As you may well have noticed, I often fall back on news stories for my themes for these posts, and this week is another of those. One of the biggest stories was the implosion of the submarine taking people to the ocean depths to view the wreckage of the Titanic, if anything is actually visible at that depth anyway. Five people lost their lives. A story which, by comparison, received very little coverage, was the sinking of a ferry off the coast of Greece, with the loss of more than seven hundred lives. Yet again, it seems that rich people are more newsworthy than poor, desperate people seeking a new life. I’m not going to dwell on these issues, as that isn’t my aim, but it did get me thinking about songs about the sea, so I decided to go with that for this week. I promise you this will be more upbeat than you might expect, after that introduction! As I did last week, I am staying with the newly reduced quota of five songs, which has made for some hard choices: I’ve left out many I wanted to play, but I think I’ve come up with an eclectic mix for you.

I’m starting with one you may well know. It’s a bit of a pop classic:

Sloop John B is actually a Bahamian folk song, which was first transcribed in 1916. The Beach Boys’ version was released in March 1966 as the second single from their album Pet Sounds: it peaked at #3 in the US, #2 in the UK, and topped the charts in several other countries. The album came out in May 1966, reaching #10 in the US and #2 in the UK. Surprised it wasn’t a #1? Yes, so was I when I looked it up: its longevity and perceived importance in the history of rock music have far outperformed its original chart placings.

One of my all time favourite tv shows is Monty Python. Probably its best known catchphrase was “and now for something completely different.” That would be a good introduction for my next tune. As befits a seafaring country, we enjoy a long tradition of sea shanties, but they don’t often get to #1 in our Singles charts. This one did:

Wellerman was first published in New Zealand in the 1970s. It is about the hardships of an ocean life on their whaling ships – not very PC nowadays! – and the title refers to the Weller Brothers, who owned supply ships, and were among the first European settlers in Otago. Nathan Evans is a singer from Airdrie, in Scotland, and during 2020 lockdowns he built a huge following for himself on Tik Tok by singing a collection of shanties. This song – both his version and others – became a viral hit on social media, and Nathan’s version was released as a single in January 2021. It built on that success, and reached #1 in the UK and six other European countries, also making a couple of top tens – including #4 in the US Digital Singles chart – and even #39 in New Zealand and #62 in Australia. In addition to other sales around the world, it has shifted more than 1.2m copies in the UK, 600k in Germany, 200k in France, and 500k downloads in the US. Not bad for a guy who at the start of the pandemic was a postman! There is just something so warm and soothing about his voice, isn’t there.

I did think of a fairly obvious Beatles song I could have played for the sea theme, but that might have been deemed a little crass and insensitive, even for me, so I’m going with another of theirs instead, with a lovely little animation that someone has made for it:

You probably don’t need me to tell you that Octopus’s Garden was a track on the Beatles’ Abbey Road album, released in September 1969 and topping the charts in the UK, the US, and just about everywhere else, selling more than 31m copies worldwide. The song was written by Ringo, and was his second (and last) solo composition released on an album by the band. It was inspired by a trip with his family to Sardinia aboard Peter Sellers’ yacht after Ringo left the band for two weeks during the recording sessions for the White Album. Ringo received a full songwriting credit and composed most of the lyrics, although the song’s melodic structure was partly written in the studio by George. I’ve aways liked it as a fun little song, which was easy to sing along to, and this animation is a perfect fit for it, even if it does play around with the vocalists!

I thought I’d dip again into the folk/sea shanty tradition, as it gives me the perfect excuse to play a song by the best live band I have ever seen:

Roll Alabama Roll is a 19th century American-British sea shanty, based on the exploits of the CSS Alabama, a sloop-of-war of the Confederate States Navy which enjoyed success as a commerce raider against Union shipping during the American Civil War. The lyrics describe the ship from its construction in Merseyside by the John Laird shipyard until its sinking at the Battle of Cherbourg in June 1864. The words were set to the melody of an older song, Roll the Cotton Down, which originated amongst black longshoremen in southern ports of the United States. Bellowhead’s version was released on their fifth album, Revival, in June 2014, which reached #12 in the UK Albums chart. This turned out to be their final album before they disbanded, but they have since got together again. I saw them live on many occasions, and they were always as entertaining as this video suggests.

For today’s final tune in my newly abbreviated set, I’m giving a repeat play to what I think is probably my favourite of all of the wonderful songs we have been given by Crosby, Stills and Nash, with or without Young (without, in this case). This is a song where the sea and a voyage act as both the subject and as a metaphor, and I think it is fantastic:

Southern Cross was a track on Daylight Again, CS&N’s third album as a trio, which was released in June 1982 and reached #8 in the US, though it didn’t make the UK chart. The song was released as a single at the same time and peaked at #18 in the US though again it didn’t feature in the UK chart. I’ve said before that I think this one might be less familiar to British readers, and you can probably see why, can’t you. I’ve loved this one since I first heard it: it is a beautiful piece of music, enhanced by those wonderful harmonies and a fabulous video.

That’s it for this week, in my newly slimmed down set of tunes. I hope you’ve enjoyed them – they were fun for me to put together. I’ll see you again soon, and until then I hope you have a good week 😊