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Blow the Winds High-O
Ten Thousand Miles Away / Blow the Winds High-O
[
Roud 1778
; Master title: Ten Thousand Miles Away
; G/D 6:1102
; Ballad Index MA084
; Bodleian
Roud 1778
; Mudcat 62524
; Joseph Bryan Geoghegan (c. 1816-1889)]
Ten Thousand Miles Away is a shanty printed in Stan Hugill's Shanties from the Seven Seas, pp. 312-313.
Sarah Makem sang it as Blow ye Winds Hi-O in two recording made by Diane Hamilton in 1956 and by Paul Carter and Sean O'Boyle in 1967. Both were included in 2011 on her Musical Traditions anthology As I Roved Out. Rod Stradling commented in the accompanying booklet:
Written for the Music Hall by Joseph B. Geoghegan (1816-1889). He was born in Barton upon Irwell, Lancs, and probably wrote his songs while manager of the Star and Museum Music Hall in Bolton. More usually known as Ten Thousand Miles Away, it's found—though infrequently—all over the English-speaking world, with 47 Roud entries. Stan Hugill has a shanty version of it in Shanties from the Seven Seas, and few sound recordings are known: Robert Cinnamond, Hugh McAlindon, Louie Hooper and Fred Smale, both from Sussex, and the only one available on CD, Walter Pardon [see below].
The Halliard sang this shanty as A Thousand Miles Away on their album The Halliard : Jon Raven, originally published in 1968 and reissued on CD in 1997. Later, this recording was also included in the Halliard's CD Broadside Songs. The Halliard's version is somewhat different to Hugill's, it just shares two verses and half of Hugill's chorus.
Bernard Wrigley sang Ten Thousand Miles Away in 1974 on his Topic album Rough & Wrigley. He noted:
A transportation song from the nineteenth century stage, much parodied. Joanna Colcord says it was known among American sailormen, but it’s originally from London. Really it should be 9,537 miles, but that doesn’t rhyme.
Tony Hall sang Ten Thousand Miles Away during the recording sessions for his 1977 Free Reed album Fieldvole Music. This recording was finally published in 2002 on the Free Reed anthology This Label Is Not Removable, and in 2007 on the original album's CD reissue.
Walter Pardon sang Blow the Winds I-O in a recording made by Mike Yates in June 1978. It was published in 1983 on his Home-Made Music album Bright Golden Store: Songs and Music from Knapton in Norfolk and in 2000 on his Musical Traditions anthology Put a Bit of Powder on It, Father.
Brian Peters and Gordon Tyrrall sang Blow the Winds I-O in 1996 on their Harbourtown duo album, Clear the Road.
Jon Boden sang a version quite similar to Hugill's as the 25 September 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day, though he chose to call it Blow the Winds High-O after the first chorus line.
A few years earlier, John Spiers and Jon Boden sang an abbreviated form of Blow the Winds High-O with just two verses, bookended by two John Spiers tunes (Holly's Reel and The Pork Pie Polka), on their 2005 Fellside CD Tunes. They commented in their sleeve notes:
The first tune is a rant John wrote for his new niece who came to her first gig before she was born and the last one is a heel & toe polka that he wrote after running around the unlit Welsh countryside with The Folk Mutants. In the middle is a nautical ditty.
Bellowhead recorded 10,000 Miles Away in 2012 for their album Broadside.
Please note that A.L. Lloyd's song A Thousand Miles Away is a quite different song about the cattle runs of outback Queensland.
Lyrics
Walter Pardon sings Blow the Winds I-O | Sarah Makem sings Blow the Winds Hi-O (1956) |
---|---|
Hey ho for a gay and gallant barque |
Cold and stormy was the night |
Chorus (repeated after each verse): |
Chorus (repeated after each verse): |
My sweetheart she is beautiful |
My love she is beautiful |
I wish I were a captain bold, | |
The sun may shine through the thickest fog | |
Jon Boden sings Blow the Winds High-O on A Folk Song a Day |
Jon Boden sings Blow the Winds High-O on Tunes |
It's of a brave and a gallant ship | |
Chorus (repeated after each verse): | |
Oh, my true love she was beautiful, |
Oh, my true love she was beautiful, |
Oh dark and dismal was the day | |
Oh the sun may shine through a London fog |
Now the sun may shine through the London fog |
Chorus: | |
The Halliard sing A Thousand Miles Away | |
Sing oh for a brave and a gallant barque, Chorus (repeated after each verse): Oh my love she is beautiful, Oh that was a dark and a dismal day If I were but a bosun bold So straight to my love steer, me boys, Though the sun may shine through a London fog, |
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Garry Gillard for the Halliard's verses.