Boats: The Coal Boat Song

Stompin' Tom Connors: The Coal Boat Song

[purchase]

(N.B. It says 'temporarily out of stock', but this is the only place I could find it!)

"I left Cape Breton on a coal boat
for St. John's, Newfoundland
And I met a little girl named Sally
And I took her by the little white hand.

She shook her little head and said no way, Fred.
I won't go along with your plan.
You've been workin' on the coal boat b'y
And yer nothin' but a dirty old man."

Don't worry, it all turns out alright. Sally, the woman with those "little white hands" decides she loves him dirty or not...in fact, the dirtier the better!

Stompin' Tom Connors, the prolific Canadian folk luminary, apparently got his nickname from the fact that he would insistently pound the heel of his left boot to keep the rhythm whilst he played. He received so many complaints about the damage this habit was causing to the stages he performed on that, eventually, he started to carry a piece of plywood along with him. He would take great pride in showing his audience the hole booted through each piece of wood, before requesting another.

This song is a great blue collar workman's song, expressing succinctly the ambivalence between the need to make an honest man's living and wanting that "pretty little girlfriend". It is the very epitome of folk music, and could easily be mistaken for a traditional shanty.

Many of the emotions here are implicit, but nevertheless powerful; for example, whilst working away on the coal barge, our protagonist receives a letter blaming him that his son, who he hardly knows due to being away doing his job, has also decided to take up the same line of work. This, in turn, reminds me of two other songs that mean something to me (but which, sadly, have nothing to do with boats, so a brief mention is all they get): Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin and Another Man's Cause by The Levellers.

If you don't already know this song, just listen...I can almost guarantee that you will need to hear it again, or you won't be able to get it out of your head!

Update: Writing this post got me thinking and now there's a whole post of mining songs over at Ceci N'est Pas un Blog...there are some good'uns, even if I do say so myself (not that I wrote any of them!).