/track/2196086/shackleton-s-whiskey

SHACKLETON'S WHISKEY
Beth DeSombre


The Great War had started but he travelled southward
To conquer the continent, master the ice
But soon the ship foundered, the passageway frozen
The hull paid the ultimate price
With no other the option the men set out walking
With banjo and Bible in tow
All sure that he would know where to go

So here’s a toast to all the explorers
Who know that adventure’s the goal
Who hope to be worthy to honor his name
But they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey again
No they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey

He’d been here before; his dreams and ambitions
Were frozen forever in Antarctic ice
Along with his liquor, although he might need it
A symbol of his sacrifice
But this time the ice that had splintered the ship
Would not let them try to make land
For six months they camped on the ice and planned

So here’s a toast to all the explorers
Who know that adventure’s the goal
Who hope to be worthy to honor his name
But they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey again
No they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey

As soon as the ice had begun to release
They piled into lifeboats to head for the shore
But where they made landfall was not on a trade route
So he put to sea one time more
He crossed open ocean in only a rowboat
Then over a mountain for aid
After two years on ice they were finally saved.

So here’s a toast to all the explorers
Who know that adventure’s the goal
Who hope to be worthy to honor his name
But they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey again
No they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey

So when you fear that just missed the mail ship
And all your adventures have reached no good end
Just ask whether you’ve found new routes to discover
And trouble and fate to transcend
Shackleton may have saved all of his comrades
But this detail needs be told
His whole life, he never reached the pole

So here’s a toast to all the explorers
Who know that adventure’s the goal
Who hope to be worthy to honor his name
But they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey again
No they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey again
No they’ll never drink Shackleton’s whiskey

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 28 Feb 23 - 05:22 AM

Scott described the hut’s feeling of comfort: ‘The word hut is misleading. Our residence is really a house of considerable size, in every respect the finest that has ever been erected in the polar regions’

Working from historical photographs and documents, it took experts ten years to conserve the huts, which had suffered due to water seepage, age, and simply being left exposed to the polar elements.

https://carpenteroak.com/projects/scott-and-shackletons-huts-antarctica/ Scott and Shackleton huts

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: crism
Date: 28 Feb 23 - 12:32 AM

See also Beth DeSombre’s excellent song “Shackleton’s Whiskey” from her album I Was Here.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 08:51 AM

Shackleton's Cabin Watch now Shackleton's Cabin
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001grr7

On 5 January 1922, world-famous Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton died of a heart attack in his cabin aboard The Quest during his final expedition to the South Pole. Moored in Norway, The Quest was broken apart. However, one of the dockers had the foresight to remove Shackleton’s cabin. He took it home and it served as his family’s garden shed for three generations.

Nearly 100 years after Shackleton’s death, the cabin has been donated to a museum in the explorer’s hometown, where master craftsman and Shackleton enthusiast Sven Habermann painstakingly restores it to its former glory. With only one surviving photograph of the cabin’s interior, Sven goes to extreme lengths to retrace every detail, from the wood to the original wallpaper used. Shackleton’s Cabin follows Sven as he rebuilds the cabin and explores the life and final days of his hero.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 24 Feb 23 - 05:25 AM

Thanks, Felipa. Here are the notes from Rude Awakening;

Rude Awakening; One false step in the Antarctic was usually enough... The unfortunate Aeneas McIntosh had already lost an eye on a previous expedition; now after an exhausting nine week journey followed by a hasty and ill considered move, he and Hayward found themselves crossing the recently frozen sea. With the comfort of the base hut nearly in view, a gale blew up and blew them out into the open sea on an ever diminishing piece of ice - with fatal consequences.

Douglas Mawson; Douglas Mawson's epic and tragic Antarctic journey has been referred to as probably the greatest story of lone survival in Polar exploration. An Australian geologist, he had been a member of Shackleton's Nimrod expedition in 1907/08 and like many other Antarctic explorers of the time was drawn back there in 1911 at the head of his own expedition. A man of incredible determination and strength of character, he weighed 210 lbs. of muscle and bone at the outset of the journey which had become 112 lbs. of skin and bone on his return.

