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about

I’m not particularly into owning things. I’ve moved around quite a bit during my life, so I’m quite happy to leave possessions behind. However, a first edition pressing of Now is the Time for Fishing, the 1961 album by Sam Larner, is a rare pride and joy. That’s where I first heard this, a song that has bewitched me ever since. Everyone’s had a bash at it under various titles. Here’s mine.

lyrics

As we were gone sailing
Five cold frosty nights
Five cold frosty nights
And four days
It was there we a-spied
A lofty tall ship
She’s come bearing down on us
Brave boys

Now, where are you going
You lofty tall ship
How dare you to venture so nigh?
For I have turned robber
All on the salt seas
To maintain my two brothers and I

Now heave up your courses
And let go your main sheets
And bring yourself under my lea
For I shall take from you
Your rich merchants, goods merchants
And I’ll point your bow guns to the sea

I’ll not heave up my courses
Nor let go my main sheets
Nor bring myself under your lea
Nor you shall take from me
My rich merchants, goods merchants
Nor you’ll point my bow guns to the sea

Now broadside to broadside
These two vessels they went
They were fighting for hours or more
When at length Henry Martin
Gave her a broadside
And she’s sank and she’s rose never more

Bad news Henry Martin
Bad news I must tell
Bad news it is going around
Of a lofty tall ship
Lost on the salt seas
And the most of her merry men drowned

credits

from Before I Knew What Had Begun I Had Already Lost, released May 5, 2023
Trad, arr Wilks. Roud 104
Produced by Jon Wilks
Mastered by Nick Cooke

Jon Wilks - acoustic guitar, vocals

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Jon Wilks Whitchurch, UK

'The sort of performer folk circles mean when they talk of the living tradition' - Mike Davies, Folking.com

“One of the best of the New Wave of Folk Blokes. As a guitar player and arranger of traditional songs, Jon Wilks already deserves speaking of in the same breath as your Simpsons and your Morays.” – Ian A. Anderson, fRoots Mag
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