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The Sailor Home from the Sea

from Faerie Fire Dances by Marc Block

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The Sailor Home from the Sea Words by Dorothy Hewett, music by Bill Berry (APRA/AMCOS).
Lyrics reproduced by kind permission of Dorothy Hewett’s family.

Another song that James Fagan taught me, by Australian poet Dorothy Hewett. There are several settings of this poem with different tunes, but this is the version as recorded by James’s parents Bob and Margaret. It was when James and Nancy joined in with me on this at a folk club session that I thought I’d ask them to be on this album, and in agreeing to, they emboldened me to ask the others.

lyrics

O Cock of the morning
With a dream in his hand
My love has come home
To the wonderful land.

He bursts through the door
With his eyes like the sun
And his kitbag crammed full
Of the treasures he's won.

There’s a pearl shell from Broome
And a tall Darwin tale
And coral and clam,
And the jaws of a whale.

And my kitchen is full
Of the smell of the sea
And the leaping green fishes
My love brings to me.

O tumble your treasures
From Darwin to Broome
And fill with your glory
This straight little room.

With the sun in the morning
Ablaze on his chest,
My love has come home
From the north of nor’west

And deep in our bed,
We'll love and we'll lie,
We'll kiss and we'll listen
To the rain in the sky.

Warm as the summer,
We've hived winter long,
My love has come home
Like King Solomon's song

credits

from Faerie Fire Dances, released October 28, 2020
Guitar: Marc.
Fiddle, backing vocal: Nancy Kerr.
Bouzouki, guitar, backing vocal: James Fagan.

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Marc Block Nottingham, UK

"one of the most exciting singers I've heard in a long, long time" - Mike Harding

“The joy in the singing is totally what I need right now” – Peggy Seeger

"Really good stuff" - Mark Radcliffe, BBC R2 ... more

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