Sarah P’s comments: Music about the sea tends to be sea shanties or modern romantic (Southern Cross – Crosby, Stills & Nash, etc.). Good but…
And then I found Eileen Quinn – who has five CD’s of music about cruising, sailing and
the sea that is original, relevant, funny, and sung with a great voice.
How I find Eileen: We were hauled out at McCotter’s Boatyard in Washington, NC slogging through a long list of ‘must-be-done’ or projects. Somewhere along we had a chat with someone else there doing boatwork (part of the whole boatyard scene is chatting…) where the ‘people don’t understand this love of boats thing’ came up and one sailor scoffed, “Oh, their just dirt-dwellers!”
What a fabulous word! Beats ‘landlubbers’ by a mile. I just had to look it up…and Eileen Quinn’s song ‘Dirt Dweller’ popped up as one of the first links. Hilarious. So, I spent the rest of the night tracking down all her music and the next day, as we sweat and swore our way through some awful, crappy project, we listened and loved her even more.
Best for the day was ‘The Hard’ because it exactly describes the boatyard scene…but really, her stuff is ALL good. Sadly, Eileen has now passed but her music lives on timelessly. Out of deference to her as an artist, and being a bit old-fashioned, I purchased her CD’s, however most of her music is available via YouTube.
YouTube Playlist (61 songs)
Lyrics:
THE HARD
Refrain:
It’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, Lord it’s a hard.
It’s hard, hard life, life on the hard.
Sun and salt take their toll on the boat and me.
She needs a coat of bottom paint and a little TLC.
Ain’t no way around it, gotta haul out on the land.
It’s time to go cruisin’ in the working yard.
Scraping off the bottom paint and sanding down the hull
Shortening my life span with some toxic chemical.
Sanding off my fingertips along with all the paint.
It’s good to see a job well done but darling fun it ain’t!
Varnishing my brightwork, what a pretty boat.
Now the guy upwind, has just begun to grind off his gelcoat.
So I sand again, coat again, look’s wonderful…
Just in time to take the overspray when he paints his hull.
Midnight down the ladder to the johnny-on-the-spot.
Hope they keep the Doberman locked in the long-term loft.
Now the night watchman is trigger happy, hope he don’t shoot me.
Hate to think I bought it, going for a pee.
For every job crossed off my list, I seem to add two more.
I blinked and one week in the yard somehow turned into four.
With a credit card and a little luck, soon we’ll be afloat.
Please mister lift-driver, please don’t drop my boat!
Water Traveler 