(Mawson was born on 5 May 1882 to Robert Ellis Mawson and Margaret Ann Moore. He was born in Shipley, West Riding of Yorkshire, but was less than two years old when his family emigrated to Australia. Wikipedia)

And the lyrics from Love To Be With You;

We pulled up our anchor and set sail in sweet November
The day was fine, the sun did shine
Such moments I remember
Your face so sad and lonely, fading from my view
But some small part of me remains with you

Chorus Sometimes I feel I must just fly away
Sometimes I feel goodbye's a word I just can't say
But I'd love to be with you
I'd love to be with you

Outside the blizzard raging cares not for our distress
The bitter taste of failure so nearly sweet success
Brave enough we were alas, to no avail
Such stories we could tell you
Had we lived to tell the tale

Chorus

The music I heard at the moment I was born
Was like crystal raindrops falling at dawn
All my life I've listened just to catch one sweet refrain
And gave up hope of hearing that sweet sound again

I hear it all around me now
I hear it all around me now
I hear it all around me now
I hear it all around me now

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Felipa
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 04:17 PM

Henry P, I included Andy Irvine's notes on the Douglas Mawson song on another 19 Feb post, along with the lyrics

notes by Andy Irvine
"A song of mine about the great Australian Geologist and Antarctic explorer who, after travelling with Shackleton in 1907-09, led his own expedition to Adélie Land, a previously unexplored part of the Antarctic continent. His extraordinary courage in getting back to base after the death of his two companions made a big impression on me."

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 23 Feb 23 - 06:20 AM

From: Felipa Date: 19 Feb 23 - 12:10 PM

on 20 Feb 2011, Henry P. cited two Andy Irvine songs. Lyrics for Douglas Mawson are at https://andyirvinelyrics.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/douglas-mawson/
sound recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBKGjtuaRrE

Lyrics for Rude Awakening https://www.andyirvine.com/lyrics/Lyrics%20-%20ODLR2.pdf
sound recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuuM0xIYIg4

If you scroll down, you can find Irvine's notes about both songs at https://andyirvinenews.wordpress.com/category/new-release/

ANDY IRVINE Old Dog Long Road – volume 2; I can only find the notes for DISC 2!

3. Love To Be With You (Andy Irvine) Andy Irvine: bouzouki & vocal
This started its life as a love song back in Ljubljana in 1968 and was converted into its present state for my album “Rude Awakening” in 1991. I left the chorus as it was but introduced elements of Captain Scott’s Antarctic expedition of 1911-1913 with its tragic end for the South Polar party.

8. Rude Awakening (Andy Irvine) Andy Irvine: mandola & vocal / Rens van der Zalm: fiddle
Yet another song with Antarctic connotations. Shackleton’s expedition in 1915 to cross the Antarctic from one side to the other required two ships. The story of the ship Endurance, carrying Shackleton and his Trans-Antarctic party is well known as is the fact that his journey across Antarctica never even started. The other ship – Aurora – sailing with a support party to the opposite side to lay depots for Shackleton on the latter part of his long journey is not so well known. The officer in charge, Aeneas Mackintosh, made many mistakes, culminating in his ill advised decision to cross the sea ice before it had become stable. A blizzard blew up after he and a companion had started, blowing the ice out to sea and, in spite of subsequent searches, they were never seen again. I had an alternative couplet which I don’t sing here: –
“What a beautiful dish we will make for the fish
As we’re eaten alive by the sharks around us.”
One can only hope that they drowned before that happened.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Reinhard
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 09:11 AM

The Shackleton Trio sing Georgia Shackleton's song Endurance. It is also on their 2016 album The Dog Who Would Not Be Washed. Georgia is distantly related to Ernest Shackleton.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 22 Feb 23 - 05:03 AM

Excellent short film about Shackleton and the James Caird on the Dulwich College website:

James Caird

"Adventure and Integrity are surely demonstrated most vividly by one of our most famous Old Alleynians, Sir Ernest Shackleton. It was in the James Caird, a 23 foot whaler, that he and five companions made the epic open boat voyage of 800 miles (1,300 km) from Elephant Island, 500 miles (800 km) south of Cape Horn, to South Georgia during the Antarctic winter of 1916. It is fitting that the James Caird now rests in the College as a permanent celebration of one our most illustrious alumni and of the values for which we stand."

