sovay | Pull that oar until it cracks

And then today I got up on two hours of sleep and spent the day at Canobie Lake Park with

derspatchel,

sairaali, M., M's brother C.,

rushthatspeaks,

gaudior,

jinian, and B. It was wonderful.

I was last there as a small child in the '80's; I recognized the miniature sports cars and the narrow gauge railway, but the Kosmojets and the Matterhorn are gone. The mirror maze looked familiar. I remembered the red-and-white skyway that makes a circuit over some of the family rides once I was on it. Everything else was new to me.

I rode three coasters: Untamed, the Yankee Cannonball (twice), and the Canobie Corkscrew (twice, the last time to close out the day; it is a small coaster and it does one thing, but it does that one thing extremely well). The Xtreme Frisbee looked like a close cousin to the Big E's Fireball, which I love and find exhilarating, but it actually blurred my sense of balance in a way I hadn't experienced before, so I didn't give it another chance. The ~~Ferris~~ Giant Sky Wheel got two rides, the second at sunset right before the midway started to light up. So did the Mine of Lost Souls, a gonzo dark ride that starts like a tour of a haunted mine and then falls sideways into a different genre. We rode the Caterpillar and the sky ride of my childhood and the swing carousel called Da Vinci's Dream. I avoided the Policy Pond Log Flume and the other water rides because I was already freezing; the day was bright and nippy and I spent all of my time in my jacket, mostly with my hair stuffed down the back to keep it out of the wind. I also stayed away from the Psychodrome, because the idea of a scrambler ride with loud music and strobe lights was a migraine waiting to happen. The half-hour cruise around Canobie Lake was lovely. Half of my food intake for the day seems to have been ice cream in the form of Dippin' Dots and butterscotch-dipped vanilla soft-serve and the other half was some surprisingly tasty pulled pork and the bowl of clam chowder I ate as soon as I got home (after feeding the cats, who otherwise seemed to think the chowder was a special present for them). I appear to have a sunburn across my cheekbones despite putting on sunscreen. We missed the antique carousel, but that just leaves something to go back for.

Saira had made a road trip playlist, from which I learned that Heather Dale went through a phase of recording songs about shipwrecks; I suspect I need them.

I am physically very tired. However temporarily, I'm happy.

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Ooh, I'd be interested to see your transcription of The Imagined Village's version of "Mermaid", because on these laptop speakers I can't quite make it out, and I don't to wake our twin toddler neighbours by listening at volume.

Well, it's also whispered underneath a plangent fiddle-and-sitar improv and then repeated by a chorus. It sounds like:

Neptune he has favored us with fair and lively breeze
Like a thing endowed with life she bounds across the seas
Then we're off to Tibert's Bay upon some drunken sprees
To drink some rum and raise some hell and lose our dignities

But the last time I checked online, I couldn't find the verse attested anywhere. That doesn't mean it's not authentic; I'm aware that many things are not on the internet. But I would certainly appreciate some kind of double-check.

I would love to see a Muppet version of that song someday. I can only hope the Stan Rogers estate will have the wit to license it if the offer ever rolls around.

Oh, man. I would watch that. Repeatedly.

I'm pretty sure I sent you "Backyard Sailor" way back when when I was sending you Tanglefoot songs?

You did! I have a decade of very good Tanglefoot from you.

Neptune he has favored us with fair and lively breeze
Like a thing endowed with life she bounds across the seas
Then we're off to Tibert's Bay upon some drunken sprees
To drink some rum and raise some hell and lose our dignities

So it look as though there is a source, though Googling it was tricky, as Tibert's Bay found no matches and neither did the last line, but weirdly, the second line brought the result. Go figure. Google's algorithm gets more bizarre with time.

I was probably thinking in Muppet terms, because we went to a Tough Pigs event last night that featured a bit where Gonzo was basically watching chicken-fancier TV in the control room while everyone else is going nuts around him.

So it look as though there is a source, though Googling it was tricky, as Tibert's Bay found no matches and neither did the last line, but weirdly, the second line brought the result.

Thank you! So it's a splice of two verses plus some drift of oral tradition. (Or those were the favorite lines of whoever in The Imagined Village knew the song to begin with and they just ran with them.) I'd figured it was just something that had never been transcribed where Google could get it.

I am completely unfamiliar with "Corbitt's Barkentine." Searching for it gets me Alan Mills' Songs of the Maritimes: Lumberman Songs and Songs of the Sea (1959), otherwise known an entire album of folksongs I've never heard. I know a "Banks of Newfoundland," but it's definitely not this one. Have you ever heard any of these?

Gonzo was basically watching chicken-fancier TV in the control room while everyone else is going nuts around him.

Aw.

I am completely unfamiliar with "Corbitt's Barkentine." Searching for it gets me Alan Mills' Songs of the Maritimes: Lumberman Songs and Songs of the Sea (1959), otherwise known an entire album of folksongs I've never heard. I know a "Banks of Newfoundland," but it's definitely not this one. Have you ever heard any of these?

I know a very differently paced (possibly even a different tune) for The Mary L. McKay and a different Harbor Grace via Great Big Sea, who may have just been inspired by the title. Otherwise these are completely unfamiliar.

The liner notes reveal that the Mary L. McKay is a poem, so it may be that the version I know is just a different setting of the same poem.

Scanning the back catalog at the bottom of the liner notes also produces a collection called We'll Rant and We'll Roar, which I expect contains a few other branches of familiar tunes or at least familiar titles.

Pull that oar until it cracks

Re: "It's the story ... of a Scottish grocer ..."

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