27. 10 Ship Songs

Slaveship - Josh Rouse
Ship Song - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
Boots of Spanish Leather - Bob Dylan
Paper Ships - The Young Republic
Shipbuilding - Elvis Costello
Sloop John B - Beach Boys
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
The Mariner's Revenge Song - The Decemberists
Proud Mary - Ike & Tina Turner
Boat Song - Jeremy Warmsley ft Emmy the Great

Again, this is a topic which is pretty widely covered - I've left off one of Bob Dylan's greatest songs When the Ship Comes In, and a range of Liverpool songs, from The Coral's Spanish Main, through Shack's HMS Fable, The La's and the Beatles even, to Ferry Cross the Mersey. Then there's Randy Newman, David Gray, Crosby, Stills & Nash, all kinds of stuff. These rock'n'roll folk like their boats.
These are all pretty great songs, though I used to think Sloop John B was out of place on Pet Sounds. I remember hearing the Nick Cave song on Home & Away once - a beautiful moment for a lover of both these jewels of Australian culture.
Something tells me we haven't seen the last of water as a topic, but these ones do pretty much stick to naval travel, so I think I'll be able to find a new idea within that.
Obviously, sailing used to be more than a leisure activity, and all those folk who set off down the centuries not knowing what on earth they would find, if anything, is pretty intense. Even now, there are some pretty unknowable things that can happen at sea - you should look up the story of Donald Crowhurst, who took part in a round the world race at the end of the 60s - one of the weirdest and saddest things you'll ever hear.
Anyway, thinking back to all those conquistadors

I've got a feeling I've been here before, you know,
wherever I am, squinting whichever way I look,
drawing breath - for wonders I may never find,
new lines on maps, old lines in new books.
I miss my home, I think, though I can't recall it
but I've pain in my guts for something I've lost
and the nameless victims of ageless kingdoms
are just marks on the map of the lines I've crossed.

I must be wearing a new skin by now
but maybe I'm closer to where I started.
Soon I must choose to fly or to freeze,
to embrace or dismiss the spaces I've charted.
I must be forgotten now where I'm from -
I can barely recall myself these days.
I've got a little something to soothe this headache -
I'll save my decisions for a sombre haze.

New territories are for the taking, I'm sure
and new glories are mine, my right to claim
and my name and its versions will cover this map,
if I can but be sure I remember my name.
Logic dictates there'll be land before long
was the last thing I wrote three weeks ago
but that wave is mine, and this thought is mine,
this mind, this form, this little I know.