…We’d be better-off in a nice clean jail.
Leave her, Johnny, leave her.
With all night in and plenty of ale,
And it’s time for us to leave her.
Leave her, Johnny, leave her,
Oh, leave her, Johnny, leave her.
For the voyage is done,
And the winds don’t blow,
And it’s time for us to leave her.*
...
Would we be “better-off in a nice clean jail…With all night in and plenty of ale”? Would we be better-off if we had stayed in our hometowns and worked at the family store? Was my Swedish friend correct who said “nobody can be a prophet in his own town”? How come Alexander Pope who, due to tuberculosis of the spine, never traveled outside of England and yet managed, in his poetry, to explore some of the most enduring questions regarding the predicament of humankind? Here is another way of looking at this: maybe some hometowns, including all the people and things of which they consist, or hometown states of mind, inspire one to leave them more than others. Maybe some inspire one more to remain.
*from “Leave Her, Johnny,” traditional, as sung by Louis Killen, on A Seaman’s Garland: Sailors, Ships & Chanties, Vol. 2 (1997). Louis Killen, famous for his chanty renditions, also sang for a while with the Clancey Brothers in the 1970s during Tommy Makem’s hiatus.
2 comments:
I also like singing these lines:
"Oh the winds was foul all work no pay,
Leave her, Johnny, leave her.
To Liverpool docks from San Francisco Bay,*
And it’s time for us to leave her..."
(*Louis Killen sings "Frisco"). I wonder if this city was really mentioned in the old days (perhaps). Either way, this song is full of sickness, weariness, and longing, like getting pulled in two directions, by different realities.
"Leave her, Johnny, leave her,
Oh leave her, Johnny, leave her.
For the voyage is done,
And the winds don’t blow,
And it’s time for us to leave her."
You don't know what you had before you lost it.. The good thing about places is that their there, and you can just go back if that other one couldn't compare to it. So leave her, but don't be afraid to come back.
There's never to late to turn around..
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