A Ballad of John Silver

Saturday the 19th September is "International Talk Like A Pirate Day"... to celebrate this great event my old mate John Masefield and I concocted this little ditty.... may the Aaaarrrrrrr's be with you...
(A shorter version was originally recorded for Andrew Fergusson's film "Polly Woodside")

[tsrhodes]

This song raises such a deep nostalgia for an age of Pirates that never was.

[aminudinmansor]

Ah, we were schooner-rigged and rakish, a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;
With a big black Jolly Roger flapping at the fore,
We sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of yore.

We had a long brass gun amidships, like a well-conducted ship,
Each a brace of pistols and a cutlass at the hip;
It's a point which tells against us, and a fact to be deplored,
But we chased the goodly merchant-men and laid their ships aboard.

And Then the dead men fouled the scuppers the wounded filled the chains,
The paint-work all spatter-dashed with other people's brains,
She was boarded, she was looted, she's scuttled till she sank,
And the pale survivors left us by the medium of the plank.



O! the fiddle on the fo'c's'le, the slapping naked soles,
A genial "Down the middle, Jake, and curtsey when she rolls!"
With the silver seas around us a pale moon overhead,
And the look-out not a-looking his pipe-bowl glowing red.

Ah! the pig-tailed, quidding pirates and the pretty pranks we played,
Have all been put stop-to by the Board of Trade;
The schooners and the merry crews are laid away to rest,
A little south the sunset in the Islands of the Blest.

[Pbirv]

A tune for the "Black Sails" soundtrack!

[jk]

Kudos to the creator of this. The video is brilliant and the music catchy, making this a compelling piece. Some of the words are ghastly but the poem's author, John Masefield, lived in a different time with more brutal values.

[Ravishrex]

If only we had bards like this back in naam.

[alexiacarlisle]

Le bateau taille la route mais les voiles ne bougent pas...curieux!😁J'ai l'habitude de la mer...bizarre!!!

[rachdarastrix]

Ah, we were schooner-rigged and rakish, a long and lissome hull,
And we flew the pretty colours of the cross-bones and the skull;
With a big black Jolly Roger flapping at the fore,
We sailed the Spanish Water in the happy days of

.. Mom.

[spitfirevb]

Good heavens, it's dear Surprise 😃

[l.salisbury]

"Now the pleasures of a harbor
Don't include a lady barber
If it wasn't for Long John Silver
All of us pirates would have been martyrs!"
-Gordon Lightfoot '74

[chrisdansey]

Lyrics by John Masefield? What? Britain's poet laureate writing pirate songs?

[comowibibliawhatthebiblesa]

But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.
John 16:7

[harveybethina]

It would be great if someone inboxed me now

[gregwarner]

Good old days indeed. Not! Now a missile comes screaming over the horizon five feet over the wave tops and blows a hole big enough to sail that wooden wonder through. Good new days? Ask the crew of the MOSKAVA.

Slave Ukraini!

[robnewman]

BOOOO! Tragedy! Crime! Piracy! and Justice!

[ивангрозный-шв]

Топить деревяшки проще всего пусть так с ямато попробуют

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