Lyr Add: Old Father Fall (Old Sailor Song)

Subject: Lyr Add: Old Father Fall (Old Sailor Song)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 10:33 AM

I was surprised to find no sign of this song by Sally Rogers in my search of the DT and threads. It's one she wrote back in 1975, I believe in tribute to her father who at that time was in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease. I think it's quite a song:


OLD FATHER FALL

(By Sally Rogers ©1975
Recorded on IN THE CIRCLE OF THE SUN
Thrushwood Records #2, © 1982)

Old Father Fall
Rusty and weathered
Summertime?s beggar in patchwork and pins;
Brisk autumn seas,
Seagulls? companion,
Rushing white lion,
After pebbles and fins.

Chorus:

And I wonder what happens
To summer boats on the ocean,
And their dry-docked old captains
With salty gray beards;
To choices and voices,
On those scrubbed teaky timbers,
Polished brass, tarnished memories,
Of love lost and won.

The sea claimed his soul
And his soul was the ocean,
Never slowing or stopping
For those on the shore;
And his life was a dream,
Carried by mainsails,
And was drowned in those same sails
In the fall of a dream. (CHO)

And now he?s alone,
A grounded old captain,
Without crew, sails or sextant
to show him the way;
And they?ve left him alone
With his wants and his need-be?s
He just wanted to be free
Of family and fear. (CHO)

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Father Fall (Old Sailor Song)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 10:07 AM

I really must do something about resetting my preference file for quotation marks. They all turn into question marks after they're posted to Mudcat from my WORD files.

Charley Noble, trolling for comments

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Father Fall (Old Sailor Song)
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 10:24 AM

A nice picture, but I keep tripping over the use of the word "teaky" -- it seems to me this is a word that would never be used by a sailor, and would only be used by a bleeding heart landbound woman who didn't know a spar from a spanner. Teaky? Teaky!!??

A

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Old Father Fall (Old Sailor Song)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 10:43 AM

Amos-

Well, you're right but Sally and her father were from the Great Lakes and inclined to be romantic about the sea. If I were singing this one, I'd probably do some folk-processing, see if I could sharpen it up in nautical fashion.

Charley Noble