LFF

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,William (awaiting registration)
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 09:50 AM

Here's a link to a song Shackleton himself would have sung - the Dulwich College school song:

Pueri Alleynienses

LFF

As an OA myself, this did come to mind, lol! However, Shackleton didn't exactly enjoy his time at Dulwich, so I doubt he would have sung it (or understood the words if he did - he was also a terrible scholar).

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: rich-joy
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 08:18 AM

Here is the Trailer for the latest film/movie/series/doco re this Explorer :

SHACKLETON, The Greatest Story of Survival. It will be shown in Australia 6th March.

https://wallis.com.au/piccadilly_events/shackleton-the-greatest-story-of-survival/


"28 lost adventurers must fight for their lives after their only lifeline is destroyed in the most uninhabitable place on Earth – Antarctica.
Shackleton: The Greatest Story of Survival reveals the true story of polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and the crew of the Endurance, told by the only man ever to have repeated their incredible feat – explorer and adventurer TIM JARVIS.
Following in the beset crew’s footsteps, Tim reveals the enduring legacy of Shackleton’s crisis leadership in the face of impossible odds – a lesson more relevant to us now than ever before."


R-J

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 21 Feb 23 - 03:30 AM

Here's a link to a song Shackleton himself would have sung - the Dulwich College school song:

Pueri Alleynienses

LFF

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: rich-joy
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 09:01 PM

Perhaps a MudElf could add this useful thread to the Listing at the top of the "Shackleton" threads??

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=170822

"violin from Shackleton's floorboards"


Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: rich-joy
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 08:52 PM

This 09March2022 NZ article has some great colour pics of the "Endurance" from the depths of the Weddell Sea :

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/463020/endurance-shackleton-s-wreck-found-in-brilliant-state-in-antarctic
Endurance: Shackleton's wreck found in 'brilliant state' in Antarctic : Explorers and researchers, battling freezing temperatures, have located Endurance, Ernest Shackleton's ship that sank in the Antarctic in 1915.

(no banjo though)


Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: rich-joy
Date: 20 Feb 23 - 08:30 PM

"could anyone transcribe or otherwise get the lyrics of "Shackleton" recorded by Jennifer Tingley and Nick Turner? https://www.reverbnation.com/tingleyturner/songs"

I had done this, Felipa, (though I confess my work is currently hiding from me :)    Around this time last year, a number of threads lost posts during a Mudcat Weird Time and were not able to be recovered, including some of mine.


Meanwhile, here is news of another photographic exhibition, available online at Australia's National Archives (NAA) :
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-21/early-antarctic-images-digitised-for-first-time/102001908
"Rare images from early Antarctic expeditions digitised and made available for first time"


Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Felipa
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 12:50 PM

I haven't been able to find the Shackleton song by Galway Joe Dolan cited by Declan and Henry P. It isn't listed on the 1983 Planxty album "Words and Music". Can anyone help?

Subject: Lyr Add: Douglas Mawson
From: Felipa
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 12:21 PM

DOUGLAS MAWSON - Andy Irvine

Once more the cruel Antarctic calls me back
To set my foot where no man yet did go
O memories of nineteen eight of taking chances tempting fate
And the happy days we spent in McMurdo

So we dropped our anchor off Adélie Land
And we built a hut to stand the winter gale
And when the sun returned again the air rang out with sounds of men
And Greenland huskies eager for the trail

From Aladdin’s cave we started on our way
Our friends they bid goodbye and turned for home
Xavier Mertz was there with me and Cherub Ninnis just we three
Were left to carry on our fate unknown

The black crevasse claimed Ninnis and his dogs
It claimed our food our fuel it claimed our tent
I never heard one single sound, just by chance I turned around
As Ninnis to his death in silence went

Defeat and death now stared us in the face
We had one lightweight tent and that was all
Just to stay alive we knew we’d have to kill the dogs for food
How were we to know that they’d be our downfall

A leaden glare now spread across the land
And neither shape nor feature reached our eyes
And nothing left to eat only deadly poison meat
For my brave friend death has no disguise

He wears the mask of illness on his face
He wears the cloak of silence at the trace
One night he bit his finger through and spat it out in the snow
His cries of madness caused my blood to freeze

When I awoke next morning he was dead
The wreckage of his body stiff and cold
I have to try and reach firm ground at least my diary must be found
That someday this sad story may be told

The soles of my feet became detached
Teeth, nails, muscles all are gone
Down icy pits I fell through space till brought up by my harness trace
Give up give up there’s no point in going on

Three weeks I staggered on across the ice
Then a cairn of snow by sheer chance I struck
A letter there told the tale of searching men that very day
Even now I can’t believe my luck

My pulse was racing as I saw the men
My journey at an end no more to do
My skeleton was easily raised and gently on the sledge was laid
My God they cried which one of them are you?

