Nantucket Girl's Song

from Alone on the Wide Wide Sea by Craig Edwards

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about

Nantucket Girl’s Song (1853-56)
Because so many late 18th and early 19th century Nantucket men were away whaling for long periods, Nantucket women pioneered the involvement of women in the public sphere in the United States. This led to Nantucket being at the forefront of social movements such as the abolition of slavery and the fight for women’s rights. This piece, from a journal kept by Nantucketer Eliza Brock during a whaling voyage with her whaling captain husband, shows just how aware those women were of their rare situation. My friend and bandmate Geoff Kaufman wrote a beautiful minor melody for it, but I’ve set it here to a traditional melody used for several songs, including Lena Bourne Fish’s “Cabin Boy,” another song about a woman taking control of her own life.

lyrics

Well, I’ve made up my mind now to be a sailor’s wife
To have a purse full of money and a very easy life
For a clever sailor husband is so seldom at his home
That his wife can spend the dollars
with a will that’s all her own
So I’ll haste to wed a sailor and send him off to sea
For a life of independence is the very life for me

But every now and then I would like to see his face
For it always seems to me to beam with a manly grace
With his brow so nobly open and his dark and kindly eye
My heart beats fondly for him whenever he is nigh
But when he says goodbye, my love,
I’m off across the sea
First I’ll cry for his departure-
then I’ll laugh because I’m free

And I will welcome him upon him his glad return
And I will spend most cheerfully the money that he earns
For he’s my loving husband, though he lives the roving life
And well I know how good it is to be a sailor’s wife
So I’ll haste to wed a sailor and send him off to sea
For a life of independence is the very life for me

credits

from Alone on the Wide Wide Sea, released August 9, 2022

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Craig Edwards New London, Connecticut

I play American roots music, from Appalachian fiddle and banjo tunes to Zydeco accordion. For nearly four decades i worked as a staff musician at Mystic Seaport Museum, demonstrating the use of chanteys, or sailor work songs, aboard the museum's collection of historic ships. I've plumbed the depths of sailor music, from the African American origins of chanteys to world maritime traditions. ... more

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