General Taylor 11/1/23 General Taylor 11/1/23

Ranzo (The Wild Goose)

This pathos-laden ditty speaks of unrequited love, and may hold useful lessons for the aspiring fellow-a-courting

General Taylor 14/9/21 General Taylor 14/9/21

All For Me Grog

For its subject matter, this is a very jolly shanty. The narrator of the song cheerfully laments on all he’s lost to the drink and the lassies ashore, and that he must find a ship again.

General Taylor 15/8/21 General Taylor 15/8/21

Crossing The Bar

Written in 1889 by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, this poem dives deep into the liminal space between this life and the next.

General Taylor 15/7/21 General Taylor 15/7/21

Rolling Down to Old Maui

The scene is set on a whaling ship in the far northern Pacific Ocean – the Kamchatka sea, in fact, off Russia. The lads have been whaling in freezing, dangerous conditions for six months, and now it’s time to turn south and set sail for the Hawaiian islands – Maui.

General Taylor 1/7/21 General Taylor 1/7/21

Shallow Brown

Here’s a sad, lonely, and beautiful halyard shanty from the West Indies. There’s mention of whaling, slavery, St Georges (in Grenada), Spanish dollars and silver fountains, but mostly it’s about loss and longing.

General Taylor 1/6/21 General Taylor 1/6/21

A Drop of Nelson’s Blood

Have you ever been to Trafalgar Square in London? Lots of pigeons, also lions, and a bloody great column with a statue of Admiral Horatio Nelson on top. Nelson died in an epic naval battle against the combined forces of the French and Spanish navies, off the south-west coast of Spain, in 1805.