And later tears were wet upon their cheeks
And my own eyes fill with the telling of the tale
And on that bleak and distant shore the blizzard blows for evermore
For those in icy tombs out on the trail

notes by Andy Irvine
"A song of mine about the great Australian Geologist and Antarctic explorer who, after travelling with Shackleton in 1907-09, led his own expedition to Adélie Land, a previously unexplored part of the Antarctic continent. His extraordinary courage in getting back to base after the death of his two companions made a big impression on me."

Subject: Lyr Add: Antartica
From: Felipa
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 12:15 PM

ANTARCTICA
- Al Stewart & Peter White

(Riff: Am Em C Em Am Em F (2X) F/G/Am F/G/Am F/G/Am C/E/Am)

F    G       Am          F      G       Am
Long before I ever saw the frost upon your face
      F       G       Am             C       E7      Am
I was haunted by your beauty, and it drew me to this place
F       G       Am            F       G       Am
Felt the chill of mystery with one foot on your shore
F       G      Am                   C      E7   Am
I then and there resolved to go, where no man had before
C          G             F          G         Am
Maybe I was snowblind, or perhaps it sapped my will
    F         G    Am          C   E7          Am    E
But something of my innocence is wandering there still

    Am Em C Em Am G F
In Antartica
    Am Em C Em Am G F
In Antartica                   ETC....

Long before I ever saw
The frost upon your face
I was haunted by your beauty
And it drew me to this place

I felt the chill of mystery
With one foot on your shore
And then and there resolved to go
Where no man had before

Maybe I was snowblind
But it seemed the wind spoke true
And I believed its stories then
As dreamers sometimes do

In Antarctica
In Antarctica

Who knows what the powers may be
That cause a man to go
Mindless of the dangers
Out across the virgin snow

Seduced by this ambition
I easily forget
The hopeless quest of Shackleton
The dreamlike death of Scott

In Antarctica
In Antarctica

Maybe I was snowblind
But it seemed the wind spoke true
And I believed its stories then
As dreamers sometimes do

In Antarctica
In Antarctica

Maybe I was snowblind
Perhaps it sapped my will
But something of my innocence
Is wandering there still

In Antarctica
In Antarctica
In Antarctica
In Antarctica

https://alstewart.com/antarctica
HISTORY (COMPILED BY FANS)
Robert Falcon Scott (1868 - 1912)

In 1900 Scott was chosen to lead the British National Antarctic Expedition on the DISCOVERY. They set sail from Cowes on August 6, 1901 with 50 men and 19 Greenland huskies. (SIDELIGHT: The 1989/90 Steger expedition included dogs descended from these huskies.)

The expedition charted approximately 1,200 miles of coastline. Biological and meteorological as well as geological studies were done. In spring sledding parties set out to explore the continent. The most important of these was made up of Scott, Wilson and Shackleton's attempt to find a route to the pole. They set out on November 2, using all the dogs harnessed in 3 teams. By the time they reached 82-1'S, however, they were forced by illness to turn back.

Scott was promoted to captain upon his return to England in 1904, and in 1905 was made commander of the Royal Victorian Order.

In 1910 he organized another Antarctic expedition. Backed by the British and dominion governments the expedition set sail in June 1910 on the TERRA NOVA. In November 1911 Scott and 4 companions began traveling south by man hauled sledge.

Delayed by bad weather, they reached the south geographic pole on January 17, 1912. Roald Amundsen, using dogs and favored by better weather, had gotten there on December 14, 1911. Upon making this discovery, Scott decided to spend several days collecting geological samples, perhaps hoping to make up for what he saw as a failure.

