For the first time in my life, I’m often surrounded by (and thus having more opportunities to be comfortable around) little kids. It’s cool. Just like big kids (which is to say, grownups), no two are the same. And you never know what music they’ll like.
One of my friends mentioned on Facebook today that her very young daughter knows all the words to one of my creepiest tunes, “Glashtyn Shanty”. “Sailing Song” is its lighter foil, and she also knows that one by heart. It’s interesting to note, though, that she’s not the only very young person in my life who’s given over the light song for the dark one. Another friend’s little boy absolutely adored “Kashkash” and “Heresy of the Lost” for a long time. My own faery godson, Kaius, will drop his shyness and sing “Glashtyn Shanty“, which he calls “Glashtyn Go”, in verrah srs 2-year-old fashion with a whopping roomful of adults at a moment’s notice. I have seen this happen. And felt my heart swell. And grinned a bit, for several reasons. One, I know that if the little ones like a song, I’m definitely doing it right because they rarely hide what they’re feeling. Two, I liked creepy stuff when I was a small child, too (Mussorgsky, Stravinski, “Monster Mash”), and it makes me happy to see little ones grooving on it now.
So here’s one for the creepy kid in us all. This is another collaborative work in progress. It’s a lullaby for Davy Jones, that folkloric ruler of shipwrecks, cousin to Met Agwe and Charon and Neptune and the Reaper him/herself.
Nobody cares for you Davy m’lad
Nobody loves Davy Jones Davy Jones.
Forever you captain the souls of the dead
In your galleon built out of bones, of bones
Your galleon built out of bones.
My father went down with his ship in a storm
And never returned again home, again home.
Me mother still sits all alone and she knows
He’s there in your galleon of bones, of bones
He’s there in your galleon of bones.
Be good to his spirit, oh Davy m’lad
I beg you be good to his soul, his soul
No halo awaits past the bright pearly gates
For he’s sunk all the way down below, below
Sunk all the way down below.
I know that he’s down in your deep, briny brig
And his eyes are have lost all their sight, their sight
Your great rusty keys all do as they please
And lock the auld locker up tight, up tight.
They lock the auld locker up tight
“Heave Ho! Heave Ho! O’er the rail I will go
With a cannonball down by my feet, my feet
And a heave and a ho, down to Davy I’ll go
To rest and to sleep in the deep, the deep
To rest and to sleep in the deep.”
“Then, you’ll rise from your shroud to the watch you’re allowed
And the rest will all make room for you, for you.
The dark, spectral ship through the ocean will slip
And you’ll be one more soul in his crew, his crew.
One more lost soul in his crew.”
Nobody cares for you Davy m’lad
Nobody loves Davy Jones Davy Jones.
Forever you captain the souls of the dead
In your galleon built out of bones, of bones
Your galleon built out of bones.
Nobody cares for you, Davy m’lad.
No one except little me
Bed of bones and of hide, e’er riding the tide
At the whim of the rum-dark sea, dark sea
At the whim of the rum-dark sea
Lyrics by S. J. Tucker and Mark Lewis, presented here in loving memory of that wonderful man.