Sailor Song

This epic tale of the north is a vibrant moral fable for our time. Set in the near future in the fishing village of Kuinak, Alaska, a remnant outpost of the American frontier not yet completely overcome by environmental havoc and mad-dog development, Sailor Song is a wild, rollicking novel, a dark and cosmic romp. The town and its denizens--colorful refugees from the Lower Forty-Eight and DEAPs (Descendants of Early Aboriginal Peoples)--are seduced and besieged by a Hollywood crew, come to film the classic children's book The Sea Lion. The ensuing turf war escalates into a struggle for the soul of the town as the novel spins and swirls toward a harrowing climax. Writing with a spectacular range of language and style, Kesey has given us a unique and powerful novel about America.

Passed down in the oral tradition and sung traditionally as working songs, sea shanties tell the human stories of life at sea: hard graft, battling the elements, the loss of ships or pining for a lady on shore. Its pages decorated with hand-drawn or wood-cut illustrations from celebrated artist Jonny Hannah, Sailor Song addresses the current modern revival of sea shanties, and seeks to celebrate and to explore the historical, musical and social history of the traditional sea song through 40 beautiful, mournful, haunting and uplifting shanties. Acclaimed shanty devotee Gerry Smyth presents the background to each one alongside musical notation. The lyrics are elaborated with explanations of terminology, context including historical facts and accounts of life at sea, and the characters, both fictional and non-fictional, that appear in the songs from the great age of sail to the last days of square-rig. Where appropriate, a direct digital link is made to a shanty recording in the British Library Sound Archive.

A rousing collection of the most memorable and feel-good shanties in maritime history.

A mother sings her child a song that describes how a sailor makes his way home from the sea to his family.

In the old days when American sailing ships still plowed the seas, it was the custom of their sailors to enliven both their work and their leisure time with song. The songs they used were not, generally speaking, those current and popular ashore at the same period, but were traditional compositions of unknown date and authorship, growing as all folk-song does out of the needs and experiences of men. These songs of the sea have in every line of their verses and every bar of their music the distinctive flavor of seafaring. They are of equal interest to students of folk-lore and to those who love the memory of old days spent on blue water; and it is with both in mind that this work has been undertaken.