Lyr Req: Saints and Strangers (Chris Stuart)

Subject: Lyr Req: Saints and Strangers (Chris Stuart)
From: GUEST,Stranger Here Myself
Date: 23 May 05 - 10:47 PM

Hi all,

As the thread title says, I'm trying to find the lyrics to Saints and Strangers, which was the title cut of a 2003 CD which I don't own. Heard the song on the radio and cannot get it out of my head.

From what I've read, the title is from a 1940s book, also titled Saints and Strangers, that describes the voyage of the Pilgrims to America. There were, I gather, two very distinct groups on board, a group of religious folk, who called themselves Saints, and non-believers or different-believers, who the Saints referred to as Strangers. They supposedly didn't want much to do with each other, but once on these shores they had to band together or die.

(I may have all of this a bit wrong, though.)

At any rate, right or wrong telling, the song made a deep impression on me.

Lyrics appreciated,

With kind regards,
Stranger

Subject: Lyr Add: SAINTS AND STRANGERS (Chris Stuart)
From: open mike
Date: 23 May 05 - 11:32 PM

Liner notes: In 1620, 102 settlers left England for America
on the Mayflower. Fewer than half of those aboard referred
to themselves as "saints" they called the others "strangers."

SAINTS AND STRANGERS (6:18) by Chris Stuart
Back Country Music

On a cold and cloudless English morning
As they led me to the gallows tree
20 shillings had I in my pocket
For to pay the hangman's fee

Then I heard a stranger ask the sheriff
If I'd ever sailed upon the sea
I replied if I should see the morrow
Then a sailor I would be

So they rode me to a ship at anchor
Smaller than the damned South Hampton jail
And the crewman(?) shouted from the fo'castle
For America we sail

        CHORUS
        We are travellers in a fragile vessel
        Ever waiting for the sparrow's call
        Passing only for the moment
        Saints and strangers are we all
        Saints and strangers are we all

As the ship listed from the harbor
And I felt the cold Atlantic spray
Then I knew I had exchanged a coffin
For the ocean's open grave

No gold or spices did we carry
No human contraband or rum(?)
Just a crew and a congregation
Singing hymns and a sacred songs

I preferred the shanties of the sailors
And I learned to haul the mast and jib
They would ask me was I saint or stranger
But no answer would I give
        
        CHORUS

In a dream I walked a barren desert
Til I lost my way upon the land
There i found the broken masted Mayflower
Buried in the sand

On the bow sprit was a faded maiden
Fairer than the western wind was she
But she wept for all the saints and strangers
Til her tears became the sea

Then i felt the ocean close around me
In cold Poseiden's debt,death(?) I hung
Til i woke to the watchman's voice shouting
To america we've come
        CHORUS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Saints and Strangers (Chris Stuart)
From: open mike
Date: 24 May 05 - 04:23 PM

thank you stranger, you are a saint to bring this song up
i am glad i had the c.d. and was ablt to catch the lyrics
by listening to this repeatedly..now it is lapping at the
shores of my brain...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Saints and Strangers (Chris Stuart)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 25 May 05 - 11:36 PM

The book referred to is by George F. Willison, copyright 1945. Although it's out of print now, it must have been very popular, because I have often seen copies at used book sales, flea markets, etc. I have a copy myself, picked up at one of those sales, but I've never got around to reading it.

The full title is: "Saints and Strangers: Being the Lives of the Pilgrim Fathers & Their Families, with Their Friends & Foes; & an Account of Their Posthumous Wanderings in Limbo, Their Final Resurrection & Rise to Glory, & the Strange Pilgrimages of Plymouth Rock."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Saints and Strangers (Chris Stuart)
From: open mike
Date: 31 May 05 - 01:39 AM

hard enough just to read the (entire) title!!