(SIDENOTE: Amundsen's route was also shorter. He killed several of his dogs on his way to the pole, caching them along the route to feed the remaining dogs on his trip back.)

On the return trip petty officer Edgar Evans suffered continual frostbite. He had twice fallen into crevasses, striking his head. He died in February 1912.

On March 7, 1912 Captain Oates committed suicide by walking out into a blizzard. He had been unable to pull a sledge due to his weakened condition, and had hoped to ease the burden on his companions by sacrificing himself.

On March 21, 1912 the remaining members of Scott's party were 11 miles from One Ton Depot. They had 2 days worth of food and one day's worth of fuel. That night a blizzard came up that lasted for 9 days.

The last entry in Scott's log is dated March 29. It says, in part, "Everyday we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end can not be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write any more."

On November 12, 1912 a search party found Scott's tent containing the bodies of Scott, Wilson, and Lieutenant Bowers. They built a cairn over the bodies of the explorers, and brought back all the diaries, personal papers and scientific records as well as 30 pounds of geological samples from the Beardmore glacier.

A polar research institute was founded in Cambridge in 1920 in Scott's name to honor his work.

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton
(1874 - 1922)


Shackleton, then a lieutenant, was a deck officer on the British National Antarctic Expedition (DISCOVERY) lead by Scott. He took part in the sledge journey over the Ross Ice Shelf when latitude 82-16'33"S was reached. He became ill with scurvy, however, and was evacuated on the supply ship MORNING in March, 1903.

In January 1908 he went back to Antarctica as the leader of the British Antarctic Expedition (NIMROD). He led a sledding party that got to within 87 miles of the south pole. The Victoria Land Plateau was claimed for the British crown.

Shackleton was the first to use mechanical vehicles during the Nimrod expedition. He used an Arrol-Johnston vehicle with a 4-cylinder, 15 horsepower air cooled engine and ribbed tires. These vehicles, however, proved less useful then dogs under the extreme conditions in Antarctica.

In March 1914 he left England with the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (ENDURANCE). He had planned to cross Antarctica from a base on the Weddell Sea to McMurdo Sound. The expedition ship ran into problems off the Caird coast, however, and drifted for 10 months before being crushed by pack ice October 27, 1915. The ship sank on November 21, 1915.

The expedition drifted on the ice floes for 5 months. The finally escaped on small boats to Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands in April 1916.

Subject: RE: Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Felipa
Date: 19 Feb 23 - 12:10 PM

on 20 Feb 2011, Henry P. cited two Andy Irvine songs. Lyrics for Douglas Mawson are at https://andyirvinelyrics.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/douglas-mawson/
sound recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBKGjtuaRrE

Lyrics for Rude Awakening https://www.andyirvine.com/lyrics/Lyrics%20-%20ODLR2.pdf
sound recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuuM0xIYIg4

If you scroll down, you can find Irvine's notes about both songs at https://andyirvinenews.wordpress.com/category/new-release/

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Felipa
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 07:32 PM

lyrics to Antartica by Al Stewart: https://alstewart.com/antarctica

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Felipa
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 07:14 PM

link correction (from previous message) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Gs2pjpJvs = Like Steve Gardham I'd love to see the book Melani mentioned on 02 Sep 03 - "I think the guys on the expedition actually wrote a book of songs, and we have a bootleg copy here in the library, donated by a well-meaning soul who didn't realize he couldn't just xerox something that was copyrighted and donate it." Does anyone know anything about that book. I wonder what library Melani worked at.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Felipa
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 07:10 PM

Steve Gardham, if are you referring to the early recording http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Gs2pjpJvs>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Gs2pjpJvs Notes on youtube say it was recorded in 1918 (a few years after the expedition) by members of the crew. Mick Maloney played a bit of that recording in his introduction to the modern Ballad of Tom Crean by Cliff Wedgebury (Irish Arts Center youtube channel) but I don't think he said anything about the crew members being involved in the recording.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 03:23 PM

That recording of the Tom Crean song is interesting. Sounds very authentic. The tune appears to be related to 'Uncle Tom Cobley' and 'Cigareets and Whiskey'. Again some provenance on that would be welcome. When recorded and by whom?

