Post-13: Sail the Seven Seas

Update, October 2014: Post-238 Revisits this Song

I posted a stanza, in the previous post, from a song by an obscure band called “Jack the Lad”. I’d come to download the song (“The Third Millennium”) years ago, from a file-sharing service called WinMX. I could not locate the song on Youtube at all.

In the course of my brief and failed search, I found another song by this “Jack the Lad“, a 1970s British band that reminds me of American Bluegrass of the same time. I mean that as a great compliment.

The song is good. It’s called “The Seven Seas”. I like it a lot.

Even if I didn’t understand English, the song would be pretty nice, but the lyrics just make it cross a threshold into memorable-greatness, for me. These lyrics roughly explain why I came to Korea.

Below is my transliteration of the lyrics (I could not find the lyrics anywhere else online). [Click to read lyrics] .

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Lyrics of “The Seven Seas”
By Jack the Lad / 1975


Sitting by the fire
In an old rocking chair
Like my grandaddy taught me to do
Listening intently
To the words he had to tell me
Because in my mind
I knew they were true
He said he’d sailed the seven seas
In ships, with tall masted sails
And he’d ridden, from London to Leeds
In one day-!

[Get up!]

I took a walk  to pass the time
I discovered many things
Things that I had to force myself to do
Like study and find a job
Take a wife, feed my kids
And I did them, as I thought they were new

But I never sailed the seven seas
In ships, with tall masted sails
I never rode from London to Leeds
In one day~!

As I’ve walked, there passed the time
I’ve collected many assets
Folks say that I’m “successful as can be”
But my grandaddy died
Without a penny to his name
He was a damn sight more successful than me

Because he’d sailed the seven seas
In ships, with tall masted sails
He’d ridden from London to Leeds
In one day

[Fiddle]

And now I’m sitting by the fire
In that old rocking chair
And I’m dreaming of the time around now
I’m searching for a yarn
To tell my own grandson
And I’m wishing to God that time would face about

So I could sail the seven seas
In ships with tall masted sails
And ride from London to Leeds

Sail the seven seas
In ships, with tall masted sails
And ride from London to Leeds
In one — day~!


Post-238 Revisits this Song