Inspired by a phantasmagoric vision described by Ismael in Melville's Moby Dick, Sean wrote this whaling song. We're glad we only have to play the song and we don't have to boil the whale blubber. That's a foul business altogether.
lyrics
THE TRY-WORKS
Standing in a sleep, something is wrong,
The compass I was steering by is suddenly gone,
Nothing before me but a jet-black gloom,
Ghastly flash of red, and a thunderous boom . . .
Sinking through the darkness to the depths of my soul,
Kneeling in the bottom of a bloody punch bowl,
My sea legs are sturdy, but I can’t stand
To scour these pots with soapstone and sand
Stark, bewildered, a feeling of death,
Choked by the smoke, can’t draw a breath,
Temperature rising, higher and higher,
I’ve been staring too long at the face of the fire . . .
Pitchin’ and a-rollin’ cross the watery earth,
Telling tales of terror in a language of mirth,
Dirty harpooners who feel no shame,
Their laughter forks up like the tongues of the flame
From the furnace, so hot that the main deck warps,
laden with fire as we’re melting a corpse,
The whale supplies the oil that makes his own body burn,
As we flee from all the safety of the havens astern.
It’s been an all-night, headlong, sled-like slide,
The crazy old man took us all for a ride,
Hatred and revenge figured into his plan,
And I, like all all the others, was a butterless man,
The ship, like Satan, sank down into hell
As she dragged a living part of heaven down with herself,
But the eagle soars higher than the crows and the cranes,
And I’ve returned alone, the only one who remains,
So tomorrow will dawn, and the skies will be bright,
The world looks better in the natural light.
Shake off the cold and the dark and the damp,
That golden, glad sun is the only true lamp.
credits
from Band O'Brothers,
released November 19, 2016
Lyrics and Music by Sean Malloy
(with lots of help from Herman Melville)
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