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 03:15 PM

A chap called Green who was I think cook on the expedition used to come to our folk club in Hull in the 60s and show slides of the expedition. It was a long time ago, but I'd certainly like to know what was in that book of songs mentioned above.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Felipa
Date: 18 Feb 23 - 12:42 PM

could anyone transcribe or otherwise get the lyrics of "Shackleton" recorded by Jennifer Tingley and Nick Turner? https://www.reverbnation.com/tingleyturner/songs

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Feb 22 - 12:29 PM

solas Solas play Vital Mental Medicine / The Pullet

With his ship the Endurance being crushed by pack ice and sinking fast, Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton ordered his men over the side, telling them to take only the barest of personal possessions, a limit of no more than two pounds each.
The one exception he made was for a five-string Windsor zither-banjo belonging to the expedition's meteorologist, a jaunty young man named Leonard Hussey. Although his repertoire was limited, Hussey had been keeping the party entertained through the long, dark, polar night, and Shackleton, keenly aware of the effects of stress and isolation on morale, wanted him to keep the tunes coming.
"It's vital mental medicine," Shackleton said of the music, "and we shall need it." And so Hussey brought along his banjo, all 12 pounds of it, and over the next harrowing months, he helped sustain the party's spirits with weekly concerts and singalongs. [National Geographic]

Andy Irvine is a great admirer of the Antarctic explorers. As Solas played Vital Mental Medicine, lights made patterns on the roof of the marquee. Look, I said, the aurora borealis! Don't you mean the aurora australis? said Andy.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,Iains
Date: 16 Feb 22 - 10:06 AM

Not so much song as a choral work
Shackleton was commissioned by Gondwana Voices as part of the song cycle ‘Turn on the Open Sea’ in 2001
http://www.pauljarman.com/composition/shackleton/

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: beachcomber
Date: 16 Feb 22 - 08:38 AM

I happened upon a small EXHIBITION on The Shackleton Expeditions when strolling between the Museums on Exhibition Road in South Kensington last Thursday. It was excellent of it's kind of mainly photographic and textual accounts. I had heard or seen no previous publicity of it ?

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 16 Feb 22 - 06:51 AM

Some songs in Mudcat thread Any February Songs? /mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=169274#shackleton

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Feb 22 - 04:40 AM

In February 2022, a major international scientific expedition will explore one of the coldest, harshest and most remote locations in the world, in a quest to find the Endurance.

Using underwater robots, helicopters and other state-of-the-art technology, the Endurance22 expedition aims to locate and survey Sir Ernest Shackleton’s lost ship which sank in the Weddell Sea in Antarctica in 1915.

Subject: Lyr Add: The James Caird Saved the Day
From: voyager
Date: 15 Feb 22 - 06:37 PM

pickup from a previous thread on 'Songs About Shackleton' I found this homage to the James Caird 7 meter sailing vessel that heroically braved the South Georgia Sea (1914) on the second Shackleton expedition. Credits to songwriter Cliff Wedgbury, a well-know UK poet, playwright and songwriter. Excepted from James Caird Journal V11.3

THE JAMES CAIRD SAVED THE DAY
(Cliff Wedgbury)

On Elephant Island the men were trapped,
       Survivors from the ice.
Endurance crushed by surrounding floes,
       In the Weddell sacrificed.
   Upturned boats on that barren shore,
   Their home for months to come,
As the James Caird they prepared,
       For a suicidal run.

On the Southern Ocean,
    Heroes of the tide,
The James Caird and her valiant crew,
    Helped all hands survive.

   Eight hundred miles to South Georgia,
      Salvation their belief,
   Six brave men on the stormy main,
      Sailing for relief.
   The savage waves surrounding them,
      Drenched by icy spray,
   Through screaming winds, they battled hard,
      To hold their nerve and pray.

   And the James Caird brought them safely back,
    To South Georgia’s mountains high,
       Seventeen days on the ocean wide,
         ‘Neath the wild Antarctic sky,
       Six brave souls with a savage tale,
          Of endurance against all odds,
    To amaze the Stromness whaler men,
          Who thought all hands were lost.

