Barrett's Privateers - Arranged by Marc Nerenberg - 18 August 2023
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- Опубліковано 23 гру 2024
- This was the first of two videos I made of this song, Stan Rogers' "Barrett's Privateers", on 18 August 2023. This one was recorded in my studio that afternoon, and that evening I performed it, and recorded it again, at the Yellow Door Hootenanny, this time with the addition of Bashu Naimi-Roy - that evening’s Featured Performer, on accordion, in an unrehearsed duet, which can be found here: • Barrett's Privateers -...
I decided to sing this song because I was considering singing it as a sing-along opening song at the first Yellow Door Hootenanny after a four week summer hiatus. But as I thought about it, I realized that, despite having sung along on the sing-along parts of this song countless times over the years, I had never really deciphered the words of the story told in the verses. All I really knew was that it seemed to be a jolly drinking song, a Canadian sea shanty with some seafaring fighting in it.
So I looked up the lyrics and was surprised to find that this usually high spirited song actually tells a very sad story. It's such a mirthfully sung tragic tale, that I had always, quite mistakenly, thought the repeated line in it that says "I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier" was "I'm a drunken man on a Halifax pier". Indeed, my perception of the song changed completely at that point, and I decided to work out an arrangement emphasizing the tragedy of the story (that surely I'm not the only one to have missed when singing along high spiritedly).
So, instead of a spirited sing-along, I came up with a slower, banjo accompanied version that puts the story front and centre. In the process of arranging the song, I reduced the number of times the chorus was sung from nine to four, and packed the short verses together into groups of three, telling the story in three longer "chapters" instead of nine tiny bites.
The characters and story itself, which is set during the American Revolution, are fictional, but are based on the very real situation of England along with its Canadian and Caribbean colonies sending privateers (i.e. legal, government sanctioned, pirates) to attack American ships, while Washington sent American privateers to attack them just as forcefully.
I'm playing it here on a 1910 Fairbanks banjo, strung with artificial gut strings, tuned gAEAC# - an open A9 chord - mostly using old-time thumb-lead two-finger picking, with occasional bits of clawhammer technique inserted here and there. The painting in the background of ships in distress was painted by Peter Monamy around 1720 - 1730. It hangs in the Tate Gallery in London.
Awesome performance! I'm going to use your song in a DnD Campaign about pirates I'm running with some friends, surely will help with immersion and imagination. Keep rocking Marc!
Thanks very much!
The way your voice carries emotion on each fading chorus is heart wrenching. You've captured the energy of a broken man on a Halifax pier yelling his woes to the sky. Thankyou for this wonderful composition, I can't wait to sample more of your work.
Thank you so very much!
That's a beautiful banjo!
Thanks!
Great job Marc, this version is much different to the ones I know, but I like it very much!
Thank you so much! I always strive to have a new take on the song whenever I record something not by me. It’s how I justify to myself recording something that already is the subject of great recordings.
Interesting version,Well Done.
Thanks very much, Chuck! Thanks for watching and commenting on both of the videos I posted today. I made them both on Friday with the intention of only posting whichever one I thought was better, but then I couldn’t decide which one that was, so I posted them both!