“Pirates of the Caribbean” director Gore Verbinski isn’t satisfied with just sharing his vision of pirates, he wants us all to hear their music. Gore Verbinski, Johnny Depp and Hal Willner have joined forces with Anti Records to create “Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs & Chanteys,” a two-disk CD with more songs about the sea and pirates then you can shake a peg leg at.
Bono, Sting, Nick Cave and a host of other singers lend their talent to the swashbuckling album. Artists recorded their songs- usually in less then a day- with any of the six house bands set up in destinations around the globe. At one point, eight songs were recorded in one day by eight different singers.
Over 600 songs were drudged up by producer Willner who rummaged antique stores, eBay and the Internet, culling together the list. The list was eventually shortened to 60 recorded songs, 43 of which made it onto the album, which is slated for a August 22nd release.
Check out Bono’s rendition of “A Dying Sailor to His Shipmates” Truly uplifting stuff.
Hal Wilner is God. His album “Stay Awake”, which was reinterpretations of Disney songs as performed by the likes of Tom Waits, NRBQ, The Replacements, Michael Stipe, Ringo Starr and many others, is probably my favourite compilation album of all time.
All of the songs to appear on this cd are traditional sea chanteys and folk songs, which is the way it should be. I want the real deal, not Colin Meloy’s overwrought preenings!
Love a good shanty, me. My father likes to sing a few when we’re off sailing and i’ve become kind of hooked, mostly because they easy to sing (being mostly songs to sing when working they can’t be too tricky) and they tend to get you weird looks from friends. Always a bonus!
Captain Bogg & Salty. Kid-oriented pirate music, and a godsend to adults who never want to hear stuff like The Wiggles again. They just released their third album (not online yet, alas) geared more towards adults. (The kinds of adults who like pirate rock, that is.)
Indie fascination with all things nautical I first noticed with Slint’s Spiderland – “Good Morning, Captain” has lyrics like: “Let me in, the voice cried softly, from outside the wooden door. Scattered remnants of the ship could be seen in the distance, Blood stained the icy wall of the shore.”
Lots of other bands from there went all nautical with their rock (June of '44, Shipping News, Victory at Sea), I guess it was only a matter of time until that meshed with the “new folk” stuff and we ended up with a lot of vaguely traditional sounding sea shanties on records.
I assume that last sentence is a joke, I don’t imagine anyone would seriously feel their “movement” of sailor’s songs was being co-opted. I guess maybe if you were actually a pirate, then you’d feel pretty used, but I’m going to assume you’re not a pirate. As it is, The Decemberists have as good a claim as any to making goofy sea songs, and while they might be mainstream, they did most of their shanty recording well before they signed to Capitol last year.
“Brave Captain” by fIREHOSE and “Admiral of the Sea” by Nova Mob (Grant Hart’s post-Husker band) I think either slightly pre-date Slint or appeared contemporaneously.
Cool “Brave Captain” video. Watt and Hurley sure can play, huh?
I WAS JUST GOING TO POST THE "BRAVE CAPTAIN THING! DAMN YOU, TRIGGERCUT!
Actually, I think the nautical theme may actually be traced to the late, great Minutemen. They had the anchor imagery, and Watt was fond of referring to the Econo van as if it were a ship.