   The whaler boat with a canvas deck,
      McNish had used his skill,
   To raise the gunwales, caulk the hull,
      And every crack to fill.
   To cross the cold tempestuous sea,
      To find King Haakon Bay,
   The tiny craft had made it through,
      The James Caird saved the day.
   And the hardy crew showed bravery,
      For their shipmates cast away.

   On the Southern Ocean,
       Heroes of the tide,
   The James Caird and her valiant crew,
       Helped all hands survive.

voyager
veteran of the US Antarctic Program

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 16 Feb 11 - 11:57 AM

Newly-formed Irish band The Difference Engine release their debut single 'Elephant Island' on February 15 2011, (explorer Ernest Shackleton's birthday), and will officially launch the track in Shebeen Chic on February 24.

Seamus Eagan of Solas wrote the banjo tune "Vital Mental Medicine," inspired by the book The Endurance, Caroline Alexander's chronicle of explorer Ernest Shackleton.

Joe Dolan from Galway wrote a song about Shackleton's arrival in Stromness, the whaling base in South Georgia; My name is Shackleton. It was recorded by the Planxty of 1983 with Andy Irvine, Arty McGlynn, Dolores Keane, James Kelly, Bill Whelan and Liam O'Flynn.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 13 Feb 11 - 02:47 PM

Has anyone been able to establish the provenance of this recording?


Regards

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 07:46 PM

here again is his crew singing a song about him

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Gs2pjpJvs&feature=related

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 05:46 PM

Two songs from Rude Awakening by Andy Irvine

Rude Awakening

In the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17, Shackleton famously led all his own party to safety, but Victor Hayward and Aenas McIntosh, two members of the Ross Sea party, lost their lives crossing the sea-ice from Hut Point to Cape Evans.

Douglas Mawson

Douglas Mawson had been a member of Shackleton's Nimrod expedition in 1907/08 and was drawn back to the Antarctic in 1911 at the head of his own expedition. His epic and tragic Antarctic journey has been referred to as probably the greatest story of lone survival in Polar exploration.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,scuttlebob
Date: 12 Feb 11 - 12:26 AM

Was there any further info re. the 'expedition songbook' that Melani mentioned. I would sure love to get a copy, or at least a list of the songs there-in.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 03:43 PM

PS: It has a different Crean ballad from the one mentioned above

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 03:42 PM

CLONES: Can you please add this thread to the blue-clicky list at the top?

Ballad of Tom Crean

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=130163

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 03:40 PM

That is awesome. I am trying to track down his genealogy as well as his history because it is quite possible that we are related and it would help me trace my ancestors. My ggm was Eliza Crehan of County Kerry..which is new info to us..we worked it out she was from Clonmel but she was not. Anyway, she ended up in Clermont Iowa, and although it was said she never saw her relatives again, a Bart and Hanora Crehan or Crean or Creehan (there are dozens of ways to spell this and it changes to Crogan, McCrogan etc.) appear from County kerry. There are many Creans in Annascul, and some from Blasket Islaands...so if anyone happens upon family trees etc. please let me know..we know that some Doolins/Dulins from Anascoul ended up in Clermont, and people tended to travel in clusters.

Anyway, a great man and I am dying to see the book and the songbook. mg

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Melani
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 03:32 PM

Oh, and by the way--the guy who donated the bootleg copy, the one who is going for surgery, has just finished a biography of Tom Crean which will be published soon. I will forward this link to him--he should be back online while getting back on his feet.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Melani
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 03:29 PM

Hi guys--yes, I'm still alive, just involved up to my eyebrows in re-fighting the Battle of the Little Bighorn online...I'm at home now, not at work, so I will forward Joe's email to work, where I will be again on Friday, and track down the book. It might take a while--the guy who knows the most about it is going into the hospital for hip replacement surgery, and won't be available for a few days, in case I can't find it easily in the Library collection. The place is in chaos at the moment, with the old boss retiring and the new one driving us all nuts, and I am reluctant to bring a bootleg copy to her attention, since she might want to get rid of it. So I'll just nose around quietly.

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 03:17 PM

I think one of the most-heard songs on that ship went something like "Meow".

Mrs Chippy

Subject: RE: Shackleton Antarctic Expedition: Songs?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Sep 10 - 02:55 PM

I e-mailed Melani, and we'll see if she responds. She last posted in February.
-Joe-