> Anne Briggs > Songs > Standing on the Shore

Standing on the Shore

[trad. arr. Terry Woods / Johnny Moynihan]

Sweeney’s Men—then Johnny Moynihan and Terry Woods after having lost Andy Irvine—recorded Standing on the Shore in 1969 for their second LP, The Tracks of Sweeney. Moynihan’s then girlfriend Anne Briggs recorded this song two years later for her album The Time Has Come. She commented in the sleeve notes:

This song was Johnny Moynihan’s vision. He expresses what he saw so beautifully and sadly and seems to convey this feeling of endless whiteness. Bottom E string is dropped to D.

Lyrics

Anne Briggs sings Standing on the Shore

Through the mist my ship has sailed,
Leaving me behind,
All the things left unsaid
That were in my mind.

When I stood on its deck
Strangely things I saw;
Strangely they have vanished now
Standing on the shore.

Memories of the seas I sailed,
Lands I gazed upon.
When I turned to draw the chart
All of them were gone.

When I stood on its deck
Strangely things I saw;
Strangely they have vanished now
Standing on the shore.

Sandy hills lying round,
Nothing standing clear;
Softly light is falling through
Time was never here.

Headlands fading out of sight,
Horizons disappear;
Hazy shores and silent seas,
Nothing do I hear.

Air and water, grass and sand,
Merging into one;
In the silence of all this
I am still alone.

The logbook closed, the ship has gone
As it has done before;
Where it sails no tongue can tell,
No one was on board.

Acknowledgements

Transcribed by Reinhard Zierke based on the incomplete transcription by Wolfgang Hell in the Digital Tradition.