SAILING FOR GOLD – a Portland shanty
Category
Events and Live WorksA culture of encounter is a culture of poetry and song, poetry and song salvaged from their commodification as products of the entertainment and literary industries, and restored to the rightful place as participative arts of everyday life […] To talk with the world in this way, to translate the mundane into the dream language of the poetic order, is truly to sing the world up, and to attune ourselves to the inexhaustible layers of its own unconscious-but simultaneously-all-conscious song. The point is not to explain the world but to sing it (Freya Matthews, 2003)
Content / Medium
Related
Links
A & B – Annie Lovejoy and Belle Benfield
Paralympian contender and resident of Portland Megan Pascoe is one of many women who have inspired the lyrics of a shanty song that will pop up in all manner of places between September 4-8th 2012
Produced for the b-side festival, the lyrics are written directly from stories and conversations with Portlanders and those who have made the island their home.
Arranged and performed by local musicians and singers, the shanty can be heard in the nooks and crannies of Portland during the Paralympics – on the streets,in pubs, post offices, cafes and at numerous community events.
If you by chance hear an a cappella recording in a taxi cab or cafe you may find yourself singing along…
O where have you been to and where are you going?
Up top, down under, down beach, over brow
Up Tout, out Bill, she’s gone along now
Sailing for Gold ‘a capella’ recording
SAILING FOR GOLD- a cappella version
A Portland shanty
Song production:
Lyrics: A & B (Annie Lovejoy and Belle Benfield)
Composition: Rachal Castell and Rebecca Jackson
Arrangement: Nikki Fryer, Julie Matthews, Jonathan Diaper & Nigel Lawrence
Music notation: Nikki Fryer, Nigel Lawrence, Su Lewis & Isabel Carrahar
Singers: slingers – Julie Matthews & Alison Winsborough (verse & chorus), Nikki Fryer, Barbara McIntosh, Sheila Ryan, Belle Benfield (chorus)